Eye for an Eye (An Owen Day Thriller)

by Rachel Ford

  Chief said the Millers would eat next, and then Paige. In the meantime, he called for another ice cream sandwich for himself.

  For all Jimmy’s worry about me making a break for it, he didn’t bother to get up for any of this. So I ran back and forth with food, and then drinks. Chief wanted coffee. Shannon wanted wine. “Don’t bother with a glass,” she told me. “Just bring the bottle.”

  I got a pot of coffee brewing, and was in the process of bringing Shannon her bottle of wine when Cody and Tony came into the house. Tony looked a little sweatier than earlier, but Cody was a mess of dirt and sweat.

  Paige got out of her seat, Avery still in her arms, and hurried over to him. “Oh my God, you look awful, darling. You look dehydrated.” She shot me a glance, nothing friendly in her eyes. “Get him water.”

  “You’re forgetting a please in there somewhere,” Chief said. “God, were all of you people raised in a barn?” He was enjoying this way too much.

  Shannon rolled her eyes and snatched the bottle of wine away from me. “Where’s Tyler?”

  Cody glanced guiltily up at that, but Tony answered without missing a beat. “He’s finishing up out back.”

  Chief nodded. “Tony, you take him out his steak. He eats after Paige here.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Then Jimmy’s voice called from the kitchen, “Day, what you doing?”

  And I had to go. “Chief says the next two are for the Millers,” I said. “Then Paige and Tyler.”

  Marco nodded, like he didn’t know that Tyler was buried at the bottom of a shallow grave. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “God, I’m starving,” Jimmy said. “To hell with those old farts. We should be eating next. We got to smell the food.”

  “You’ll live,” Marco said.

  Jimmy said nothing, but stared daggers at the far wall. Even without Joey’s death, there was clearly not much love lost between the two gangs.

  “I’ve got to get water for Cody,” I said.

  “Move your ass this time,” Jimmy said.

  I ignored him and ferried the coffee out to Cody. He was sitting pale and quiet in the rear of the room, on the floor next to his wife’s seat. He took the glass without saying anything.

  “How’s the coffee coming?” Chief asked.

  “Brewing.”

  He nodded, and I returned to the kitchen. The next two steaks had finished resting by now – the pair for the Millers. “Plate ‘em up,” Marco said.

  Which I did and ran them out too. Edith stared in something like horror at the plate. “Oh, that’s far too much for us,” she said.

  “Eat what you want,” Chief said. “Owen’ll clean up the rest.”

  She murmured about hating to waste. He declared she shouldn’t worry. “Paige’s treat.”

  I went back and forth, bringing coffee and water and spirits. Then the third round of plates were ready. One, I offered to Paige. She stared in an exasperated way. “How am I going to eat that, while I have Avery?”

  I glanced around. The Millers were using the only two TV trays I saw in the room, like they presumably usually did with their frozen meals. I didn’t have a solution for her.

  “I’ll take him,” Cody said. “You eat.”

  So I waited while she shifted the baby to her husband. Then, no less aggravated than before, she snatched the plate away.

  I brought the second to Tony. “For Tyler.”

  He nodded. “Right.”

  “Better get it out to him before it gets cold,” Chief said.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Deputy Austin Wagner, 6:15 PM

  The FBI guys proved their skills a second time when I mentioned the Carter connection. And I wasn’t ready to call them wizards. Not yet.

  But I was impressed. That was for damned sure.

  They got together the basics right away: Cody, Paige and Avery Carter, from a suburb in Indiana. He was twenty-five, she was twenty-three. The baby was fourteen months old.

  He worked for an investment firm, some kind of risk prevention position. White collar, with a nice, fat paycheck. She was a stay at home mom, who dabbled in a few of the latest in vogue pyramid schemes. On her Facebook page, she called herself a consultant for a nutrition company, and a glow up goddess for a skincare and makeup brand. Standard multilevel marketing stuff, in short.

  The pair owned a house, and a truck, and an RV. He had a prior from eight years earlier, for underage drinking and driving under the influence. He’d been clean since. She had no priors.

  Which was an impressive history to pull together at the drop of a hat. But about fifteen minutes later, they had a much more comprehensive look at the couple’s recent movements. Including a list of recent purchases and charges that made no kind of sense at all.

  The big, inexplicable charges were for rental vehicles: two SUV’s from different rental companies, rented within two hours of each other. She’d rented one, and he’d rented the other. Which didn’t follow. Not when they already had a pickup.

  One, maybe, if they wanted more flexibility than the truck would afford. But two?

  Then, of course, there was the hundreds of dollars of food today. And nothing else. Nothing in days.

  Which pretty much ruled out a simple solution like a lost credit card. Even if Paige’s card had been snatched, even if all of her cards had been snatched, Cody would have needed to make a purchase. They would have had to fill up on gas, if nothing else.

  But they hadn’t. Nor had they returned the SUV’s.

  Which was the real tell, because they’d already checked out of the campsite. And since two people can’t drive three vehicles at once, that meant someone else was driving the SUV’s, either with the Carters cooperation, or against their will.

  Travers figured it was the latter. Nothing in the Carters’ history indicated any link to organized crime or affinity for serious criminal behavior. Cody’s juvenile drinking and driving charges were the worst that could be said about them. And what teenager hadn’t done things they regretted?

  “No, it’s another Day situation. They snatched them too.”

  The why wasn’t quite as clear. In Day’s case, he’d found Callaghan’s body. They wanted to shut him up, so they’d kidnapped him.

  But why take the Carters? What could they have seen? It didn’t make sense to me.

  Travers didn’t have an answer to that, but he didn’t seem concerned about it, either. “We won’t know until we find them. But now that Fasano is involved, well, in a way that complicates everything, and in a way it simplifies everything. If Chief’s running an operation up here, you can bet your ass he’s got a reason for taking them.”

  I remained skeptical for another five minutes, until one of the FBI tech guys said, “Sir? I’ve got something.”

  “What?” Travers asked.

  “The Carters’ phones? They’ve been pinging off the same tower Day’s phone was hitting. The same tower those burners are hitting.”

  “Good. Excellent.”

  “They were,” the tech said, “until the same time Day’s phone went dead. That’s when they disappeared too – both of them.”

  “Someone switched the phones off,” Travers said. “Someone realized we’d try to get a location. Son-of-a-bitch.” Then, his attention shifted, back to us and our situation room. “Sheriff, where are we at with that canvass of Jay Road?”

  * * *

  When we were down to the three of us, Marco told me to take a plate. “You got cleanup duty, so you better get eating.”

  Jimmy didn’t seem happy about that, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he tipped the barrel of his gun my way and said, “In here, at the kitchen table. Where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “He hasn’t eaten yet,” Marco reminded me. “And something tells me he’s a mean son of a bitch when he’s hungry. So I wouldn’t piss him off.”

  Jimmy raised his glass in a mock toast. “Truer words have never been spoken, my friend.”

  I took my p
late and stared at it. Marco had piled potatoes and two dinner rolls beside a massive steak.

  “Problem?” he asked.

  “Nah,” I said. “I’m just wondering if you could possibly pack any more carbs into this meal.”

  “Just shut your mouth and eat,” Jimmy said.

  I started to point out that I couldn’t eat with my mouth closed, but Marco shot me a look. “Don’t push your luck, Day. Eat your food and stop talking.”

  So I did, or as much of it as I could. The steak was massive, and despite the skipped lunches and canned dinner and breakfast of the last two days, I couldn’t finish the plate.

  Sal came into the room with a stack of dishes and pulled more ice cream sandwiches out of the freezer. “Jesus, we should have got more of these things. Those kids of yours have gone through almost as many as Chief,” he told me.

  Then Tony came in, with two dishes with T-bones stripped of meat, and fat and leftover potatoes. Chief’s crew was thorough, I had to give them that. They were going all out with the pretense that Tyler was alive and well and eating a pound of steak and potatoes.

  Then Marco finished the last two plates, his and Jimmy’s, and waved me over to the sink. “Don’t want to leave the old folks with a bunch of messes.”

  I couldn’t tell if that was some kind of faux concern, or if these guys really were the bundle of contradictions they presented as: kidnappers who were concerned about leaving dishes in the victims’ sink.

  Either way, it didn’t really matter. I got started, and Marco and Jimmy set to eating. That surprised me at first. I would have expected Marco to join his boss in the living room.

  Then, I realized he was here to watch Jimmy, the same as Jimmy was here to watch me. He wanted to make sure Jimmy didn’t decide to pull the trigger. Not without provocation, anyway.

  And, the more I thought about it, the more I figured he probably wanted to make sure we didn’t fall to talking. It’d be bad if I let slip that Tyler was dead.

  Not that he had to worry. As bad as it would be for their crew, it’d be worse for me. They had guns, and they outnumbered Shannon and Jimmy by three-plus to one. I was just me, and I had no gun. So spilling the beans would do me no favors at all.

  I was up to my elbows in suds when Chief walked into the kitchen. “There you are,” he said.

  Apparently to Jimmy, because he asked, “Chief?”

  “How are things going out here?”

  Marco said, “Fine.”

  Jimmy shrugged. “No complaints.”

  “Good. We’re talking shift rotations. I’m thinking I’m going to keep you two together.”

  Marco nodded. “Sounds good.”

  “I’ve worked with worse,” Jimmy said, flashing the other man a grin.

  “I believe it,” Chief said. “And since you all seem to have worked out some kind of rapport, I’ll stick you with Day and the kids.”

  Marco nodded, but Jimmy groaned. “This guy? I’m real sick of him, boss.”

  “You want to stick with the old folks instead? Gramps out there is talking about adult diapers…”

  Jimmy dropped his fork and knife onto his plate and groaned in disgust. “Jesus. I’m eating here.”

  Chief shrugged. “Aging ain’t for the faint of heart, amirite? But that’s your choice: adult diapers, or Day.”

  Jimmy scowled at me, like I was the source of his problems. “Fine. Better an asshole than a diaper full of shit.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Chief said. “Alright, after you finish eating, get the kids and him upstairs.”

  “What room?” Marco asked.

  “Same room as before. Shoot anyone who tries putting more holes in the walls, though.”

  Jimmy brightened a little at that. Marco said, “You got it.”

  Marco took his time eating. He was still gnawing away at his steak long after Jimmy wrapped up, and long after I’d gone through the other dishes.

  Jimmy started to get impatient. “It’s getting dark out.”

  “So? We’re going to be stuck in a room with no windows anyway. What does it matter?”

  Finally, though, Marco finished, and handed me the plate. When I’d finished, he stood, and sighed, and said, “Right. Let’s get on with it then.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Deputy Austin Wagner, 7:45 PM

  The Sheriff had put all available hands on the job. We had strict orders: ours was reconnaissance only. We were to locate the missing persons, report in, and wait for the FBI. They had teams en route. Travers had called them in, as soon as he got confirmation about Rabbitt; and more, when he got wind of Chief.

  In the meantime, we had to find Rabbitt, and Chief, and hopefully live hostages too.

  The sun had been bright, with a warm yellow glow lighting up the landscape when I got started. By now, it had sunk behind the western hills, and I would catch glimpses of it between houses: red and orange and unhappy.

  The shadows were long, too, and the swamp looked particularly grim. I wasn’t superstitious. I’d grown up in the area, and I’d heard people talk about ghosts along Jay Road. There was supposed to be an old lady whose house full of cats had been burned down by kids. Subsequently, ghost cats could be found haunting the road at night.

  A lot of stuff and nonsense, my grandmother used to say. And I held with that.

  Still, if I had been prone to believe that sort of thing, well, I couldn’t imagine a place better suited to haunting than the dank, green marshes, half hidden in long, spindly shadows from the dead trees all around. And I sure as hell couldn’t imagine a place better suited to demon cats.

  I’d spoken with a dozen people by time I reached the Millers place, and checked out a few more empty homes besides. There were a fair share of them around here. Not more than anywhere else, but the demographics were changing. The old farmers got too old to go on farming, and their kids didn’t carry on.

  Sometimes the corporate farms stepped in and bought the farmland. Sometimes the house sat empty for years on end while the kids figured out what to do with it. Sometimes it ended up a rental, with semi-permanent residents that changed every so often. Sometimes, it became a kind of vacation property, like a cabin twenty minutes from the big lake.

  Sometimes it fell into disrepair, and then ruin, like so many barns and outbuildings.

  The Millers’ place was well on the way to becoming that kind of property. It had been years since their kids stayed up here regularly. Now they were busy with their own grandkids, and their own vacation properties and rental homes and lives.

  Fred and Edith were their names. I’d met them years ago, answering a call about a prowling wolf. A wolf that hadn’t actually been a wolf.

  Years ago, the Millers had a scraggly, one-eared mutt called King. It looked vaguely like some kind of German shepherd, crossed with God knew what. But it inherited the ugly gene. That was for sure.

  Why they called it King, I didn’t know. It looked anything but royalty. Which apparently had been the reason for the call. King had been roaming around the fields when a neighbor spotted him, and phoned it in – knowingly or not, I didn’t know.

  But she’d reported seeing a vicious wolf at the Millers’ place. So I’d talked to Edith, and met King, and subsequently heard his entire life story – a rescue pup they’d gotten from the humane society, who had lost his one ear due to an infection. I’d been covered in slobbery kisses by the grim beast, and went on my way.

  But not before hearing all about Fred, and Edith’s kids, and the state of farming at the time; and not before having to turn down refreshments at least half a dozen times.

  The shadows were long enough to hide most of the defects of age and wear. Not all, though. I could see the sag in the barn roof, and the foliage all grown up around the old implements. And I’d seen the place in passing plenty of times, so I knew about the peeling paint and general aging that the darkness concealed.

  There was a dark SUV with Wisconsin plates parked in front, some kind of navy
blue maybe, or deep crimson. I couldn’t tell in the dusk, except to rule out black. It wasn’t quite that dark. I didn’t recognize it, but it didn’t surprise me to see it.

  The Millers’ truck was almost as old as they were. I was surprised the thing even ran. It was still there too, all bent and twisted like normal.

  Fred had rolled it on the ice years earlier, Edith told me. “Driving way too fast. Although, I suppose I probably shouldn’t tell a policeman that. But it’s a Ford, and Fred always says, they last forever, whatever you do to them.”

  I parked beside the SUV and headed to the door. I had a folder full of pictures. The routine was simple. I went to the front door, and I said hello, and told them we were looking into a report about kids who might have gone missing. I’d show them the pictures, and explain as calmly as possible that it was just a precautionary measure.

  They were tourists, and we thought they might have gotten themselves lost in the woods.

  This universally allayed any darker fears. People would shake their heads, or tut, or nod grimly. Some would say, “I’ll never understand why people insist on going off trail when they don’t know the area.” Or, “Those poor kids, their parents should have known better.” Or, “When are people going to learn that the woods aren’t a theme park?”

  Others would recall similar incidents they’d read about in other parts of the state. “Do you remember that boy who fell off the cliffs at such-and-such park?”

  Others would say they’d keep their eyes open, or pray for their safe return, or keep their eyes open and pray for them.

  Everyone so far had looked at the pictures, some more carefully than others; but they’d all shaken their heads. “Haven’t seen them.” Or, “Don’t think I’ve seen anyone who looks like that.”

  Then, I’d show them pictures of the Carters and Rabbitt. “They might have been with these folks.”

  They’d study them too, and shake their heads again. “Sorry. Never seen them.”

  Once or twice, someone would linger on Joey’s picture. “I might have seen him. He looks kind of familiar. But I don’t know. I’m sorry, Deputy.”