The Depth of Darkness (Mitch Tanner #1) (11 page)

“No,” I finally relented.

“Okay, then. Let’s be smart about this. Wait
until those guys are in position and we have some backup squads
positioned at the end of this street as well as the parallel
streets.”

I started to walk back toward Huff and the
other two detectives. “How long till the backup squads get
here?”

“En route now, Tanner,” Huff replied in a
subdued manner while avoiding eye contact. “Be in position any
minute.”

“Okay,” I said, and then I pointed at Horace
and Fairchild. “Get those two in position.”

Huff nodded and gestured toward the street
that ran behind the house. “Get going you two. Let us know when
you’re about to breach the backyard.”

Both men shot me a look that said they wanted
to argue, but they bit their tongue and did what Huff told them.
Those guys weren’t dumb enough to bite the hand that fed them. I,
on the other hand, made it my goal in life.

“Get going,” Huff said to us. “You know the
drill from here out.”

We did, so we started moving. We didn’t
bother with the sidewalk, instead cutting across lawns to stay out
of view of the house. Angry faces watched us through drawn blinds
and open front doors. I could read their minds.
“What are these
two big dudes doing running through my lawn!”
Imagine their
surprise when we pulled our Glocks from our holsters.

“Stop,” Sam said, extending his arm out in
front of me like I was a little kid and he’d hit the brakes too
hard. “Wait for confirmation.”

“You know what I think of confirmation,
Sam?”

“I know, man. Doesn’t change anything though.
Be patient. Be one with the—”

Huff’s voice came over the radio, saving me
from the Tao of Sam. “Sam, Tanner, go now.”

“Works for me,” I said. I’d reached the porch
before Sam began moving. I wrapped my hand around the knob and gave
it a turn. To my surprise, I found it unlocked. I turned it all the
way and then pushed the door open an inch.

“Got you covered,” Sam said from behind
me.

I squatted and pushed the door open a bit
further. My pistol led the way from that point on. Working as a
team, we cleared the first room. From there we had two choices. It
looked like the kitchen was to the left, through the dining room.
In the open space before us was an empty great room with a hall
that I figured led to the bedrooms.

We heard a scream that came from the hallway.
Sounded female. A little girl had been taken. We didn’t bother to
check out the kitchen.

Sam relayed the development over the radio. I
expected Horace and Fairchild to burst through the sliding glass
door at the back of the house at any moment. They didn’t, at least
not at that point. We rushed down the darkened hallway. There were
three open doors and one closed one. We quickly cleared each room
in search of the children. I hoped we’d find both, and that they’d
be abandoned. Let us end their ordeal. All the rooms were empty,
though. We were faced with one final room. The one with the closed
door. Sam and I stood in front of it, shoulder to shoulder.

“On my count,” I whispered.

Sam nodded.

“One, two,” I didn’t get to three. Sam cut me
off and kicked the door open.

We found Assistant Principal McCree inside
the room. There weren’t any children in there, though. It turned
out the source of the scream had been a woman in her mid-twenties.
The owner of the Civic, I presumed. She laid on the bed, spread
eagle, naked, with McCree hovering over her.

“What the friggin’ hell!” McCree shouted as
he rose up and the woman rolled away from us toward the far side of
the bed.

“Stop right there!” Sam yelled.

The woman froze in place. She’d managed to
get herself tangled up in a satin sheet that covered half her round
ass. She burrowed her head underneath a pillow. Tufts of brown hair
stuck out and covered her neck and shoulders. McCree didn’t heed
Sam’s warning. Instead, the vice principal—and wouldn’t the parents
of the students love to know why he was absent on this of all days—
rose up and lunged toward Sam.

Bad move.

Former Army Ranger and all that.

McCree was about the same height as Sam,
although half the weight judging by his concave chest, narrow
shoulders and stringy arms. Sam nailed the guy in the solar plexus
with a left uppercut. McCree collapsed to the floor and balled up
into a fetal position. His face turned dark red, almost purple,
while he struggled to pull air into his lungs.

Sam knelt down beside the man and said, “One
single breath, man. Bet that’s all you want.”

I leaned out through the open doorway and
said, “We need a female officer in here now.”

A young female cop by the name of Marcy
Wiggins entered. I’d worked with her before on a handful of
occasions. Smart woman, very perceptive. Kind of lady that could go
far if she kept applying herself. She stepped over McCree and
walked around the bed. Her dark hands contrasted with the naked
woman’s pale skin.

“Bring her to the other room, Officer
Wiggins,” I said. “And find a robe or something for her to put
on.”

After Officer Wiggins and the woman had left
the room, Sam reached down and pulled McCree to his feet.

“Where are they?” Sam barked.

McCree had resumed breathing, although the
forced and ragged action left him unable to speak. At least, that’s
the way he made it seem.

“Answer me!” Sam pushed the guy down onto the
bed. McCree fell back, arms waving, overly dramatic.

“What are you talking about?” the man
asked.

Sam pulled his shoulders back. He towered
over McCree in this position. Quite intimidating. “I’m gonna give
you to the count of three and then you had better answer my
question.”

McCree started to pull himself backward on
the bed. He dug at his sheets and pushed his feet along the floor.
Sam took a step back and drew his pistol.

“Don’t you freaking move!” Sam shouted. He
was so good at this part. I knew that this wasn’t an act,
though.

McCree threw his hands up over his face.
“Please, I don’t know what is going on here.” The man started to
cry, and I believe he pissed himself.

“We need some gloves in here,” I said to
Officer Jennings. The baby-faced cop had just stepped into the
room. He shot me a nervous look before taking off down the hall in
search of the gloves I requested.

Sam took a deep breath. He shrugged his
shoulders and rolled his neck side to side. Part of this was for
show. I’d seen him do it before. But I knew that he was also trying
to calm himself down. We were all worked-up over this one. Anything
that led us one step closer to the children.

“Where are those kids, McCree?” Sam asked in
a subdued tone.

McCree pulled his hands to the side and
looked up at us. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sam leaned forward and placed his hands on
his knees, then said, “This morning, two children from your school
were abducted at gunpoint.”

“Oh my God.” McCree’s face went pale, maybe
even a little green. “No, not…”

“Not what?” Sam asked.

McCree shook his head and pressed his lips
tight. The color drained from them, too.

“Why didn’t you show up to school today,
McCree?” Sam said. “Where you been all morning?”

McCree looked between the two of us, but said
nothing. I shifted my gaze from the man to the wall behind him. A
framed Jack Vettriano painting hung there. I always wondered why
the artist never let you see the lady in red’s face.

“This is going to be easier if you
cooperate,” Sam said.

“Eat shit,” McCree said.

Sam lunged toward him. I noticed in time and
managed to get my hands on his shoulders. I wrangled him through
the bedroom door and out into the hallway.

“Keep an eye on him, Jennings,” I said. Then
I pulled Sam into the great room. “What the hell are you
doing?”

Sam looked away and said nothing.

“C’mon, man. It’s normally you keeping me in
check. I know you’re pissed. I am too. Believe me, I want nothing
more than to put the barrel of my Glock to his head and pull the
trigger. But that ain’t gonna do those kids no good. We need to get
some answers out of this guy. Breaking his jaw isn’t going to
help.”

Sam still said nothing, but he made eye
contact. His nostrils flared wide with each inhalation. I let a few
more seconds pass and he seemed to come down a notch.

“You got it? You ready to go?”

He turned his head toward the dim hallway and
nodded. “Let’s go back. I’m fine now.”

I stepped into the hallway first. Officer
Wiggins stood in the doorway of one of the other bedrooms. She held
up her hand and gestured for me to speak with her as we
approached.

“What is it?” I asked.

“According to the woman, her name is Laura
Weaver, they’ve been here since late last night. They never left.
Got drunk, slept in. Got up around seven-thirty. Made love. Napped.
They were at it again when you two barged in.”

“Who is she?” I asked.

“She’s a student teacher at the school.”

“Interesting.” I nodded and saw Sam do the
same.

“And they’ve been here all night?” Sam
said.

Wiggins nodded. “That’s what she says.”

“Nobody move,” I said, nodding at Sam. “Come
with me.”

“Where’re we going?” He asked as we stepped
through the great room toward the kitchen.

“Garage.”

“His truck?”

“Yeah.”

The first door I pulled open led to the
pantry. It was stocked with sugary cereal, bags of chips, and four
cases of soda. How the hell did that guy stay so thin?

Sam pulled the other door open. “In here,
Mitch.”

The smell of motor oil and gas reached me
before I turned around. I expected to see the single car garage
filled with a truck. Instead, it was empty. I stepped into the room
and looked around. First thing I noticed was a thick pool of oil in
the center of the floor. There were posters along the walls, girls
in bikinis on the hoods of cars or straddling motorcycles. A
pegboard mounted to the interior wall held his hand tools. It
appeared they were organized by size and purpose. Beneath the
pegboard was a custom workbench with a solid steel top and plenty
of drawers. I started looking through them, but found nothing of
importance.

“What you think?” Sam asked.

“I think we need to ask McCree about his
pickup truck.”

The smoothness of the road had given way to
bumps and bouncing. They must be on a dirt road or gravel driveway.
Debby didn’t dare open her eyes to verify. The
ping
sounds
she heard beneath her led her to believe it was gravel. Although,
dirt with rocks was a close second. She and Beans had been told to
keep their eyes and mouths shut. One peep out of them, and they’d
have hoods over their heads. That wouldn’t stop her from listening,
though. She’d seen a cop show or two on TV. Right now was about the
clues. And the clues would come from the men. Unfortunately, the
men didn’t speak at all aside from the occasional direction of turn
right or turn left.

They didn’t stay in the van for long. She
wasn’t sure where it happened, because there were no windows in the
back of that van, but they had pulled off the road. When they
opened the door, the bright sunlight blinded her. She stepped out
and saw tall bushes and trees surrounding them. There were empty
beer cans and cigarette butts on the ground. A couple dirty
magazines sat atop a bench made from a fallen tree. She thought it
might be the kind of place teenagers came to hang out. Maybe her
brother had frequented the area.

The men had led her and Beans to a big truck.
The entire passenger side of the cab opened up wide like a whale
ready to devour her. It was like a car in there, with a full
backseat. Nothing like the trucks she had seen before. One of the
men picked her up and placed her on the floor, then put Beans next
to her. They were to remain there for the rest of the trip.

Eyes and mouths shut.

What could she have seen from down there?

Now, Beans cried softly. She reached out her
hand and found his. His whimpers stopped. She heard him wheezing.
He needed to take a puff on his inhaler soon. She had to speak up
and tell the men, or Beans might die.

“He needs his inhaler,” she said quickly.

“Shut up,” one of the men said.

“He has asthma. He’ll die if he doesn’t get
his inhaler.”

“I’m gonna beat you,” the other man said.

Debby started to cry. “Please. Just let him
use his inhaler. He’s having trouble breathing.”

The man driving the car slammed on the
brakes. There was a soft skidding sound. Definitely dirt, she
thought. Her momentum shifted as the car stopped abruptly. She
rolled one way, then whipped back the other. A pain traveled
through her shoulder.

One of the front doors opened. She pressed
her eyelids together even tighter. A burst of air swirled around
her as her door opened. She felt hands on her legs, pulling her
from the truck. Next thing she knew, she was placed against the
frame of the vehicle. She felt tiny knives penetrate her eyes
through shut lids. She figured she faced the sun. Her feet dangled
in the air.

“Look at me!” the man shouted.

She opened her eyes. After she got past the
sun-blindness, she realized that she sort of recognized the man. It
wasn’t the guy who’d taken Beans from the recess yard. She figured
this guy had been the one driving. He’d had on a ski mask when she
first saw him. But now without the mask and in the light, he looked
familiar, although she couldn’t place him. She noticed a dull ache
behind her eyes and on her head around the spot where she had hit
the other man’s hip earlier that day. The edge of her vision felt
watery.