Finders/Keepers (An Allie Krycek Thriller, Book 3) (9 page)

“
B
abysitting never used
to be this hard,” Dwight said. “You know how many hiccups we’ve had since we started this gig?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Allie asked.

“One. A big ol’ once-o. You wanna guess when that was?”

She didn’t bother replying this time and instead unzipped her jacket halfway down to let the cool air in. It felt good to be outside again, maybe because she had spent too much of the day locked inside a car with two men she wanted to kill so badly.

“Tonight,” Dwight said, and smiled at her, though there was little charm in it. “I told him we should have gone with someone else—maybe even skip the mother hen this time—but he insisted Juliet’s recommendation could be trusted. It’s a weakness of his; Reese can sometimes be too loyal for his own good.”

“And here I thought loyalty was a good thing.”

“Not in this business, Alice in Wonderland. In this business, loyalty gets you screwed in the front and back.”

“Sounds painful.”

“It is, believe me.”

“Are we talking from personal experience here?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“What exactly have I done that makes you think I shouldn’t be trusted, Dwight?”

“Besides the fact I’ve never seen or heard of you until you slipped into our car?”

“Besides that.”

He shrugged. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

“Are you worried I’m going to try to take Reese from you?”

“I don’t fuck the guy, I just work with him.”

“Hey, what the two of you do between the sheets is your business.”

He grunted but otherwise didn’t take her bait.

She kept her eyes fixed forward, even though it was difficult to ignore his presence leaning against the side of the car next to her. There were just the two of them at the moment, and she ran the odds through her head for the fifth time in as many minutes: If she went for the holstered gun behind her back right now, could he react in time? At this range, it would take a miracle to miss Dwight’s big head.

Bright headlights washed over her as another semitrailer pulled into the truck stop and went in search of an empty spot among the well-lit gas pumps. They were far enough from the bright lights at the center of the wide-open parking lot that they could have passed for Peeping Toms watching the rest of the world go about their business.

It wasn’t hard to pick out Reese as he emerged from the main store next to the pumps. He was the only tall man in a black suit and black tie, and he stood out among the truckers in jeans and weary travelers stopping for some gas and food. He dodged the fleet of parked vehicles and jogged his way back to them, slipping in and out of the bright pools of light. New cars were entering the lot, while others left, every other minute.

The black and red semi, with Sara and the others inside, was parked thirty yards to her right, nestled among truckers who had decided to shut down for the night. The vehicle and its contents were so close and yet so far away.

You should have saved them back at the drive-in movie. You blew your best chance.

Maybe she had, and maybe she didn’t. She was only sure of one thing at the moment: She was still alive, and so were Sara and the other girls, and her chances of locating Faith remained in play. It was still a long shot—when had it been anything but?—but a long shot was better than no shot at all.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

Reese finally reached them, swinging a plastic bag in one hand. He was breathing noticeably hard from the long jog across the parking lot.

“Listen to you, all out of breath,” Dwight said.

“We should have parked closer,” Reese said.

“No, you just need to work out more.”

“That too.”

Reese dug out a wrapped sandwich and bottle of water and handed them to Allie. He took out another sandwich and bottle for himself before surrendering the rest of the bag to Dwight, who put it on the hood and fished out a large can of Red Bull.

She took one bite from her sandwich, decided she liked the chicken salad, and took another one. She was swallowing when a station wagon entered the lot, and as it drove past her, Allie saw a bored teenage girl in the back staring out at her, and suddenly the sandwich didn’t taste nearly as good anymore. She forced the piece she’d already bitten off down anyway, but she might as well be swallowing rocks.

“Not good?” Reese asked.

He had leaned against the car next to her, taking Dwight’s place after the other man had wandered off to sit on the hood, facing away from them.

“It wouldn’t have been my first choice,” she said.

“Should have come inside with me and picked for yourself.”

“What else is on the menu?”

“Too many to list. It’s not a bad setup, actually. The diner next door is packed.”

It’s not the food, it’s the company
,
she thought, but said, “Chicken salad’s fine,” and took a third bite and forced it down, too.

Reese unwrapped his Sloppy Joe and took a big chomp, then smiled blissfully. “Good stuff. I don’t think I’ve found it anywhere outside the States. Could be wrong on that front, of course. It’s not like I’ve been everywhere.”

“I don’t know how you can eat that slop,” Dwight said. He was sniffing the air, not bothering to turn around.

“What’s more American than Sloppy Joes?” Reese said as a chunk of ground beef and strips of onion fell from the buns—not that he seemed to notice. Instead, he took another huge bite.

“What about the girls?” she asked. “You wanted me to check on them earlier.”

“Not here,” Reese said. He wiped at his mouth with a napkin. “Too many people. Too many cameras. You can check on them when we’re swapping vehicles later.”

“Which is when, exactly?”

“We’re in uncharted territory, which unfortunately means things will happen when they happen.” He took out his cell phone and placed it on the hood between them. “Until then, we’ll push on ahead to the alternate location. If we’re fortunate, the new Vanguard will beat us there with new vehicles.”

“But they’re late.”

“They’re late,” he nodded. “They shouldn’t be, but they are.”

“This night just keeps getting better and better,” Dwight said from the front of the car.

“We’ve dealt with problems before.”

“Not shoot-two-troopers-dead problems.”

“Yes, well, what’s that you like to say? If it were easy, then anyone could do it.”

Dwight harrumphed
but didn’t say anything.

Reese went back to finishing his Sloppy Joe and wiping his fingers on the napkin while she did her best to ignore the aroma of beef and onions coming from him. Dwight seemed content to drink his Red Bull and stare off at nothing in particular on the other side of the car. Allie was grateful for the silence, with the only noises coming from the vehicles entering and leaving the truck stop around them—

A
buzzing
sound coming from the vibrating phone on the hood of the car next to her ruined all of that.

Reese picked up the phone and answered it without bothering to look at the number. “Yes.” He listened for a moment, then said, “That’s unfortunate.”

Dwight hopped off the hood and looked expectantly over, but didn’t interrupt.

“All right. Keep me updated,” Reese said, and put the phone back into his jacket pocket.

“Let me guess: More hiccups?” Dwight asked.

“It would appear so,” Reese said. He opened his bottle of water and took a slow, measured drink. She couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose while he searched for the right words to explain the call or if the man really was just
that
unflappable despite what had just been, apparently, more bad news.

“Well, what the fuck did they say?” Dwight said impatiently. “Are they coming or not?”

“They are…eventually,” Reese said. “The state police started putting up road blocks along the interstate. They’re searching for Vanguard’s van and, apparently, also focusing on semitrailers now. It looks like they’re going to be delayed for an unspecified amount of time.”

Lucy.

It had to be. Somehow, Lucy had convinced someone in the state police to add hauling trucks to their searches. The only way she would be able to achieve that was…

Hank Pritchard.

What other explanation was there? Who else could get law enforcement to expand their search? Someone had to have informed them, and there were only two people who knew—she and Lucy. Allie didn’t think the teenager had a chance in hell of convincing the authorities, especially over the phone. But someone like Pritchard, who had a history with them…

It had been a long shot
(So what else is new today?)
when she had quickly scribbled the number onto an order slip and sneaked it into the retired statey’s pocket while she was searching him for a cell phone. But she’d be damned if it hadn’t paid off. Hank Pritchard wasn’t just an ex-trooper; he had a long and distinguished career until his retirement six years ago. Even so, she hadn’t counted on anything coming from it and had all but assumed there was an injured old man out there somewhere trying to figure out why someone had slipped a phone number into his pocket.

So what else were Hank and Lucy doing right now? Even more importantly, how was she going to use all of this to her advantage?

Allie sneaked a look at the red and black semitrailer partially hidden in shadows next to them. It hadn’t moved since the last time she looked, and it wouldn’t until Reese made a decision about how to proceed.

Hold on, Sara. Hold on just a little longer…

“When it rains shit, it pours poop,” Dwight was saying.

“Colorful,” Reese said. He crumpled up his sandwich wrapper and flicked it into the bag sitting on the hood behind him.

Jesus Christ, he’s calm.

“So I guess this means the authorities know what we have in there,” Dwight said, jerking his head at the semi.

“That seems likely.”

“That means it won’t be long before
they
know, too.”

“Again, very likely, yes.”

Allie didn’t have to ask who “they” were. Dwight and Reese were talking about their employers. The men behind all of this. The men who would have the information she needed to find Faith. At least, that was her hope, because if there wasn’t, then it would mean all of this would be for nothing.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

She looked over at the semi and tried to imagine Sara and the twenty-two others in there, huddled in the darkness, already hungry after their last (and only) meal earlier today. She glanced down at the half-eaten sandwich in her hand and wanted to vomit it all back up.

What to do, what to do?

Sara and the others were here, right now. Meanwhile, Faith might
be at the other side of this trip.

Might.
Might.

She had promised the girl’s mother. She had given her word.

But one was here, and one was
(maybe)
out there, somewhere. No, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t one that was here, it was
twenty-three
lost, stolen souls.

You know what you have to do, don’t you?

So
do it.

No more excuses. No more excuses…

“Gonna get real tricky from here on out,” Dwight was saying, his voice bringing her back to the shadowy edge of the truck stop parking lot. “Not that it wasn’t real tricky already, mind you, but it just got much, much trickier.”

“We can handle it,” Reese said.

“Not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“The point is, this was supposed to be an easy gig. In and out. Collect money at the end of the rainbow. Head to Vegas. Get a high-priced escort and a suite, and if all goes well, blow the whole thing at the tables. You know, the usual.”

Reese smiled. “That’s not my usual.”

“I mean the usual for someone who knows how to have a good time. You were automatically exempted.”

“Good to know.” He looked over at her. “You’re being very quiet, Alice.”

“I have to go to the ladies’ room,” Allie said.

Dwight chuckled. “Sounds like one of your plans, Reese. Full of piss and shit.”

Reese ignored his partner and said to her, “So go.”

She looked over at Dwight, expecting him to protest, but he only shrugged back at her. “What, you want me to hold your hand while you do your business?”

“If you insist.”

“Ask nicely, and I might think about it.”

“Maybe next time,” she said, and pushed off the car and began walking away.

“Promises, promises,” Dwight said after her.

She could feel eyes on her—maybe Reese’s, maybe Dwight’s, maybe both of them. She kept moving, forcing her legs to stride at a normal pace—one after another after another. Every part of her being wanted to pick up her speed; after that, it wouldn’t be difficult to transition into a jog before finally slipping into a fast run toward the bright lights.

“Alice,” Reese called from behind her.

She stopped and looked back at him.

“Grab me an extra bottle of water, would you?” he said.

“Anything else, master?”

He smiled. “No, that’ll do for now. Thanks much.”

“What about you?” she asked Dwight.

“Another Red Bull wouldn’t hurt,” Dwight said.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

She turned around and resumed walking toward the lights.

Keep walking, girl. That’s it. You’re doing fine. Now just pretend like your insides aren’t so twisted into knots that you can barely breathe and you’re either about to save twenty-three little girls or get them all killed, along with yourself in the process.

Yeah, no pressure.

“
A
llie Krycek
,” Jane said over the phone. “That’s how you spell her last name? K-r-y-c-e-k?”

“That’s what the kid says,” Hank said.

He did his best to keep the phone as close to his ear as possible without actually letting the device touch him. There were things—sticky, discolored things—smeared on the receiver that Hank would rather not think about, much less let come into contact with his skin. It wasn’t as if he was afraid of ruining his looks—hell, he was beyond that these days—but he wasn’t stupid, either.

If the motel manager noticed how carefully Hank was being with the phone, he didn’t show it, or care. Of course, getting a ten-dollar spot to use a landline that was covered in God only knew what was probably the best deal he’d made while manning the motel.

“Then I don’t have a lot on her,” Jane said.

“How’s that possible?” Hank asked.

“I looked, lieutenant. I ran her name through every database we’re connected to, and she comes out pretty clean.”

“No criminal records?”

“Not a one.”

“Military service?”

“Unless she changed her name, then nothing there, either.
Did
she change her name?”

“The kid says no.”

“Maybe she lied.”

“Maybe. I’ve just barely met her, so I don’t know what she’s capable of yet.”

There were voices on the other side of the connection, doors constantly opening and closing, and a general buzz of activity that never seemed to ebb for even a second. All those things told him that Jane was back in the office and not out there running the roadblocks. Which made sense. Jane was a detective now, not a uniformed trooper. She’d be more valuable coordinating the action from headquarters.

That feeling of pride bubbled to the surface again, and Hank smiled dumbly across at the manager, who gave him a weird look before returning his attention to the game show playing on a TV in the corner of the room.

“So what
did
you manage to dig up on her?” he said into the phone.

“There is something odd about her records,” Jane said.

“Odd how?”

“She shows up from the time she was born to when she moves out to southern California for school, followed by graduation. After that, there’s a lot of temp work and some waitressing gigs. A few more stable ones every now and then, but they never last. Her tax returns indicate she kept changing jobs. Either she had a really rough time holding onto them, or she was only taking jobs where she could leave at a moment’s notice. You know what the pattern suggests to me?”

“What’s that?”

“That she’s an actor or a singer.”

“The Allie Krycek the kid’s telling me about isn’t an actor or a singer.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what I’m seeing here. Entertainer types. They do temp jobs where they can leave to go on auditions or take work as the opportunity comes up.”

“Okay, so this is all after graduation?”

“Uh huh.”

“That happens,” he said. “Kids don’t know what to do even with a pigskin. They sometimes wander around looking for themselves or some other abstract shit.”

“I would agree with that assessment, except about five years ago the woman pretty much vanishes.”

“How does someone just vanish?”

“Good question. The IRS seemed to lose track of her and there are no more city, state, or government records of her anywhere. It’s as if someone just took a magic eraser and wiped everything away that has to do with Allie Krycek, starting five years ago.”

“We’re kind of independently wealthy,”
Lucy had told him.
“Well, Allie is, anyway. We don’t need the money.”
And when he asked how wealthy, the girl had answered,
“Enough that we can get information we’re not supposed to have.”

Hank wondered if being “independently wealthy” meant Allie Krycek could hire the same people who got her information she wasn’t supposed to have to also erase information she didn’t want others to find on her.

Must be nice to have cash lying around.

“Lieutenant, you still there?” Jane asked.

“I’m here.”

“That’s all I have on Krycek. Sorry.”

“Did she have a sister?”

“She did, but she passed.”

“So it’s not Lucy?”

“You said Lucy was sixteen?”

“That’s what she told me.”

“Well, does she look sixteen?”

Hank thought about it, then said, “I think so, yeah.”

“Then she’s not the sister. The girl I’m looking at died over a decade ago, when she was nineteen. Her story’s all on paper.”

“What did you find on her?”

“Her name was Carmen, and she was abducted while on a cross-country road trip by someone called the Roadside Killer. Ever heard of him?”

“No. Should I have?”

“Not really. He did most of his work up north, never got close to us. Some national news coverage, but nothing that stuck. You know how it goes. Anyway, he killed the little sister and a few others.”

“How is Krycek involved?”

“I don’t think she was. Or, at least, I don’t see any involvement by her in any of the files. I guess you could call the states where this happened and ask them. I don’t have time to do that right now, Hank.”

“Maybe I’ll do that later.” He let the information roll around in his head for a moment before saying into the phone, “What about the kid? Lucy?”

“There is no Lucy Krycek. Are you sure her last name’s Krycek?”

“No.”

“So you don’t know.”

“She never told me her last name.”

“I can’t really do much with just a first name, Hank. You know that. Can you at least get me a picture of her? I could run that through the system.”

“I don’t think she’s going to let me take a picture just so I can do a background check on her.”

“Then my hands are tied on the kid.”

“It was a Hail Mary pass anyway,” Hank said. “So what’s going on with the roadblocks?”

“Slow, and dull, and uneventful,” Jane said. “We haven’t come up with anything, and adding semitrailers to the search has just about shut everything down to a crawl. Hank, there are a
lot
of those bastards running around out there. I was thinking about getting them to expand it, start going into the truck stops, but they’re already looking at me funny, and I can’t keep telling them I’m getting tips from a CI. But I was thinking, what if you let me tell them it’s you…?”

“That’s going to hurt your cause more than help it, Jane,” he said, and just saying it caused his blood to boil.

“It might still be worth a shot,” Jane said.

He wasn’t sure if she was saying that for his benefit or if she really believed it. But how could she? She knew, more than anyone, the situation in which he had left the job. It hadn’t been pretty, and it certainly as hell hadn’t been voluntary.

“No,” he said.

“Why not?”

“You’ve worked too hard to get this far, kid. Don’t blow it by getting my stink anywhere close to you. Don’t tell them it was me.”

She sighed, and he thought he could even hear her frustration through the line. That, again, made him smile with pride.

“I gotta go, Hank,” Jane said. “They’re waving me to the office.”

“Did something pop?”

“I don’t know, but everyone’s converging. I’ll talk to you soon!” she said, and hung up on him.

Hank pulled the phone away and stared at it. The desire to be there, in the thick of all of the chaos, made him grind his teeth.

Christ, he missed it. After all these years, after all the endless boozing sessions where he cursed everyone involved in his exit from the job, he still missed it in every part of his bones.

“You done?” the manager asked from the other side of the counter.

“Yeah,” he said, and hung up the phone.

K
ent Whitman’s
good stuff was starting to wear off, so Hank had to double the dose. It worked like a charm, and he barely had a limp as he walked. The downside was that adding an extra pill made him drowsier faster. Of course, it probably didn’t help that it was just an hour before ten, which was about an hour later than his usual bedtime these days. Oh, who was he kidding? He didn’t have anything as respectable as a curfew; it almost always depended on whether he had found himself a nice full bottle to accompany him or not.

Still, the headlights of oncoming vehicles from the other side of the road seemed to be growing in size and he was pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to be normal. The steering wheel was slightly heavier than he remembered, and although he wasn’t aware of it, the Bronco kept picking up speed and he had to keep telling himself to ease his foot off the pedal.

“You okay?” Lucy asked from the front passenger seat. Her head was tilted slightly, and it was obvious she’d been observing him for some time now without him being aware of it. The kid was either very sly or he was just not paying attention.

“Sure,” he said. “Why?”

“You look kind of weird.”

“Weird? Weird how?”

“I don’t know. Like you’re falling asleep.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, and picked up the new can of soda from the cup holder between them, then took a long drink. The taste was disgusting, but at least it was packing enough sugar to perk him up some. “It’s not going to poop in my truck, is it?”

The “it” was the dog, squatting in the backseat behind them. The big mutt seemed to know he was talking about it and actually looked in his direction for a few seconds before turning his attention back to the outside world of flashing white headlights and red taillights. The idea of a dog in his Bronco, without a leash—or hell, without anything for it to sit on, for that matter—made him a little uncomfortable, but the girl wouldn’t go anywhere without it.

“Apollo’s way more well-mannered than most people,” she said. “He lived in the city with Allie in her small apartment for years.”

“Just as long as it doesn’t drop a big one back there.”

“Nice image,” Lucy said and rolled her eyes.

He chuckled. “I’m just saying…”

“I didn’t know old people say that.”

“What?”

“‘I’m just saying.’ I thought that was a kid thing.”

“How old do you think I am, Lucy?”

“Old enough,” she said.

He grinned, because he didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t like she was wrong. He was old…enough.

Hank looked up at the rearview mirror at the dog. “What kind of breed is it, anyway?”

“You need to stop calling Apollo an ‘it,” Lucy said, sounding very annoyed with him.

He smiled. “My mistake. Him. He. What kind of breed is he?”

“I have no idea.”

“You don’t know?”

“Nope.”

“Didn’t it ever occur to you to find out?”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“I mean, what does it matter what kind of breed Apollo is? He’s a dog. He’s Apollo. That’s all that matters.”

“Where’d Allie find it—
him.
”

“He was living in the woods with some hunters. Allie never said, but I don’t think they treated him very well. Probably made him do a lot of bad things. Don’t let his puppy dog appearance fool you, though; Apollo’s way more dangerous than he looks.”

“Puppy dog appearance?”

“Doesn’t he look like a puppy?”

“Uh, no.”

He gave the dog another look. Apollo didn’t have any “puppy dog appearance” about him, but then again, it also didn’t look
too
dangerous right now either, unlike the first time he saw the animal.

I guess they were right; never judge a book by its cover. Or a dog.

“I haven’t seen any roadblocks so far,” Lucy said. “I thought your buddies were stopping cars all across the state?”

“You won’t see them because we haven’t crossed the state line yet. And given the direction where that van was headed, they’ll be setting shop mostly along the west end, not south where we are now.”

“Oh. Makes sense, I guess.” Then, “Thanks for bringing me with you. I was starting to feel useless back there.”

“Well, I couldn’t just let you stay at that motel all by yourself all night.”

“I wasn’t alone.”

“I know, I know, the dog.”

“I don’t know why you don’t like him. He likes you just fine.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, for one, he hasn’t tried to rip your throat out yet, and he’s usually pretty aggressive around people with guns.”

“Oh,” Hank said.

Behind him, the dog continued to perch, as if it was watching for unseen dangers outside the moving Bronco. Hank couldn’t decide if the girl’s stories about the dog ripping people’s throats out was real or just something she made up to toy with him. She was only sixteen years old, but he could tell Lucy had seen and done more than most kids her age. He had suspected that when they first met, and he was one-hundred percent sure of it now.

“You packed pretty light,” Hank said after a while.

She reached into her backpack sitting on the floor and pulled out her tablet. “This is the only thing I need.”

“What’s in the luggage we tossed into the back?”

“Clothes, but those can be replaced.” She tapped the device. “Well, you can replace this, too. Almost everything’s backed up to the cloud anyway.”

“The what?”

She gave him that familiar, almost pitying look. “I’ll explain it to you later. Where are we going anyway?”

That made him smile. “Took you a while to ask.”

“What can I say, I trust you.”

“You do?” he said, not able to hide his surprise.

“Allie did. She gave you my number. If she trusted you enough to do that, that’s good enough for me.”

Hank didn’t know if that should reassure or worry him that a stranger, a woman he didn’t know and hadn’t seen the face of before, trusted him enough to send him to a sixteen-year-old girl staying by herself at a motel in the next state over.

Well, that wasn’t true. Lucy hadn’t been really by herself.

He glanced up at Apollo in the rearview mirror. The animal didn’t look very dangerous, but then you never knew with dogs. He’d seen plenty of examples of how vicious they could be when they or their owners were threatened.

“To answer your question, I’m taking you to my place until Allie makes contact or Jane tells me it’s over,” Hank said.