Hotwire (31 page)

NEBRASKA

When Maggie finally cut the zip tie it didn’t immediately fall from her wrists. Blood had caked and dried around it, and she had to dig the plastic strip out of the deep groove it had cut into her flesh. She found alcohol under one of the stainless-steel counters. Opened the bottle, held her breath, and poured it onto her first wrist. She closed her eyes tight and almost bit through her lower lip trying to silence her scream.

Don’t pass out. You cannot pass out.

The second wrist was easier. Everything would be easier now that her hands were free.

She hadn’t needed any light once inside the field house. Her eyes had quickly adjusted to the glow from several tanks distributed throughout. Without much effort she had discovered a pair of pruning shears. It had taken several attempts at handling the shears before she cut the plastic tie.

Now she stashed the shears in the pocket of her shorts and hunted for a better weapon.

One section of the building looked like a high-tech laboratory. Another section looked like a small processing center. Opening the thick glass doors Maggie immediately felt the difference. A gust of warm, dry air hit her in the face. It smelled of dirt and plants.

A blue fluorescent track lit up paths in the floor similar to those on commercial airplanes. It was enough to maneuver through the maze. And enough to see the clusters of plants hanging to dry from the ceiling.

Maggie didn’t venture far into the room. There would be nothing here to help her. But as she turned to leave she recognized a bundle of leaves hanging in the rows of drying plants. Even in the fluorescent light she was pretty sure the leaves were similar to the ones in the plastic bag Lucy had found at the crime scene hidden underneath one of the boys. The size of the leaf, the shape—and what she could make out of the color—looked like
Salvia divinorum
.

Back in the main section of the building Maggie quickly made her way around the counters, opening drawers while watching both doors on the opposite side of the room. Huge fans turned on and off overhead obscuring her ability to hear. Someone could already be inside and she wouldn’t know until he came up behind her. She focused on her other senses. She could smell something wet and musty and saw that her running shoes were caked with a wet sandy mud. Earlier inside the SUV, she remembered that same odor. Had it come from Mike Griffin’s boots?

Didn’t Dawson say he could smell river mud? Now she understood where it came from.

Maggie tried to get a sense of where in the forest she was. What did Griffin tell her? He just wanted to scare the kids. Didn’t want them snooping around the field house. This had to be where they had gotten the salvia. If he wanted to frighten them away, that meant the field house was close to the crime scene.

She couldn’t spend any more time inside. She had already exceeded what she told herself was past high risk. She started to zigzag her way to the back door and that’s when she found the tall cabinet with glass doors, holding a contraption that looked like a rifle.

She went to get a closer look, stepping around one and then another stainless-steel counter. She didn’t see the foot, didn’t see the man hunched on the floor until she was on top of him. She jumped back, ready to run. But the man didn’t move.

In the blue glow she could see his face—eyes wide open, blood trickling from his mouth. Without checking she knew Wesley Stotter was dead.

SIXTY-EIGHT

She had to keep moving.

Don’t stop. Don’t look back.

She could do this. That’s what Maggie told herself as she stumbled under the weight of the backpack with the rifle slung over her shoulder. Up ahead she saw the yellow crime-scene tape flapping from several trees. Just the sight pumped another surge of adrenaline. She could do this. She couldn’t think about Stotter right now. She had to focus on the task at hand.

She had fired an assortment of weapons. How much different could this be from an AK-47? Except that it was very different with cords and packs and an energy source instead of bullets. But she wouldn’t have time to study it. Lugging it was challenge enough. She had also helped herself to a pair of dirty white coveralls she found hanging by the door. She had rolled up the cuffs and the sleeves, pulling it over her shorts and sweatshirt. The warmth helped her ignore the extra bulk.

As soon as she left the field house she thought she heard him. Leaves crackled, a branch snapped. Griffin wouldn’t even need night-vision goggles to track her. But why let her leave with the rifle?

Because he doesn’t think you’ll be able to fire it.

She pushed the thought out of her mind.

For a rare moment the cicadas were quiet but Maggie couldn’t hear Griffin. Again, he was giving her a head start.

Cocky son of a bitch.

She thought she heard a car door slam but she could no longer see the field house or the clearing. He knew she wouldn’t get far. He’d stop and get what he needed.

Within minutes she made it past the yellow tape. She was back at the crime scene. Familiar territory. She could, at least, stay put, get set. But there were a few things she needed to do. She hoped she had enough time.

Without much effort she found what she was looking for. She tried to remember what Donny had told her, then she took a deep breath and got to work.

She saw Griffin without effort. He had put on a pair of the white coveralls, too. Which meant he was ready to do whatever it took. She imagined what the teenagers saw that night when he came for them. Dawson talked about a white wolf. Griffin had known the salvia would provide enough hallucinatory effects to enhance his disguise. This time he didn’t have the bug-eyed goggles. He wouldn’t need them. Maggie had counted on his confidence. That’s why she chose the darkest shadows she could find, though she knew her white coveralls would be easy to spot.

“It’s over,” he told her, stopping about twenty feet away.

She raised the rifle and flipped the switch which sounded similar to racking a round of a shotgun.

She waited.

His steps were slow but not hesitant.

Her finger stayed on the trigger. Just a few more feet. She wanted to make sure he was in range for the full impact. She remembered Platt saying fifteen to twenty feet. She’d make him come as close as possible. She had checked all the connections, made sure the cord from the backpack to the rifle butt hadn’t been disengaged. There were no other switches. She had checked.

Fifteen feet.

The darkness played to her disadvantage now. She couldn’t see his face. Couldn’t tell if he was afraid or smiling. She couldn’t even make out what he was holding.

It was way too dark.

“Won’t make a difference without the power pack,” he said and held up an object.

Maggie felt as if she had been kicked in the gut. That was the one thing that was different about the rifle. It required an energy source in place of bullets. That’s what the backpack was for. Was Griffin bluffing? Did the gun also need a power pack–like battery to hold its charge?

He stepped closer.

She ignored her sweaty palms and steeled herself. He had to be bluffing.

“Stop or I’ll shoot.”

He kept coming and Maggie pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

She tried again and the empty click made her heart stop. She heard him laugh as she threw down the rifle and clawed at the straps of the heavy backpack, trying to shrug it off as she turned to run.

He lunged at her. Didn’t even see the wire she had strung chest-high between the two trees in front of her. He flew backward, knocked off his feet.

She was on him in seconds, flipping his body over. His muscles were stiff and contracted from the electrical shock. He didn’t move when she slammed her knee into the small of his back. His arms jerked but he had no control over them as Maggie yanked them back and used zip ties she had found in the building.

He mumbled and jabbered, not unlike Dawson.

“Y-y-you b-i-i-i-i-tch.”

He was much bigger than Dawson. The effects of the shock wouldn’t last long. Maggie moved quickly to his feet, tying them together with the ropes they had used to secure the crime scene.

“Not get a-a-a-a-way.”

She ignored him. Sweat drenched the inside of her coveralls. Her fingers were steady now, and she quickly grabbed another rope to connect the zip tie on his wrists to the rope on his feet. Then she pulled tight until he was bent in half.

“Damnit, y-y-you.”

Hog-tied, he wasn’t going anywhere. He could yell all he wanted. She didn’t hesitate and wrapped what was left of the rope around a tree.

“Nice job.” A voice startled her from behind.

She spun around. Blinded by a flashlight, she still recognized the silhouette and the voice.

“No thanks to you,” she told Sheriff Frank Skylar.

“It-it-it’s about tim-m-m-me,” Griffin stuttered.

Maggie shot a look back at Skylar. Only now did she see the sheriff had his weapon pointed at her.

“You really should have gone back to Denver,” Skylar told her. “We would have handled this just fine. No one else would have had to be hurt.”

“Sho-sho-shoot her.”

Maggie stayed down on her haunches, unarmed. With the light blinding her, she couldn’t even find a branch or rock.

“Now we’re gonna have to make up some story about how that Stotter guy was stalking you. Shame the way things happen,” Skylar was saying. “Both of you come up missing at the same time.”

“He wasn’t stalking me,” Maggie said, wondering if it would make a difference if she tried to stall. Her muscles started screaming again, reminding her what they’d been through.

“Yeah, well, it’s funny how rumors get started.”

“Sho-sho-shoot her.”

“Shut up,” Skylar yelled. “I’m sick and tired of cleaning up after you. Why didn’t you just stay in Chicago? You and your lamebrain scams.”

He reached out and placed the gun barrel against her temple. The metal felt cold and solid.

She looked up, forcing him to look into her eyes, though she couldn’t see his face. All she saw was a huge swatch of black fur hurling through the air just as the gun went off.

Maggie felt the heat scorch her skin. Pain ripped across the side of her skull. She fell hard against the ground. Couldn’t hear anything except a high-pitched ring. The world swirled around her. From where she lay she could see Skylar’s body twisting and turning. His mouth was open but she couldn’t hear his screams, just the ringing inside her head. She saw Skylar cradling the bloody mess that used to be his arm.

She closed her eyes, expecting darkness, almost welcoming unconsciousness.

That’s when she felt the warm wetness on her cheek.

She opened her eyes to find a huge black German shepherd licking her face.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12

SIXTY-NINE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Julia Racine juggled a tray with two coffees, two chocolate doughnuts, one glazed cruller, and one container of chocolate milk while pinning a copy of
The Washington Post
under one arm and a stuffed koala bear under the other. A nurse helped her push open the door.

“Thanks,” Julia said and bounded down the hall.

By now she was getting used to the smell of disinfectant and the ding of monitors inside dimly lit rooms. She kept herself from glancing into the rooms. She didn’t want to see any other patients except CariAnne.

She found the girl and her mother mesmerized by yet another cable news show blaring the current events of the day. The anchor was discussing an impending press conference about the contaminated food in schools.

“Yah! Doughnuts!” both daughter and mother squealed, raising their arms.

“And you brought my bear.”

CariAnne reached for the ragged stuffed animal but her left arm was still connected to a monitor. She stopped, readjusted, and tried again.

They were told all of the gizmos were only for precaution. So far the little girl was testing negative for all the salmonella strains they had been tracking. The antibiotic cocktail that Colonel Benjamin Platt had ordered seemed to be working, though CariAnne would need to take it for another ten days.