Taken. Lori L. Harris
back into the trees—probably feeling like the lone kid who hadn’t been invited to the party—but when Rick approached, the officer moved to meet him. “This is an official scene.”
From the phone call he’d made to a buddy of his at the sheriff’s office Rick gathered that Langley was a by-the-rule type of cop. Which meant that selling him on the idea that Rick could be a valuable asset to the investigation was going to be tough if not impossible. But that’s what he was going to have to do if he wanted any kind of toehold on the investigation.
But even if Rick wasn’t able to sell Langley on the idea, at the very least he wanted a look at the scene. Which in turn might fuel a new direction for Rick’s own investigation.
“I’m aware that it’s a crime scene.” Knowing the routine, Rick passed his driver’s license. “Detective Langley contacted me. He’s in need of some files that I have in my possession.”
Everyone who showed up at a scene, every officer, every assistant district attorney, every medical examiner went through the same routine.
The officer checked the license, and then swung the flashlight up to Rick’s face to make the comparison. Rick flipped off the baseball cap to make it easier.
“You can put the hat back on, sir.” He lifted the radio to his mouth. “I have Rick Brady out here. Says he has some files for Detective Langley.”
Nearly half a minute went by before there was a response. “This is Langley. Have Brady give you the files. Tell him I appreciate that he drove all the way out here to deliver them, but that I’m a little busy right now.”
The officer lowered the radio. “I guess you heard?”
“Tell Langley I want a face-to-face before I turn over anything. And remind him that he’s the one who called me in the middle of the night.” Rick felt fairly certain that Langley wouldn’t turn him down.
Rick was also hoping that Langley was busy, too busy to leave the scene. The last thing Rick wanted was for Langley to hike out for the meeting.
The rookie relayed the message.
“Send him down,” Langley barked.
The rookie lowered the radio again and passed back Rick’s ID. “Don’t walk on the drive. Keep to the right of it. Clearing’s a good thirty-five yards back in there.” He lifted the yellow tape. “And I wouldn’t expect much in the way of a welcome when you reach it.”
Rick gave a curt nod before ducking under the barrier. The leaf mulch covering the soft ground made the going slick, and with each gust, the surrounding trees shed water from their leaves. He nearly lost his footing on a slight incline. He hated this time of year. The mud and the muck. The wet, gray days. The upcoming holidays where the families of his clients contacted him with tearful pleas.
The rack lights of the car in the clearing were suddenly shut down. It was only then that he noticed the flashlight beams deep in the woods off to his right.
For the past six months Rick’s investigation of his father’s murder had been limited almost exclusively to reexamining previous leads. Police work was like that sometimes, an old lead suddenly providing a new one. But even those had dried up. Tonight might possibly change that. What had taken place in these woods could bring new leads. New hope for finding his father’s killer. And more misery, too, for the latest victims.
Rick had gone only a short distance when he spotted the tarp spread across an area of the drive. He assumed that it protected tire impressions that the scene techs hadn’t gotten around to casting. If the officer hadn’t been watching, Rick would have taken a quick look beneath it. As it was, he kept moving, unwilling to risk eviction for evidence tampering.
After another twenty feet, though, he stopped and looked back toward the main road. The lane curved just enough that the entrance was no longer visible. Nor was the officer.
Rick shone the flashlight beam onto the drive. It appeared as if two vehicles had used the entrance. One set of tracks belonged to the police vehicle. The other was made by some type of truck as it entered and then exited. The dual tires and larger wheel base were right for a delivery type.
He scanned a broader area with the flashlight, taking in both sides of the drive. A few small limbs were scattered about, torn from the tree by the weather or the passing truck. Either way the truck would have to have been on the small side not to do more damage to the low-hanging limbs.
All in all, the vehicle’s size, the dual tires and larger wheel base were right for a delivery type, the kind that had been found at the scene eight years ago.
Rick squatted for a closer look. The tire impressions were still well defined. The tight tree canopy might act as a buffer against a hard downpour, but even if that were the case, the tracks still couldn’t have been there long. Two or three hours at most. Two hours didn’t sound like much time, but in an abduction case it was.
Up until that moment, he’d managed mostly to avoid thoughts about the current victims—because they were faceless, and because he’d been so callously focused on his own agenda. But as Rick got back to his feet, those faces began to take on the features of the previous victims.
He hadn’t been assigned to the initial investigation eight years ago, hadn’t been on the scene when the truck had been opened up for the first time, but he’d seen the photos. He’d seen the faces of the dead women. Five days of heat hadn’t been enough time to dehumanize them.
But it had been long enough to make them unforgettable. Particularly to his father.
Just as Rick reached the clearing, another rain band roared through, the sound deafening. It came at him horizontally, forcing him to turn his back to catch his breath. It continued to pummel his shoulders and blast his bare neck with a knifelike intensity. He waited seconds, and then impatiently faced the deluge again.
The taillights of the patrol car that had been driven in—probably by the first officer to arrive—were a red blur now. Holding on to his ball cap, Rick cut toward the car, figuring Langley would have sought refuge there. No one would be crazy enough to stand out in this when there was shelter.
It wasn’t until he got closer that he saw that there was no one in the car and that the headlights were aimed at a second tarp, this one spread out over a slightly raised area of ground. A crude grave? Or something else?
There had been no attempt to conceal the victims the last time, so if it was a grave, it meant a change in M.O. Or the possibility that the cases weren’t connected. That he’d climbed out of a warm bed for nothing.
And as far as crime scenes went, it was unlikely to produce much in the way of usable evidence. The clearing was mostly deep grass, a few saplings, some crude building rubble left from some sort of structure that had long ago disintegrated. Even if the kidnappers had left anything behind, the rain had most likely taken care of it.
As quickly as it had started, the rain tapered to a drizzle. A generator cranked up almost immediately, replacing the sound of nature’s fury with one that was manmade. Portable floodlights snapped back to life.
As soon as they did, Rick spotted the man on the opposite side of the clearing. Because he was the only officer in the vicinity who didn’t seem to be actively searching the ground for evidence, Rick felt fairly certain that he’d found Nate Langley. He was average height, five-nine or so, and wore a yellow slicker. Rick took in the man’s clean-shaven head, undecided if it was an effort to disguise a receding hairline or an attempt to appear tougher.
A dark-haired woman, soaked with rain and hunched beneath a heavy blanket, stood next to the man. Rick frowned. If she was their witness, the one who got away, she was too old to fit the previous profile. The victims eight years ago had been much younger—fifteen to seventeen.
At Rick’s approach, both glanced in his direction. The man said something to the woman, and she immediately turned and moved away as if wanting to avoid Rick.
But then again, maybe it had nothing to do with him. Perhaps she just wanted