Stolen Innocents (The Shadow Series Book 2) (35 page)

“Tell me now and tell me straight. What the hell is Angie O’Mara up to?”

***

“Slam the gas! Were losing sight of them!” yelled Bridgette as she clutched her arm.

“I’m doing seventy-seven miles per hour!”

“Go faster! This bitch isn’t hurting anyone else. Tonight or any other night!”

“Hold tight,” Tristan said with a serious look in her eye.

The van barrelled through the forest at breakneck speed. Tristan pressed the gas pedal and put Jack’s truck into four wheel drive as they crossed from the gravel road onto the dirt ground of the forest.

“Where the hell is she taking her?!” yelled Bridgette as she reached over to honk the horn several times.

“Pull over, psycho!” Bridgette screamed at the van which was now just ten feet in front of them. Now barreling down a hill, Tristan knew exactly where she was.

“I know where she’s taking her.”

“I don’t even know where the hell we are. I can’t see a thing!”

“Wilhamette. She’s going into the mine.”

Bridgette’s face was wiped clean of emotion.

“You’ve got to be kidding me?!”

“I wish I was.”

“That mine stretches for miles. It branches off into many different tunnels. She can hide really easily in there.”

“Relax. I have a plan.”

The black van wound tightly around the mountainside and Tristan followed close behind, mocking the van’s every tilt and turn. Tristan smiled darkly as the van stormed through the barricade that covered the entrance of the mine at Wilhamette. She glanced over at her aunt and they exchanged a knowing look.

“Pull that mirror in and strap in,” said Tristan with a dangerous edge to her voice.

Bridgette’s eyes went wide as her niece hit the gas again. The truck barreled into the cavernous tunnel of the dark mine.

“We’re catching ourselves a killer. Scared?” asked Tristan with a dark edge to her voice.

“Yeah, okay!” Bridgette said as she laughed. “Let’s do this…”

“Dad is going to love hearing about this…” Tristan mentioned as the smile faded.

“Oh, God…” groaned Bridgette as Jack came into her mind.

Tristan wound the tight curves of the mine, right on the bumper of the black van.

“Where is your sense of adventure, Aunt Bridgette…?”

“Oh, my God… Your father is going to kill me.”

***

Natalie struggled and squirmed in the back of the van. She still had the hood over her head, but now her kidnapper had bound her wrists and her feet, too. She wriggled her wrists as she tried to break free. Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot and shattering glass jarred Natalie’s composure.

“Son of a bitch!” the voice of her kidnapper spoke.

That voice is so familiar!

“See if you can catch me now,” said the voice, as they veered the van down a narrow passageway that the truck would not fit down.

***

“McCord… don’t feed me any bullshit. I’m not in the mood!”

“She’s never in the mood!” yelled Trafford from his holding cell down the hall.

“Watch your mouth, Trafford!” DiNolfo yelled trying to stifle a laugh. “Now you, what’s the deal?”

“I’m being honest with you. Someone stole my guns just before Courtney turned up murdered. No one had access to my trailer except for Ethan and my Mom, and it definitely wasn’t any of them. But then I remembered that I had put my keys down on the table right before that fight with Tommy Morrow. I’m willing to bet that she took my keys.”

“Wouldn’t that beast of a dog have mauled her?”

“Ox really liked her. She had spent the night a few times.”

“Cute. Her sister’s dead but she’s cuddling up with you.”

Hunter shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly.

“Have you ever known Angie to be a violent person?”

“Not with men. Only women. She would get jealous a lot. Especially of her sister.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I’ve never witnessed her show aggression towards any men.”

“Hmm…” said DiNolfo curiously, leaving Hunter guessing. He stared back at her with a nonplussed expression on his face.

“What? What am I missing?”

“Oh, nothing… Except for the fact that her husband turned up dead two days ago. Murdered.”

Hunter looked shocked. His eyes darted wildly in his head, and he rubbed the side of his head as his anxiety mounted.

“What else? Give me something I can use.”

“Alright…” said Hunter warily, as he prepared to tell DiNolfo what he knew.

***

“Shit!” said Bridgette as she watched the black van squeeze into a tunnel that was too narrow for the truck to fit into.

“No… It’s perfect. I know where that empties out.”

Bridgette did a double-take. Tristan certainly seemed to know an awful lot about the mines.

“How…?”

“How do I know? This is where Bernard took me after we left the fishing shack, three years ago. There is a central place under Elkhart where all the tunnels merge. He called it the heart of the mine and it is located right under the Bone Tree.”

Tristan slammed on the gas once more and took a tunnel that veered to the right as Bridgette looked at her niece in amazement.

“Hold on tight,” warned Tristan with an edge to her voice as the truck plunged into the murky dark of the tunnel.

***

Natalie kicked the back door of the van over and over again, trying to make enough noise so that someone, anyone, would hear her. She had no idea where she was, other than the fact that she was in a moving vehicle against her will and she couldn’t see a thing. She scooted on her butt as she tried to get to the back of the vehicle. When she finally found it, she kicked hard with both legs until she was out of breath.

“Keep it down back there!” yelled Angie from the front seat with an ugly expression on her face.

“Where do I know your voice from?!” Natalie demanded to know.

“Shut up and sit down!” Angie yelled again.

Natalie had her father’s stubborn pride and her mother’s determined resilience. She absolutely refused to do what her captor said. If anything, she was adamant on doing the exact opposite of what she was told.  A scream rallied in her body, starting from her toes and boiling through her stomach and out her lungs. Her terrible scream bounced off every square inch of the moving van, out Angie’s open window, through the tunnel, out the airshaft and escaped from the gaping mouth of the Bone Tree.

***

“What is it that you’re asking me?” asked Hunter with a perplexed look. His tattooed arms slunk out of the jail cell as he continued to talk to DiNolfo unenthusiastically.

“Did you and Angie ever work together?”

“God, no. Angie is a loner, and frankly, so am I. I prefer to work alone so that no one else’s mistakes land me in here. That’s why I avoid jokers like that one over there who make stupid mistakes,” Hunter said as he pointed in Jesse Trafford’s general vicinity.

“So your relationship was just platonic.”

“Not exactly.”

“Be straight with me.”

“Fine,” said Hunter as he released a deep sigh.

“I took her on a run with me…”

“A run?”

“A drug run… It was a quick one.  This particular client of mine has access to the old mine from his basement, so he always asked that I deliver through there. Angie and I drove through the mines in my van. We dropped off the goods, and left. It was an easy way to keep a low profile. Then when we were done we went to the Chiefsdale Cineplex and watched a movie.”

“So you broke into the mines. Trafficked drugs. Completed a drug deal. Then went on a date.”

Hunter rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

DiNolfo shook her head.

“Classy...”

Hunter shrugged his shoulders.

“I have to ask. Who was your client?”

Hunter groaned. He wasn’t a snitch, but he knew that there was a more serious issue going on here. Women were turning up dead. He had to do what was right. He might be a drug dealer, but he wasn’t a murderer.

“Hank Dresher.”

“Peggy’s husband…”

“Yeah.”

“There is an access point to the mines in Harrow’s basement?”

“Yeah. There’s just a piece of plywood there to keep the animals out.”

Suddenly, DiNolfo’s police radio squawked loudly and Liam’s voice blared from the speaker.

“Officer in pursuit of black van, license plate number PAJ08256...”

Hunter’s face turned red and angry, “That’s my van! Somebody stole my van!”

Liam continued shouting into his radio, “Silver SUV belonging to Jack Morrow is in pursuit of van. Shots fired on Mountain Road. Abduction of a white female, age seventeen, Natalie Piedmonte. It is believed that two females are in the truck. Tristan Morrow and Bridgette Kilpatrick. The van is headed towards the Wilhamette Mines! The perpetrator has been positively ID’d as Angela O’Mara. I repeat, the perp has been ID’d as Angela O’Mara.”

DiNolfo rose from her folding chair with venomous fury. She bolted out the door of the Elkhart Police Department, bypassed her squad car, and instead ran as fast as her legs would carry her to 41 Mountain Road.

Chapter              26

June 20, 2000

Morrow Manor

Fox Hollow, PA

11:00 P.M.

Cole Piedmonte woke to the sound of the old oak door of Morrow Manor groaning open and slamming against the foyer wall. Sleepily, Cole rubbed his eyes as he looked to see who had come in the door.

“Cole… Jack…” called Joe Piedmonte from the foyer.

“Yeah?” said Cole confused, still half asleep.

Cole glanced around the living room. Jack was still asleep in his arm chair, but Tristan was no longer resting on him. The TV had been turned off.

Maybe she went to bed.

“Uh, son… Where are your sister and Bridgette?” asked Joe warily. He prayed to God that they were upstairs sleeping.

Cole stood up in a panic. He glanced at the clock on the wall that read 11:16 P.M.

“Oh, my God… Oh, my God!” Cole said, his voice giving away his sheer panic.

“You never picked them up?!” asked Joe heatedly.

“I slept right through it…” said Cole sounding utterly horrified.