Mindhunters 4 - Deadly Intent (39 page)

He looked at Travis, and the man held up his hands. “Don’t look at me. Like I told you yesterday, I’m not an outdoorsman. Who has the time, right? There are dozens of remote areas in the state where the girl could be stashed, if . . .” He left the rest of the words unuttered, but Macy understood his meaning.

If she were still alive.

“But not all them are in the vicinity of the crime. And I’m still betting on him remaining in the same area. He hasn’t moved out of this locale yet.” Kell punctuated his words by tracing along the spots they suspected Dodge had been. “So maybe we need to spend some time going over crimes reported for Denver and the outlying areas.”

“We’ve got two days until the ransom is due.” Finishing his coffee, the CBI agent got up and reached for the carafe to pour himself more. “We wouldn’t be able to collect all the information in that amount of time, much less pore over it.”

“Quinn’s death was on the crime blotter in the tip I . . . that Raiker got,” Kell corrected his near slip smoothly. “The discovery of Hubbard’s body was fed into Coplink.”

Travis eyed him suspiciously. “How do you know about Coplink?”

In an effort to distract the man, Macy put in, “What might seem a routine B and E could yield clues if we found, for instance, that only a girl’s clothing was stolen.” The warmth from the coffee mug was welcome, so she kept her hands wrapped around it. “Or maybe a key is missing to a couple’s ski lodge.” She looked at Kell soberly. “But Dan’s right. We’re running out of time.”

He pushed away from the table. “All the more reason to mention all this to Raiker so he and Assistant Director Whitman can prioritize.”

“And in the meantime?” Travis’s reminder of their timeline had frustration sounding in her voice.

Burke flipped through some pages of his legal pad, studying it. “The estate is located in Jefferson County. Hubbard’s body was also found there. I know of a B and E in Summit County, a rape that occurred in Grand, and an armed robbery of a gas station in Clear Creek County.”

“Hard to believe Dodge took time away from the task at hand to commit any of those crimes,” Travis observed. He picked up a menu. “Are we going to eat while we’re here?”

“Good idea. Let’s get something to go.” Kell stood up, taking out his cell phone. “I’ll check in with Raiker while you order. I need to update him on what we discovered about Quinn anyway.” He was already walking away when he called over his shoulder, “Get me a double cheeseburger. Hold the onions.”

“Where the hell have you been? I’ve called twice.”

The recorder the caller was using didn’t mask the lethal tone. Vincent Dodge stared out the window at the trees crowding the cabin and couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“Accidentally shut the ringer off,” he lied. The noise behind him had him swinging around, gaze narrowing.

The fucking kid didn’t know when to quit. She was rocking back on the stool and letting it come down to the floor each time with a thud. Like the noise could alert the person on the other end of this line.

She didn’t know that person was the only one as interested as him in seeing her dead.

He had the outerwear stripped off her and she was duct taped to a stool in front of the wood burner, thawing out nicely. It was best to get the blood warm and flowing before he went to work on her. It wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying without an arterial gush when he decided to quit playing with her and finish it.

“I thought you were a professional. Amateurish mistakes like that aren’t acceptable. Now I’m behind schedule, because you can’t follow fucking directions.”

Vincent remained silent. His employer would really rage if he knew what had actually transpired. Not that he gave a damn about the man’s
schedule
, but there was his reputation to consider. In his line of work, he survived on word of mouth.

So he made an effort at a conciliatory tone. “Sorry about that. What did you want?”

“Fuck, I should have taken care of this myself.”

Derision filled him. If the person on the other end of the call had the balls to do so, he wouldn’t have hired Vincent in the first place. In his experience, there were a lot of people who wanted murder committed, but few who had the stomach for it.

It had never bothered Vincent. It was, in fact, his only real strength.

But the next words managed to shock him. “I’ll need to deliver proof of life in my next communication with the parents. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.” Proof of life. Shit. Had things worked out differently, he could have screwed himself out of the second half of his fee. He was used to delivering proof of death, not of life.

He walked over to the chair. The kid’s eyes were wide, not with fear this time, but defiance. Dumb bitch. The next time she rocked back, he kicked the stool over. Something approaching amusement flickered inside him when the chair went down hard, her head bouncing against the floor.

“What was that?”

“Tree branch hit the shelter. No big deal.”

“Go get a daily paper.
USA Today
would be best. Don’t pick up something local, for God’s sake. Get a shot of the kid holding it, and get plenty close so you can see her face and the date. Have her read from a story on the front page so the parents will know the newspaper isn’t faked.”

He stared at the kid, lying motionless on the floor now. She looked a little worse for wear after her adventure in the outdoors. There was a bruise on her face, some scrapes on her legs, and her wrists were scabbed.

Giving a mental shrug, he figured that would just make better viewing. Lucky he hadn’t killed her yet. That would have fucked up this man’s plans even more.

“Send me the file recording when you finish. I want it in an hour’s time.”

That got his attention. “What? That’s impossible. I’m not in downtown Denver, you know. I don’t even know how far I’m going to have to go to find a damn paper.”

“That’s your problem. You would have had more time if you’d answered the goddamned phone. You can’t afford another mistake. Don’t make one.”

He checked his watch, swore. He was going to have to haul ass down this fucking mountainside. Drag the sled out of its hiding place. And drive who the hell knew how long to find that damn paper.

“After you finish, sit tight with the girl until you get my next call. She stays alive until I give the word, do you understand?”

“Better than you think.” The call was disconnected then and he looked at the phone for a moment. He knew something the man on the other end wasn’t considering.

There was no way in hell he’d know one way or another exactly when the kid was killed.

Crossing over to the stool, he righted it before dragging it across the floor to her bedroom. He checked her bonds to be sure they were secure and went back for the tape. With quick, deft movements, he fastened the legs of the stool to the cot and then for good measure looped a couple more lengths around her to the frame.

Squatting down in front of her, he tipped her chin up with his hand, his touch almost gentle. “You got a stay of execution, kid. Know what that means? You die tonight instead of right now.” He rose, already mentally preparing for the ride ahead. “Enjoy your last few hours.”

The Summit County General Store was on the corner of Highway Six and nowhere. But the parking lot outside the structure was still filled with a half a dozen SUVs and a couple pickups. Macy figured that meant business was brisk.

When they walked inside, the elderly man behind the counter looked up. “Be with you folks in a jif.” Travis and Kell approached the counter, but she was content to look around first.

The merchandising was a cross between a 7-Eleven and Cabela’s. Coolers stocked with milk, soft drinks, and beer lined the back walls. There were guns, hunting knives, and ammunition locked up behind a glass case on another wall. Outerwear in all sizes was crammed on racks scattered throughout the space. Another wall held shelves of Colorado souvenirs and, oddly enough, a selection of chocolates. A large bulletin board next to the entrance was covered with for-sale bulletins and business cards.

Apparently the place was meant to provide one-stop shopping.

When the customers headed for the exit, she joined Kell and Dan at the counter.

“That’s right, I’m the owner,” the man was saying. “Kevin McLellan. Been here since the birth of the Rockies. That’s the mountains, not the baseball team.”

It was difficult to resist the smile he aimed at them, delivered beneath a drooping mustache as white as the hair on his head. Macy didn’t even try.

“Agent Travis, CBI.” Identification was presented, but the agent got no further before McLellan’s gaze went wide.

“CBI? And here I didn’t think my little break-in was going to get any attention. Deputy Edmonds sure didn’t seem too worked up about it. Course it takes a lot to light a fire under him. Often thought his wife should give him a hotfoot every morning, just to put some spark in the man.”

“Would you mind running through the details?” Kell asked.

“Well, it’s all in the report. Two nights ago someone broke in here and stole nearly a thousand dollars worth of equipment. Edmonds said it was probably kids, which I’m here to tell you is a bunch of bullshit. I’ve been in business fifty years, and that’s long enough to know kids would have checked the register, and then taken beer and guns. I don’t mind telling you, Edmonds would never have gotten on in the department if his wife wasn’t cousin to the sheriff.”

“So no beer or guns were taken?” Patiently, Kell led him back to the statement.

“Told him they weren’t. It was a pair of snow pants, coat, gloves, hat, face mask, snowshoes, and backpack.” As an afterthought he added, “Oh, and he smashed that case over there to take a knife.”

Macy caught Travis’s expression. She tended to believe his obvious conclusion that they were wasting their time here. “Pretty specific list.”

“What kind of knife?” Kell asked him.

McLellan rounded the corner, surprisingly spry for his years. “Show you.” He stopped in front of the case. “Actually got a glass company out here for the repair work almost as quick as Edmonds was to take the report. That has to be a first.” He tapped the glass. “It’s was a Browning big-game knife. A beauty, too. Bastard took the most expensive model I had.”

“And he took nothing else?”

The bell on the door rang, and McLellan craned his neck to see who it was as he answered Kell’s question. “Nope. I keep pretty good records of the inventory, but I’m not going to lie and say I’d know if he grabbed a candy bar on his way out.”

“How’d he get in?”

“Back entrance. Would you fellows excuse me for a moment?” As if remembering her presence, he looked quickly at Macy. “Ma’am?”

“No problem.”

He strode to the door and exchanged good-natured insults with the newcomer, who was obviously known to him.

“There’s nothing for us here,” Travis muttered, even as Kell started off toward the back entrance. “Someone went shopping for some new winter gear. Snowmobiler, maybe. Or a hunter.”

Macy was inclined to agree. “We may as well head over to check out the gas station robbery.”

“Better to stop at the sheriff’s office first. We can read the report in half the time it takes a witness to tell the story.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” She looked up at McLellan’s delighted voice. “I have to see this.” Curious, she trailed him and the newcomer to the door to peer out at what they were admiring in the back of a red pickup.

Then wrinkled her nose when she recognized it. The carcass of a mountain lion was in the bed of the truck. Although she knew many people who enjoyed the thrill of hunting, she didn’t pretend to understand their passion for shooting beautiful animals.

“I think we’re done here.” She started at Kell’s voice close to her ear. And mentally damned the zing of warmth that zipped down her spine in response. “What’s that all about?”

Grateful to have something else to focus on, she moved away imperceptibly, eager to put some distance between them. “One less mountain lion to threaten humanity.”

He sent her a sideways glance. “Not a hunting enthusiast, I take it.”

“I’d be out of place in this culture,” she admitted. Pushing out the door, she descended the steps, taking pains not to glance toward the pickup again.