Committed (3 page)

“He’s going to meet us in the lobby,” Beth said. “I guess there is a restaurant in here that they want to grab a quick lunch at and go over everything.” She pulled the handle of her car door and stepped out.

I did the same. “Are we getting a room here or what?”

“Let’s just see where they’re at with everything, and then we’ll make a decision one way or the other.”

“Sure.”

I followed Beth toward the front entrance. She pulled the big wooden-handled door, and we walked in. The lobby looked like that of a standard hotel, with a reception desk to our right bookended by a rack of brochures on the far side and a coffee station nearer to Beth and me. To our left was a hallway leading to the hotel’s pool and a bank of two elevators. The far wall was the restaurant, Patrick’s, which looked to be some form of burger pub.

One of the elevator doors opened, and Bill and Scott emerged.

“Found the place, huh?” Bill asked. He wore a dark suit with a white dress shirt and red tie. His short brown hair looked as it always did. He carried a leather bag draped over his shoulder that, I assumed, was filled with whatever the two had put together on the investigation.

“That we did,” Beth said. “And, like usual, that stuff is going to rot out your insides.”

Bill rocked the can of whatever flavored energy drink he was holding, swishing the fluid inside. He took a drink from it. “My wife has been on me about it. I needed it today, though.”

“How was the flight in?” Scott asked. He jammed his hands in the pockets of his black slacks.

“Had to do a little hustling, but it was fine,” Beth said.

“Good. Let’s grab a booth in here and go over what we have. Did you guys eat anything yet?” Scott asked.

“Just breakfast for me,” I said.

He nodded and waved for Beth and me to follow him.

We headed into the restaurant and were seated toward the back. Bill sat nearest the wall with his case tucked in beside him. He slipped out a file from inside and set it up on the tabletop. He flipped the file cover open but closed it immediately as our server approached. We put in an order for a round of coffees and told her we’d need some time on our food order.

After she left, Bill reopened the file and brought out a few sheets of paper that were paper clipped together. “This was our scene from overnight.”

I took the sheets he slid across and held them so Beth and I could see it. The first page was the report listing the man’s name, the address where the crime occurred, the nature of the crime, and the like. I flipped another page in—photos from the scene. An elderly man was facedown on his kitchen table in a pool of blood. Both of the man’s hands were out before him and nailed to the table’s surface. The next few photos were of the injuries to the man’s neck from the device used to strangle him.

I looked up at Bill and Scott. “Was this guy doing the nailing-to-the-table thing back in Louisiana?”

Scott shook his head. “No, that’s new. We first saw it at the scene in Fayetteville then again in Joplin and Overland Park.”

“So it may be a thing that the woman does?” Beth asked.

“It’s kind of what we were thinking,” Bill said. “We have the twins looking into it and seeing what we can find there. Maybe we can attribute homicides to the woman as well, prior to her hooking up with Nick Frane. We also have a bit of an issue with the vehicle that was left. We don’t really know what to make of that.”

“Vehicle?” I asked.

“Yeah, look another page or two in,” Bill said.

I flipped the page and then another until I found a photo of a burned-out sedan. I couldn’t identify the make or model.

“That is the vehicle that was owned by the Fayetteville victim. We found it torched outside of Joplin,” Scott said.

“So they what, lit it up so we couldn’t tie the vehicle to the previous homicide and track which way they are headed?” I asked.

“That would make sense, except for the circumstances involved,” Bill said.

I motioned for Bill to continue.

“Well, they didn’t light it up to cover evidence. We know who they are, and they have to know that, so it’s not like we were going to get prints off of it. Besides that, if they were trying to completely destroy the vehicle, they wouldn’t have half-assed the burning of it as much as they did. I mean, you can see the license plates are undamaged. They didn’t bother to steal new ones or take them off or anything. Yet that’s still not the big one. They burned the damn thing on the side of the road—a well-traveled road.”

“State highway, actually,” Scott interjected.

“Exactly,” Bill said. “They weren’t trying to hide the vehicle. I mean, they could have just parked it in a woods somewhere and left it. It probably wouldn’t have been found for months. They were almost calling attention to it with everything they did.”

“It’s almost like they want us to know which way they are headed,” Scott said. “Or just not all that bright.”

“So do we have anything further on which way we think they are headed?” Beth asked.

“That’s what we need to find out. Right now, we’re sitting here, waiting for them to commit a crime, going to that crime scene, and then waiting for them to strike again. We need to get ahead of them.”

“That’s a given,” I said. “So how?”

“We need a fresh scene to get a net cast. These two are only traveling fifty to a hundred miles a day, but we’re not finding where they are striking until the next day. We’ve been putting out BOLOs on each vehicle that we have them taking last, but we’re always two steps behind. At this moment, we have them in Glen Larson’s white 2004 Ford F-150. It came from the scene at Overland Park. But that scene was found last night, and we weren’t on the scene until early this morning.”

“How many hours has it been since the man, Glen Larson’s, time of death and right now?” I asked.

Scott looked at his watch. “Almost twenty.”

“So we’re screwed,” I said. “In reality, they could have made another vehicle switch, and if they decided to veer from what they were doing, they could be hours into Canada by now, same goes for Mexico. They could literally be anywhere.”

“We have alerts at every border crossing, top and bottom. Border patrol has their photos, everything. We covered our ass back and forth there. The chance they got out of the country without us knowing is slim,” Bill said.

I wasn’t exactly sold on the idea that the couple couldn’t get across undetected but decided to take Bill and Scott’s word for it that they’d notified everyone and done everything in their power to get the information needed to the responsible parties.

“Okay, so what exactly do we have as far as support going on right now?” I asked.

“We have the couple’s faces on every damn news channel across the US. Our tip line is funneling the calls that come in through local offices, and anything that needs to be investigated further is being looked into locally and reported to us. We have the twins digging in on any and all video footage, traffic cams in the areas, things like that. They’re also trying to get anything possible on the woman that we don’t already have. As far as boots on the ground, every local branch is at our disposal, as well as, I’d imagine, whatever help we need from local law enforcement. All local branches of the Bureau that have air support will lend it, and for those that don’t have it where we need it, we can turn to local law enforcement for help.”

“What can we do actionable, right now?” Beth asked.

Bill and Scott were silent.

In the RV, Nick and Molly headed west on I-80. Barely an hour had passed since they’d left the home of the old couple in a blaze. Nick was staring at the RV’s fuel gauge, and the warning light illuminated. Whether Molly had torched the couple’s house or not, they would be ditching the RV within the hour—they were almost out of gas.

“Hand me that map, babe,” Nick said. He looked into the rearview mirror to see Molly pulling herself up from the flowered couch of the fifteen-year-old, thirty-seven-foot RV. She walked toward the front and plopped down in the front passenger seat. Molly reached into the passenger door’s side pocket, pulled out the map of RV attractions and held it out to Nick.

He pushed it back toward her. “Open it up and find that RV park again. I need to see if we even have enough gas to get there. We’re getting pretty low. If we can’t make it, we may have to find something closer.”

“Why don’t we just stop and fill up?” she asked.

“Other than the fact that we’d be wasting our money on fuel, gas stations have cameras. They also have bright lights and countless people who can identify us. We stick with the plan. Wherever we run out of gas, we pick up a new vehicle and go. It’s worked so far—no reason to do anything different now.”

“Are we going to get a new RV at this place?” Molly asked. She unfolded the map and spread it out in her lap.

“If we can get there.”

“What if we can’t? I’m really liking this being able to lounge around.”

“If we can’t, we’ll dump this thing, grab a car, and then go to the RV park. We’ll get one overnight.”

“Cool,” Molly said.

“Well?” Nick asked.

Molly pointed at the RV campground they’d decided on. “Um, looks like it’s about forty miles yet.”

“Forty?”

Molly looked over at him. “Yeah.”

Nick stared at the gas gauge. The needle was a hair from empty.

“We ain’t going to make it,” he said. “We need to ditch this thing and get something else. Sooner rather than later. I don’t want to be sitting here on the interstate in it. Start watching for exits that look like there is some action going on. We don’t want a gas station, but maybe some kind of big parking lot would do—a mall maybe.” As soon as the words came out of Nick’s mouth, he saw a blue sign that said Rest Stop One Mile. “Forget it.”

“Rest stop?” Molly asked. “Are we going to do the same thing we did last time?”

“Same exact thing. Risky during the day, but we don’t have an option here. We need to park this thing and find us some different wheels before we can’t.”

“Whatever you think, baby. I trust you.”

Nick checked the mirror on the right side of the RV and put on his turn signal to get into the far-right lane. He took the exit for the rest stop, slowed, and turned into the lot for semis and buses. The lot only had three rigs parked, and Nick found a spot and shut down the RV.

He unclipped his seatbelt and looked over at Molly. “We’re going to head over to the car lot. We do it just like we did the guy from Jackson.”

“Make them drive?” Molly asked.

Nick nodded.

“Use the RV map. We’ll need it anyway.”

“Okay,” she said.

The two got out of the RV and headed for the main building and the parking lot for cars located on the other side. Molly and Nick slowed as they approached the corner.

“Right there. What about him?” Molly asked. She pointed to a sixty-some-year-old man taking his dog from the rear of his car.

The man was a little larger than Nick would have liked and could probably still put up a bit of a fight if he was so inclined. The dog was some form of small breed that wouldn’t be a factor. The guy wore a pair of blue jeans and a tan zip-up hooded sweatshirt. Wrapped around his gray-hair covered head was a golf visor.

“Shit,” Nick said. “Just missed him.”

The guy walked the dog over to the grass of the rest stop. He drove a new white hybrid with out-of-state license plates. The car was parked closer to the area for relieving pets than it was the main building. Nick looked back and forth for anyone else that might be an easier mark—he spotted no one. The man in the hybrid would have to do.

“Okay, as soon as he comes back to the car, go,” Nick said. “Tell him you’re lost and you don’t know how to read a map. Play stupid. Then try handing the RV map to him. I’ll come as soon as he unfolds it.”

“Okay,” Molly said.

The pair stood at the corner of the building and watched the man walk his dog back and forth across the grass, trying to will the dog to do its business. The second the dog was finished, the man headed back toward the car.

“Now, go,” Nick said.

Molly started toward the man and his car. She pulled her hair back and tied it with a rubber band.

Nick stood and watched as Molly approached within twenty feet of the guy.

“Excuse me, sir?” she said.

The man looked like he was going to help. Nick watched Molly hand the man the map and the man unfold it and spread it across the hood of his car. Nick let out a hard breath and walked toward the two. He reached into the back of his waistline, pulled his weapon, and kept it close to his hip. Nick walked directly to Molly’s side at the front of the vehicle.

“This is my boyfriend, Matt,” Molly said.

“Helping her out?” Nick asked.

“Well, trying to.” The man pulled the golf visor from his head and then snugged it back down. “Where are you headed?”

Nick stepped directly to his side and jammed the barrel of the gun into the man’s ribs.

The man took a step away from Nick and looked down. A look of shock crossed his face as he laid eyes on the pistol. Nick glanced at Molly to see her showing the man her revolver in her waistline.

“Now, don’t say a word,” Nick said. “Put the dog in the backseat with my girl. I’m getting in the passenger side. You get behind the wheel and drive. You do what we say, and you live.”

The man said nothing.

Nick looked the man dead in the face. “I’ve killed two people today, and unless you want to be the third for standing there like an idiot, I suggest you get that little rat of a dog in the back and get your ass behind that wheel. Move.”

The man held his palms out toward Nick. “Okay, just relax. I’ll do what you say.”

“I know,” Nick said.

“Cool, a hybrid. I’ve never been in one of these,” Molly said. She looked left to right, searching for anyone watching. The few cars in the distance seemed to just be parked, their owners in the wayside. Molly got in.

The man set the dog in the back seat next to her and took his seat behind the wheel. Nick sat in the passenger seat.

“Drive. Loop around over to the semi lot,” Nick said.