Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection

by J. S. Donovan

  She wondered what would it take to find Cain. How would the FBI deal with her if she was encroaching on a federal case? The man had almost killed her on multiple occasions, why confront him again? Why risk it all when the girl was dead? Anna’s shoulders sank. She didn’t know the answers. Worse, she didn’t know what she had to lose by taking the case.

  Eventually, the buildings vanished in her wake and she was driving down the windy backroads. In the distance, a pillar of smoke drifted up to the stars. Bonfire, she concluded and then wanted to hit herself for not thinking of doing something fun like that with Evan. Perhaps when he returned from the Bahamas and got settled, Grace, Lily, and him could come back to town and enjoy a few cold brews. Before she could smile at the fantasy, the flaming building came into view.

  Eyes wide with terror, Anna slammed on the accelerator and raced down the road. The neighboring houses blurred into running color while the locals outside rushed toward Anna’s flaming home. Her father’s truck came to a harsh stop on the gravel driveway, kicking up stones. Anna bustled out of the vehicle, leaving the driver side door wide open. The surrounding houses were about a quarter mile from one another and were alive with activity.

  Her gawky, elderly neighbor stood on the lawn beside her and hung up his phone. His short and plump wife clenched his hand.

  “What happened?” Anna asked anxiously. The fire danced inside the windows, blacking them with smoke. The inferno had not engulfed the building, so it must’ve just begun a few moments ago. “Have you seen my father?”

  “I don’t know,” the old man said, holding his wife tight. “One moment everything was normal and then…” He turned his droopy eyes to the glowing blaze before him.

  Anna spotted her open window, feeling her pulse quicken. This can’t be happening. She told herself as her father’s home burned.

  “We called 911,” the short woman said, the yellow of the fire bouncing in her eyes. “Fire trucks will be here on the way.”

  Anna didn’t hear a word she said. She was already diving through her bedroom window. The landing on the other side bruised her elbows and opened scabs, but Anna propelled herself up and into the hallway. Smoke hazed the corridor and gave the ceiling lights an incandescent glow. In the living room beyond, the fire leapt. She could've taken the front door but knew her father always locked it when he was home.

  “Dad!” she yelled, inhaling a lungful of smoke. She covered her mouth with her shirt and coughed so hard that her chest hurt. Guarding her face with her arms, she inched towards the dancing fire. Heat brushed against her from the orange wall of flame that guarded the threshold between the room and the hall. Beyond was her father, lying limply on the floor and surrounded by encroaching fire.

  The smoke stung Anna’s eyes, blurring her vision. She took a few steps back, shook her head at what she was about to do, and dashed through the flames. The heat licked against her skin and caused her, oddly enough, to shiver. Success. Around her, the living room burned, the wood floor blackened, and the furniture she was raised on disintegrated. With a sharp crash, a window blew out. Anna hacked, doubling over in the black smoke. She steadied herself on the shelf above the fireplace, noticing her mother’s smile and her father’s uniform reflected in the inferno.

  She dropped herself low to the ground as smoke hung in the ceiling and swiftly deadened her senses. In a hurried crawl, she got to her father. Richard’s mouth lay agape and his head rolled lazily back.

  “Oh, please!” Anna moaned and pressed her finger against her father’s wrinkly neck. Nothing. She pressed harder. Like a gentle tap, the distant pulse in Richard’s jugular responded to Anna’s fingertips.

  She pried the framed picture from his grasp. It showed Anna as a child with a small smile and pale skin from before she moved to Miami. Anna slung her arms under her father’s armpits and hoisted him up. The sixty-year-old man sloped against her with all of his weight, and only adrenaline gave Anna enough strength to lift him up. She staggered back slightly and suddenly froze in place. Written on the wall above the fireplace was the word Cain. Flames crawled over her father’s hat stand and up the wall, consuming the black letters in a blaze. Anna twisted her vision to the kitchen. A garden of dancing fire occupied it harshly. The hall was too far of a trek, so she dragged her father toward the front door. His heels slid against the wooden floor that burned intensely.

  Walking backwards, Anna reached the door and unlocked it from behind her. The flame crawled towards her father’s socks just as Anna dragged Richard outside. She hacked and coughed, feeling dry needles in her throat. Halfway through the lawn, her legs gave way to the old man’s weight and she fell to the grass. Fire trucks screamed behind her as firemen rushed past her and bombarded the house with pregnant hoses. The water blasted through the shattered windows and the flames roared high as they resisted the torrents of water.

  “You’re safe now.” Anna mumbled as she wiped away a smudge of soot from her father’s unresponsive face. His shirt had pulled up, revealing flat purple bruises up and down his abdomen spotted with singed grey hairs.

  A hand landed on her shoulder, taking Anna away from the moment. She turned up to the soft-faced EMT looming above her. “I need space,” he commanded with a frown.

  Anna nodded involuntary and released her father. She chewed her nails as the EMT examined him. A second EMT pulled up with a gurney and together, they wasted no time putting Richard on the rack.

  “How bad is it?” Anna asked.

  They didn’t reply until they were partway through loading him into the ambulance. “Bad,” the second one said. “Very bad.”

  Anna’s world crumbled. “Let me ride with him.”

  The EMT shook his head and slammed the door shut.

  “He’s my father!” Anna shouted as the ambulance's sirens wailed and the vehicle vanished down the road, red lights flashing on the face of every neighbor's home. Anna ran her hand up her scalp and turned back to her childhood home. Despite the firefighter’s best efforts, the blaze spread to Anna’s room, destroying her clothes, bed, and all the items from her youth.

  4

  Inquieto

  Anna felt like she had just left the hospital, probably because she had less than forty-eight hours ago. This late in the evening--or, more correctly early in the morning, the waiting room was deathly quiet. Anna sat in one of several rows of chairs that lined the room, her face lost in her hands. The smell of smoke clung to her palms and reminded her of the arsonist. Cain. The word echoed in her mind. A flood of newspaper articles and police reports raced through her memory. First of Cain’s victims and then of the scorched homes owned by the detectives that pursued him.

  After what seemed like hours, the doctor stepped into the waiting room. He was clean-shaven with blue eyes, thinning grey hair, and a sober expression that darkened his face. Anna quickly rose from her seat and met the man halfway.

  “We stopped the bleeding,” the doctor announced.

  “Oh, thank God,” Anna exclaimed.

  “However, there were some complications.”

  The doctor led Anna to her father’s room in the ICU. They peered through the glass window and at the man within. There were so many cables and machines linked into and around Richard that Anna thought it was a scene from a science fiction horror flick. Like an accordion, the breathing machine beside the bed pumped up and down next to his bed. Bandages wrapped his torso and suspended leg.

  “The smoke damage, broken bones, and overall shock of the situation left him in a comatose state. The machines are stabilizing him for now but, at his age, a full recovery is unlikely. You may want to consider the alternative.”

  Anna spread her hand out on the glass barrier as if to touch him. She tracked the consistent green heartbeat sensor as her chest tightened. Red rims formed her irritated eyes and, without saying another word, she left her father under the doctor’s care.

  She stood under the awning where she’d said farewell to her brother and withdrew the flip phone
from her pocket. Her father lent it to her after she lost her own in a river over a week ago. Guilt caused her expression to sink as she thought of what could’ve been if Richard had access to his cell phone. The clock read 2:30am. Anna hesitated for a moment and then dialed the number.

  A groggy voice responded from the other side. “Hello?”

  Numbly, Anna replied. “He’s back.”

  Agent Justin Rennard arrived at Anna’s P.I. office in a little under two hours, holding a lidded twenty-four-ounce coffee cup in each hand. Anna closed the door behind him as he sat the cups on Anna’s cheap wooden desk.

  “I came as soon as I could,” Rennard said, wiping his palms on his jeans. He wore his black and yellow FBI windbreaker jacket that was unzipped to reveal his tight fitting white t-shirt and necklace holding a square Celtic rune.

  Anna crossed her arms, making herself small. She involuntarily chewed at her lip. “He attacked my father.”

  Rennard turned to her with a pitying expression. “You sure it was him?”

  Closing her eyes, Anna nodded. “He left his signature above the fireplace. It’s all burned down now, but I swear I saw it.”

  The agent looked at his sneakers for a moment before saying, “The tallies that he carved into your vest…”

  “A countdown,” Anna replied, opening her eyes and taking one of the coffees. It was sweet with sugar but bit her tongue bitterly. “Lily and Keisha’s fingers signified the beginning and then the carving reached ten.”

  “After the countdown ends, Cain kills the detective and their family before burning down the house, we know that, but why didn’t he wait to strike until you were inside?” Rennard asked himself.

  Anna shrugged. “I don’t think he’s following the pattern anymore. This is vengeance.”

  They stood in the quiet, processing the revelation and sipping on their coffee.

  “Have you told the others?” Rennard broke the silence.

  “Yeah,” Anna admitted. “But they’ve surrendered the case to the FBI. Mathis and Greenbell says they’ll do what they can, but it’s hard to tie arson to a kidnapping.”

  “They don’t believe you saw Cain’s signature?” Rennard asked with concern.

  Anna shrugged again. “It could’ve just been a robbery gone wrong, the sheriff said.” She sighed. She didn’t expect anything less of Sheriff Greenbell.

  Rennard stroked his dimpled chin in thought but he did not reveal whatever insight he had a found. With the sleep that still hadn’t left his eyes, he looked around her dinky office, at the file boxes stacked up one wall and the blow-up mattress behind the desk. Anna was far too tired to feel shame about her dump-of-a-workspace.

  “I rented a condo for my time here. I still have a week left on the temp lease if you need a place to stay.”

  “I’d like that,” Anna replied with weak smile.

  The apartment was nicely furnished in fall colors. It had a table for two, a countertop bar, artistic décor, and a big flat screen TV. Rennard moved in a blanket and pillow, turning the comfy couch into a bed. Anna was tempted to lay down her duffel bag of spare clothes that she’d stored in her office when Rennard offered her the bedroom. It was a simple room with a queen-sized mattress and access to the bathroom.

  “I looked at the places in Van Buren, but Fort Smith one-upped them,” Rennard said from the other room.

  Anna climbed into the shower and washed away the smoky stench from her hair. It felt odd having it cut so short but with all the dangers she faced, having long hair get snagged was a luxury she couldn’t afford. After drying off, she found Agent Rennard sitting at the dining room table. His FBI jacket was on a nearby chair as he talked into the phone.

  With a towel, Anna rubbed the water from her hair and joined him at the glass-topped table.

  “I can vouch for her,” Rennard said into the phone. “Yeah…yeah. I got it. We’ll talk soon.”

  The agent hung up his phone and put it on the table. He took a gulp from his coffee cup. “That was the director in Little Rock. He got you on as a consultant in the Rines Case.”

  “Doesn’t the FBI have their own investigators? More CARP guys?” Anna asked honestly.

  “They do.” Rennard grinned slyly. “But the director owed me a favor. You don’t get to be best man at your boss’s wedding three times over without some leeway.”

  “Wow, I didn’t know you FBI guys were such a close-knit group.” Anna took a sip of her coffee.

  “It depends. I’ve met some real knuckleheads.”

  Anna was reminded of Sheriff Greenbell. “Haven’t we all.”

  They shared a grin. After the innocent moment ended, Anna blinked and remembered her father’s condition and the child abductor/murderer walking free.

  “We should get started,” Anna suggested seriously.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to rest up? We could use the energy.”

  Anna wiggled her half-empty coffee cup. “I have my energy.”

  Rennard chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who hates sleep more than you, Anna.”

  Anna looked at him seriously. “My own snoring wakes me up.”

  Rennard grinned stupidly, unsure how to reply.

  “I’m joking,” Anna declared. It’s insomnia.

  As the sun broke into the day, they got copies of the case files from the Van Buren PD and spread them out across the apartment’s carpeted floor. From Keisha Rines’s glamour shot to the photos of the dead SWAT team at Smithson’s Train Yard, they turned the haphazard piles of information into rows of location profiles, case summaries, and pictures of Cain AKA Wesley Jenkins. Anna looked for anything that could allude to Cain’s whereabouts. She checked the scorched property papers recovered from the Jenkins’s riverside home and cross-referenced with the other lands the police had scouted. A few of the listed were only half completed. Anna called Sergeant Mathis.

  “We’ve checked them,” Mathis said. “We found a few small food stores and generators, but nothing like the tunnels beneath the train yard.”

  Anna thanked him and looked over the Smithson photo. There were pictures of Alpha team riddled with bullets and leaking red on the concrete floor. Anna thought that Rennard would’ve been among the dead but was thankful he wasn’t. While she re-lived the night where she encountered Cain, Rennard came back through the front door and dropped off some Chinese food. Sitting cross-legged, Anna opened the flaps of the noodle carton and took a big bite.

  “What time is it?” she said with mouthful.

  Rennard looked at his watch. “Noon-ish.”

  He sat next to Anna and cleared an area on the floor for the food containers. Anna slurped up a noodle and studied the twisted bodies of the dead officers. She put them aside and picked up the rough sketch of the corridor that Cain had trapped her in. Anna shuttered, wondering how many girls he had taken down there. When she closed her eyes, she could remember the black walls of the octagonal room with light bulbs dangling from the ceiling. Lily’s frail body trembled as the cold seeped through unseen under the sealed door. Anna thought they’d both die down there. A shootout or car crash scared her, but being left to starve… the alluring smell of the Chinese entrée drifted into her nose.

  She got chopsticks and ate a piece of General Tso’s chicken, being careful not to drip any sauce on the case file copies.

  “The guy is practically the devil, but you gotta admire him,” Rennard said as he finished off a dish of beef and broccoli and looked over the hand-drawn tunnel blueprint.

  Anna turned to the FBI agent, stopping mid-chew.

  “He’s not a common creep,” Rennard defended his point. “Cain spent years building his operation and a lot of bucks putting this together. He didn’t make mistakes. You just outsmarted him by searching every frame of Edger Strife’s video tapes. It’s something no one would go out of their way to do.”

  Anna finished her bite and picked up a photo of Wesley Jenkins, the unassuming man with thick glasses. “What did he do for
a living again?”

  “He owned a computer repair shop, but no one has a clue how he made money to fund this,” Rennard tapped his finger on the tunnel.

  An idea sparked and Anna put aside her food. “That’s it.”

  “What?” Rennard asked, looking at Anna and then the photocopy in front of him.

  “We may not know how he made his money, but we can find out who’s in the business of making underground tunnels.”

  “That’s a pretty niche market,” Rennard said, catching on.

  Anna smiled. “Less work for us.”

  Rennard got his laptop and searched construction companies that specialized in underground housing around the Midwest. They found a handful of leads but none willing to admit working with a child abductor/cop killer. Anna compared the companies’ names and trademarked logos to the minute amount of evidence uncovered at Smithson’s Train Yard. No hits. Rennard sifted through the documentation found at Cain’s vacation cabin, but only found the cable and wifi bills. Anna rubbed her eyes and looked over the waterlogged and fire-damaged documents from the Jenkins’s house. It seemed like nothing matched until she noticed the burned piece of paper with a small earth and hammer logo. Anna cross-referenced the trademark to the various construction companies around the area and found Project Earthhome. She tapped Rennard on the shoulder. The agent looked over the address and grabbed his car keys from the countertop.

  Kevin Dorsey told Anna to meet him at a job site. Bulldozers and other industrial mammoths ate away at dirt and rock on the muddy cliff side. Around them, the tree-covered Ozark mountains jutted toward the heavens in a view one could only get from a postcard. A small trailer sat apart from the rest of the chaos. A few men in hard hats and other reflective PPE bustled by, almost knocking shoulders with Rennard. Anna and the agent marched across the dry dirt and found the pudgy man in a collared shirt, holding a clipboard and barking orders from on top of a mound of packed earth.