Sea of Bones

by Vickie McKeehan

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Use the stick-on signs we took off the van about remodeling. Anyone asks you’re there waiting to see the homeowner about renovating a room.”

  Brayden stood up. “That’ll work.”

  “Do not approach this person,” Skye cautioned. “I don’t care what he does. Winston, make sure Brayden behaves himself.”

  “Hear that, rookie. I’m in charge,” Winston said with a grin.

  The two bickered about it until they finally left the house.

  But Skye was too busy studying the whiteboard to find their squabbling amusing. “Here’s his list of attacks. Those we know about anyway. He has to live somewhere on the western side of Seattle.”

  She drew a line down the middle of the city map and crossed out the eastern portion with a huge, red X. “Eliminate that side, and you have everything west and to the north. We’re missing something big. We have to go back to the roommates and re-interview them. Those guys are the only ones we know who had ties to Baker. Baker and Nunley. And if Nunley’s dead, too…then who did the roommates forget to mention?”

  Josh heard the panic growing in Skye’s voice. “Let’s just regroup. Rethink everything. Start from scratch.”

  “We don’t have time!” Skye shouted, showing an unusual display of defeat. “Jennifer is running out of time. There’s no window for us to keep making these stupid kinds of mistakes.” She dropped into a chair and took several deep breaths to try and calm down. “Look, if the guys get us a photo of who’s using that house, we could take that to the roommates and see if they know who it is.”

  “Will he know we were there in the house?” Josh asked out loud. “Because knowing might send him into a frenzy.”

  Skye felt a headache beginning to pound along with a queasy stomach. “That’s just great. Because we just sent Brayden and Win straight into the middle of the lion’s den.”

  Reggie felt the need to soothe their fears. “As long as you guys did a decent job of covering your tracks, there’s no way he’ll be able to tell that I cut the power to the security system.”

  ****

  Winston found a place to park where a long-range lens would work from down the street. Sitting in a rented, plain white pickup truck with the stick-on signs on each door, the guys looked like contractors. They even had a neighbor approach asking about basement repairs. Keeping in line with the ruse, Brayden dutifully took down the man’s name and number and told him they would call him back for an appointment at a later date.

  Fearing the guys would get caught, Josh kept in constant contact with them while they waited for anyone to show up at the house. It took four nerve-racking hours until Winston spotted a vehicle with a pizza delivery sign on top pull into the driveway.

  At first, the man who got out of the sedan went up to the door to ring the bell like he was delivering a pizza. But then he put the box down on the stoop and took out a key that unlocked the front door.

  Brayden aimed his camera lens, capturing a series of shots of the man picking up the box before disappearing inside the house. “He was wearing gloves. Did you see that? Why do you suppose he didn’t just pull into the garage?”

  “Probably doesn’t intend to stay that long. For now, focus on what you’re doing. Get me a good enough closeup that I can send to Josh, anything that will work in facial recognition.”

  Brayden leaned over to show Win the photos. “Do any of these work? Or will we need to hang around until he comes out again?”

  Winston checked the images. “These should work. Go ahead and send them to everyone on the team. Let’s get out of here and get a burger. I’m starving.”

  “Yeah. Fieldwork isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, is it?”

  “Nope. I’ll take sitting at my laptop anytime over this.”

  Brayden pointed to the house. “Look, he’s coming back out. And he looks pissed.” He leveled the camera on the guy and this time started a video in slow-motion. “I think he spotted me! He’s headed this way! Drive! Get out of here now!”

  Without being told twice, Winston gunned the engine and took off, screeching out of the neighborhood.

  Back at the safe house, Josh and Skye both agreed the man in Brayden’s video was a better fit for their phantom. He was about the right height with brown hair and brown eyes.

  Reggie ran several of the still photographs through the facial recognition program. “It comes back to an Elias Pope.” He put the image on the overhead monitor. “That’s his DMV shot.”

  On the other side of the room, Judy let out a gasp and got to her feet, moving closer to the screen. “It couldn’t be the same guy, it just couldn’t be.”

  “What are you talking about?” Skye asked.

  “That guy. That’s the guy who donated ten-grand to the Foundation at the charity event right before Labor Day. He wrote a check to the Artemis Foundation. I know because I took it to the bank myself the next day along with all the others and deposited it into the Foundation account.”

  “Are you sure? Why would this guy donate money to find missing people?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just telling you that guy was at the Foundation dinner the last weekend in August.” She whirled and glowered at Reggie. “The one you were too busy to attend.” Judy leveled the same accusatory glare on Josh. “You, too. You were all too busy with that stupid game. All the while we were in the room with a serial killer.”

  It became clear to Skye that Judy was getting worked up. “You’re right. The guys should’ve been there. But we’re strong women now, right? We take care of ourselves. We’ve come a long way from the days when we were abducted. You and me, we got through the dinner and we took this guy’s money. He’s out ten-grand and our organization is stronger for it. Think about that.”

  Judy blinked out of her anger. “You’re right. I don’t know what got into me. I overreacted.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Skye said. “It’s okay to get angry, Judy. I do it all the time.”

  That got a smile out of the woman.

  To break the moment, Leo brought up a more detailed profile on the guy. “Moving on, Elias Pope got an undergraduate degree in sociology from UDub and went on to grad school to study in the same field. School records show he was enrolled there from 2007 to 2014. But all Pope got was a master’s degree, no doctorate.”

  “Like Nunley, he never entered the Ph.D. program. What can you do with a master’s in sociology?” Josh wondered.

  Leo looked it up. “Turns out, not much. The top jobs are school counselor, clinical psychologist, religious instruction, social worker, some type of community service, and a human resource specialist.”

  Skye shook her head at the list. “You need a sociology degree to work in personnel? Okay. None of those seem particularly appealing to a guy who likes to put people in freezers. Where does this Pope guy work that he can afford ten thousand-dollar donations to charity?”

  “Doesn’t,” Reggie replied, sparing a glance toward Judy. “He’s got his own trust fund. Ten-grand is chump change. Grandfather was a big-time lumber baron during his lifetime, one of the biggest in the Pacific Northwest. Passed the baton to a son named Fincher Pope.”

  “And this Elias inherited the company?”

  “The whole shebang. But it began to have financial problems even under Fincher’s direction. Due to mismanagement and bad business decisions, the company faltered and started losing its market share until eventually, Elias unloaded it after his father died. Don’t worry about Mr. Pope, this guy is still worth millions, which actually fits your original profile that we were looking for someone with money and lots of it.”

  “Yeah, but this time we don’t want to make another mistake. We need proof, some kind of confirmation, DNA match, something that clicks on Pope for good.”

  “The lab already has the rag from the trash can and the sample from the knobs in the Jeep,” Josh pointed out. “While we wait, we could ask Nunley’s roommates if they could make an ID. It�
��s a longshot but worth at least one piece of the puzzle before we hear back from the lab.”

  “Then let’s do it. I’ll call Lance and see if he’ll see us again.”

  Across town later that evening, it was Brayden’s video that Skye and Josh played for Lance Davis. “Do you recognize that guy?”

  Lance studied it for several long minutes without saying anything. “I can’t be absolutely certain, but it looks like the guy Sam and Eric locked in the closet that one time. You might ask Mike and Adam their opinion, but it sure looks like him.”

  “Elias Pope was the guy locked in the closet for three days?”

  “Yeah. That was him. Elias. I remember the first name. You don’t come across that name very often. Elias went without food or water. You should’ve seen him when they finally let him out. I was afraid he might be dead.”

  “That’s a pretty good motive for coming back at some point and taking out Sam and Eric,” Josh said to Skye.

  “Did either one of them take him to the hospital? Did any of you think to get him medical attention? You guys knew he’d been in there for three days. Couldn’t you have gone against Eric and Sam just once while you were living there to help Elias? You knew Elias had to be in bad shape.”

  Lance hung his head. “No. We didn’t do anything for him.”

  “What happened to him the day you guys let him out?”

  “All I know is Elias wandered off sort of dazed. I never saw him again.”

  “Be glad,” Skye said under her breath. “Something tells me you don’t want to open the door to him now.”

  ****

  They’d missed dinner, but it didn’t seem to be a priority. All thoughts were on their primary goal—locating the guy’s lair and finding Jennifer.

  “Okay, so we know who he is. Now we just have to find where he’s holding his victims,” Skye said, putting together a plate from the leftovers Tanner had set aside for them from supper.

  “He was right there at Nunley’s house,” Brayden scoffed. “Fifty feet from the pickup. And I’m pretty sure he knew someone had been in the house and in the basement. He was all red in the face.”

  “Obviously,” Josh said, squeezing extra catsup onto his French fries. “But you weren’t followed coming back here, right?”

  Winston twisted off the cap to a beer. “No way. I was careful. And we had a huge head start on him because he had to run back to the car he was driving.”

  “We do have a list of places he’s been stalking,” Skye reminded them. “We know he liked Phinney Ridge, but I don’t think he’d risk going back there. As I recall, his second choice was Lawton Park. We could take his top five potential victims from there and split up in pairs.”

  “Do you hear yourself?” Leo teased. “You’ve never much cared for us being out there in the field alongside you.”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures. Lawton Park is just north of here. If Josh is right and he’s angry about us moving in on his precious basement lab, then he’ll want to strike back. Instead of Josh and me teaming up together, we’ll pair up with one of you. I’ll take Judy with me. Josh can take Brayden. I’ll call Harry. He can bring my dad with him.” She looked around the room. “Leo, you have the wherewithal to toss a man like Pope into a heap and not even blink twice. You’ll head up the fourth team with Winston. Reggie will stay put here and be our command center.”

  Winston didn’t like the sound of that. “Why does Reggie get to—?”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Skye snapped. “Either do what you’re told or leave. I’m done listening to your issues when you don’t want to do something. Jennifer is out there somewhere, and you need to start putting her first. Is that clear? None of you should have a problem with that, but if you do, you can leave right now.”

  “Skye’s right,” Judy said, getting tears in her eyes. “We’ve had it easy this past week. Jennifer doesn’t have the luxury of sitting here in a nice house like this. She’s out there, scared and cold. That is if she’s even still alive. We have to do this for Jennifer.” She glared at Winston. “Even if we don’t like it, we need to suck it up and do the job.”

  “Maybe I’m just tired of doing double duty as a programmer and a sleuth,” Winston said, lamenting his situation. “I’m not a cop.”

  “None of us are,” Skye pointed out. “But there’s always been safety in numbers. We each take courage from each other. That’s the way it’s always been.”

  “Fine,” Winston muttered. “I’ll go.”

  Reggie lifted a shoulder. “I’ll do it. I don’t mind. If Judy’s going on patrol, then so will I. Winston can stay here and act as HQ.”

  Judy slipped her hand in his. “We could make up our own team, the two of us.”

  Skye rolled her eyes and looked at Josh. “I’ve lost control. You deal with it. Get them paired up, we need to get moving before Elias Pope swoops in and finds his next victim right under our noses.” With that, she stormed past Josh and out of the kitchen to get ready for the night ahead.

  Josh left the others and followed his wife upstairs. “This is getting to all of us.”

  “And the first thing that happens is the team fractures, shows major signs of strain when it should be gelling even more. Winston’s not gelling with anyone right now. I get that I’m not patient. But damn it, we need to save Jennifer!”

  He took her shoulders and brought her into his chest. “We will. It’ll work out. You’ll see. We’ll find her.”

  But Skye shook her head. “I’m not so sure I believe that anymore. What will I tell Deborah when we find her daughter like the rest? How do I look her in the eyes and admit I failed?”

  Twenty-One

  Over the next few hours, Skye had worked on getting her second wind, adjusting her attitude.

  Five addresses in Lawton Park were the topmost active spots Pope had generated and stored away in his computer files. The team headed out to that neighborhood, spreading out somewhere near each potential victim’s house so they could keep an eye on the place. They were all within a five-block radius of each other. The streets were winding and narrow as the minivan checked out each spot, pointing out the hazards between houses.

  Wearing headsets, they would be in constant communication so that everyone could descend on the suspect, if and when, he was spotted.

  Strength in numbers.

  Skye had thought she’d applied logic and reason and come up with the strongest pairings. But the team had other ideas and paired up the way they wanted. Reggie stuck to Judy’s side. Brayden opted for Leo. Which left Skye and Josh together again. Harry showed up with Deborah. Travis and Judd Cawood rounded out the fifth team.

  “If you’re wondering who’s watching the other safe house, Doug’s in charge,” Travis explained. “He and Phyllis are armed. They’ll stay up all night if they have to.”

  Skye grinned at the idea of Doug and Phyllis standing guard duty. “I’m more worried about your sidekick here,” she confessed, looking Judd up and down.

  “I’m a good shot,” Judd proclaimed when he saw that Skye wasn’t thrilled with him bringing his own pistol, a revolver that looked more like a relic from the wild west.

  “Does that thing even work?” Skye chided.

  “It works fine. I tried it out yesterday myself. Ammo’s getting a little hard to find, but it shoots straight. Travis said this guy is dangerous. I wanted to come prepared.”

  “He is. Just remember this isn’t Tombstone, Wyatt Earp. Don’t accidentally pick off one of us out there in the dark.”

  “My eyesight’s excellent,” Judd pointed out, good-naturedly. “Travis showed me the sketch of the man we’re looking for, I know what I’m doing.”

  “Anyone else bring weapons with them?” Josh asked.

  “I brought my little .380,” Judy admitted. “And Reggie has one, too.”

  “And I brought my Boy Scout knife,” Brayden said.

  Skye shook her head. “We might be a ragtag team, but we’re as wel
l-prepared as we can be. Just remember, if you see this guy, radio in first. Don’t approach him yourselves. Wait for everyone to get there. Just keep him in sight, and we’ll deal with him together as a group. If you should get approached by a cop, have them call Harry. Got that? Any questions?”

  “This is what you used to do all the time, isn’t it?” Brayden asked Skye. “You’re like the protector of the realm.”

  “Not anymore. Tonight, I’m just one of you, hoping to catch a monster in a net. Remember, we’re only a few blocks apart. If you spot him, wait for help to show up. Don’t go chasing him because he’ll shoot first and take off like he did with us.”

  Josh used the grid map of the neighborhood to drop off the team members where they would be less conspicuous but the most effective.

  Judy and Reggie picked a spot near a line of thick hedges, across the backyard from a woman’s house who lived alone. Six feet in height, the cherry laurel shrubs would make excellent cover where they could keep an eye on the back door and the side windows. Elias Pope had mentioned this place numerous times over the past six months, making notes about what he’d like to do to the woman who lived there.

  They hoped he would never get his chance to follow through.

  Leo and Brayden thought they had a good enough spot in the alleyway where they could look out for a single mom with two small kids. Fortunately, her place was on a corner lot where, according to his notes, Elias had lurked plenty of times in the past.

  Travis and Judd stationed themselves at one end of the street near an apartment complex, a location that Elias had starred in his folder, describing it as a “prime” spot in his mind for attacks.

  Harry and Deborah sat on a park bench, bundled up against the chill, overlooking a row of houses that made up a carriage lane which dead-ended into a greenbelt, a soft rolling hillside where anyone could easily hide.