Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery (Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries) (19 page)

His eyes shifted to where Flynn had just walked out the door. “What’s with the police escort? He looks like a walking carrot. Is that the best you can do around here?” He shook his head. “Jesus, your tastes have gone downhill.”

“He’s a co-worker. And a friend.”

Dylan laughed. “You’re telling me you never slept with him? That’ll be a first.”

She clenched her teeth. “I’m not telling you anything. Because my life is none of your goddamn business anymore.” She thrust her arms into her coat and zipped it to her chin. “Next time, talk to me in advance if you want the kids with you.”

“Oh, I will. How about I let you know
right now
that they’ll be coming with me back to California unless you give me my property back!”

She stiffened her spine and walked out the door. Dylan followed her onto the porch. “And don’t think you and your boy toy can stop me. You’re the one violating our custody agreement, Honey!” The cold wind brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them away and kept walking. “The law’s on my side,” Dylan yelled. “There’s nothing you can do about it! The law’s on my side!”

7.

The trip back up the South Shore Drive was bad. As near as Russ could tell, no one had plowed since they had first driven through on Friday night. The truck kept slipping and shuddering as it fell in and out of ice-hardened tire ruts. The drumming of icy rain fought the roar of the heaters and the thwap-thwap-thwap of the wipers. Clare was quiet, letting him focus on keeping them on the narrow road. He was almost startled when she said, “I think we ought to check in on Amber and her baby.”

He grunted. “We still have to get the dog and our stuff and make it back out through this mess without getting stuck.” He was already thinking of taking North Shore to get out to the highway. It wasn’t plowed at all after their cabin, but with everything icing over, it might be easier to break virgin snow than to try to recross the increasingly slick churned-over surfaces of this road.

“Oh. Well, if you think they’ll be okay…”

He sighed. “No, you’re right. We should look in on them.”

“I know.”

He risked taking his eyes off the road long enough to toss her a smile. “And by
we,
I mean
me.
You stay in the truck.”

“I’m not going to argue with you on that one.”

“Look at that. Miracles do happen.”

She was laughing as he pulled on the parking brake and set the four-ways flashing. He clambered out of the cab, hunching his shoulders against the sodden shower. Someone had scraped the flight of stairs leading to the lake house bare, which Russ took as a good sign. They were already starting to ice over again, however, so he went down slowly and carefully. A busted tailbone would be just the souvenir he’d bring home from this train wreck of a honeymoon.

He knocked hard on the door to be heard over the icy rain. It was opened by a man in his late twenties with a goatee and long hair in a ponytail. Russ had seen Amber’s boyfriend when he’d dropped her off, and this guy wasn’t him. “Hey,” the man said.

“Hi. I’m Russ Van Alstyne. My wife and I dropped Amber off on Friday.” He tried to see around the guy, but all he caught was a sliver of the kitchen. “I thought I’d check in on her. Make sure she and the baby were okay with the storm coming on.”

“Oh, yeah. The cop. She mentioned you. No, she and the baby left this morning with her boyfriend. They didn’t want to take the chance and get stuck out here.”

“Really? I guess he got his car fixed up a lot faster than he thought.”

“Yeah, I drove them up to the garage to pick it up.” The man was bright-eyed and pink-cheeked, as if he had a fever. His face was hollowed out, his arm, where he held the door against further opening, all ropy muscle.

Whoever he was, he was on something. Speed, maybe, or coke or crank. Russ smiled. “And you didn’t have any trouble on the roads?”

“Nah. I got a two-ton with serious snow tires. I can get through anything.”

“She said this was a family cabin. You must be related.”

The man stopped smiling. “I’m her uncle. My brother and I own the place.”

“Then do you have a number for her?” Russ casually braced his forearm against the door frame. “My wife is going to want to know how she and the baby are getting on.” He let his voice drop into a you-know-how-women-are tone.

The man paused. “I don’t, no. Not that I can lay hold of right away.” He paused again. His eyes flicked right for a split second. “Why don’t you come by later? I can dig something up for you.”

Russ had spent the worst year of his life in a jungle in Vietnam, waiting and listening for the faintest sound of sandals walking on grass or a rifle stock being steadied against a branch. Which is why he heard, from somewhere behind the half-closed door, the almost inaudible snick of the action releasing on a semiautomatic.

He smiled. “No need to bother. Clare and I are on our way back home right this minute. We didn’t want to leave Amber in the lurch, but since that’s not a problem, we’ll be on our way now.” He held up a hand in farewell.

“Bye,” the bearded man said. “Drive safe.” He shut the door. Russ could hear the lock click.

He walked back up the slippery stairs, the spot between his shoulder blades burning. He climbed back into the cabin and released the parking brake.

“Everything okay?”

He glanced toward the lake house. Only the roof was visible from the road. Which meant they couldn’t see the truck. He slipped his gun-locker key off the key ring and handed it to Clare. “I want you to reach over the backseat and get my rifle and a couple boxes of cartridges out of the locker.”

“Russ? What’s going on?” Even as she questioned him, she was unlatching her belt and turning around.

He shifted into gear and slowly rolled away. “Some guy who says he’s her uncle answered the door. Claims he drove Amber and the baby to the garage to pick up the boyfriend’s ride this morning.”

The locker lid banged as Clare tossed it open. “I thought his car was in the shop until Monday.”

“So did I. Here’s the thing: There was someone else in the house with him, hiding behind the door. Someone with a firearm.”

He heard her check the safety. Then she thudded back into her seat. “Ooof.” She rubbed her stomach. “Surely that’s not unusual in this neck of the woods.”

“I heard him chambering a round after I asked for Amber’s number.”

Clare sucked in a breath, but all she said was “Where do you want the rifle?”

“Your side. But within reach.”

She laid it between her seat and the gearshift mount. “We can turn around once we reach the cut-across.”

“I know. But I’m not going to drive us past that house again if I can help it.”

“What about Amber and the baby? Was he lying, or are they really gone?”

“I didn’t see or hear anything to indicate they were still there.” He slowed down and carefully turned onto the road leading to Inverary’s north shore. “We’re going to drive to the cabin and get Oscar and whatever we can grab in five minutes. Then we’ll keep on going around the lake until we reach the county highway on the other end. Once we’ve got reception, we can call the state troopers and report it. Somebody can check and see if Amber and the boyfriend were at the garage.”

She twisted in her seat to look behind them. “Do you think they’ll come after us?”

“I’m hoping they’re just a couple addicts who freaked out when a cop knocked at the door. If that’s all, they’ll want to lay low.”

“But…” she prompted.

“
But
what the uncle said about Amber worries me. If he and his buddy just came for the weekend to hang out and get high, why did she leave? And if she hasn’t left, why is he lying about it?”

“Shouldn’t we—”

“No.”

“But Amber—”

“My first concern is making sure
you’re
safe.” He goosed the gas a little and made himself finish his sentence honestly. “You and the baby.”

The deer came out of nowhere. One second the road was clear, and the next Russ was swearing, pumping the brakes, skidding to avoid a collision. They sailed over the ice, no control, sliding, sliding, sliding up over the roadside berm of crusted snow thrown up by the last plow, headed straight for the trees. Russ flung his arm in front of Clare, a useless gesture, and braced for impact.

Nothing happened. They came to a stop five feet in front of the nearest pine. The deer bounded off the road and disappeared into the woods.

“Good God almighty.” Clare sounded breathless.

“You okay?” Russ touched her neck, her shoulder, her leg, his mind already racing ahead to what they were going to do, stuck in the snow halfway between an armed meth head and their cabin, night coming on fast.

“I’m fine.” She laid a hand on his arm, squeezed. “Just shaken up.”

Russ opened his door and sank into snow up to his knees. He waded around the truck. Clare opened her door. “What’s it look like?”

“No damage. All we have to do is get a tow truck out here to winch it out of the snow, and away we go.” His voice rose in frustration.

She bit her lip. “We can’t shovel it out ourselves?”

“Not unless by ‘shovel’ you mean ‘backhoe,’ no.” He looked up toward the road leading from the cabin. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“Someone’s coming.”

8.

Lyle was worried he was going to have to get yet another warrant executed for searching the storage unit, but he caught a break. The owner was on-site, helping a couple back their moving pod into place. “Yeah,” he said when Lyle and Eric McCrea approached him. “Sundays and Fridays. Busiest days of the week for me. Everybody moves over the weekend. Do-it-yourselfers, anyway.” He thumbed toward the couple, now getting into their car. Their plates read
WYOMING
. “C’mon in the office, let me look that up for you.”

The office was banged up out of plywood, every surface covered with rolls of bubble wrap and tape dispensers and flattened cardboard boxes. The owner went behind the counter and sat in a squeaky rolling chair, pulling a long metal filing box toward him.

“You’re not computerized?” Eric asked.

“Paper’s good enough for me. I can find what I want when I want it, and nothing’s gonna go poof if I press the wrong button.” His thick fingers made a rustling noise as he worked his way through the tightly packed yellow papers. “Besides, I pay enough for the damn credit card machine. Used to be able to take cash for rentals, but that changed after 9/11. Now it’s credit cards or nothing.”

“Any of these units heated?” Lyle asked.

“Nah. People don’t hardly ever ask for heat. They got electric, though. Each unit’s got a light goes on and off with the door. The renters can see their stuff when they go in and out, and I don’t pay a fortune in electricity. Here it is.” He eased a paper out of the file. “What was the name of the guy?”

“Wendall Sullivan.”

The owner shook his head. “Nope. Sorry. This unit’s rented out to Jonathan Davies.” He peered at the credit card receipt Lyle had given him, then back at the form. “Numbers match up, though.”

Eric leaned on the counter. “Do you check ID with all your renters?”

The owner shrugged. “Gotta admit, I don’t got any way of verifying what they give me. Somebody’s card goes through, I take it on faith it’s theirs.”

“The guy we’re looking for is a possible suspect in a little girl’s kidnapping.” Lyle dropped his voice. “Can you help us out? Let us take a peek into the unit. Just to see if it might be his.”

The owner frowned. “Yeah, I guess so. If it’s a mix-up, I guess there’s no harm done. You’re not gonna touch anything, right?”

“We just want a look.”

“Okay, then.” He crossed to a pegboard filled with tagged keys and unhooked number 68. “Let’s go.”

They followed a few steps behind the owner, their boots splashing in the slush. “None of this is going to be admissible,” Eric said quietly.

“If we see anything likely, you’re going to get a warrant. Finding the little girl’s got to be our first priority.”

Eric’s face pinched. “You think she’s in there?”

“I sure as hell hope not. But it wouldn’t be the first time. Sullivan found a place with no computer records to trace and power in the units. That means—”

“Yeah. He could have a refrigerator in there.”

The owner paused in front of a square storage unit, identical to the others stretching out in a row in either direction. They were all twelve-by-twelve, about the size of a room, and old, made of painted metal instead of the more modern plastic compound. The owner bent down and unlocked the front. He rolled it up like a garage door, leaving most of one side open to the weather. Lyle and Eric stepped inside.

No body. No captive child, either, and no innocuous-looking chest freezer that might turn out to have a nasty surprise inside. In fact, the unit didn’t have much in it at all. A big recliner piled with blankets. A plastic cooler big enough to hold a six-pack. A few boxes along the walls. A card table with an older-model computer on it and a folding chair drawn up against it.

“All right, this ain’t allowed.” The owner had his hand on an outdoor power cord running from the overhead light to a surge protector on the floor. The computer was plugged into it. Three unplugged cords led to three electric space heaters.

“Dep,” Eric said. “The boxes.” He was reaching inside one.

“Eric, we can’t—”

“This one was open.” The sergeant held up a handful of glossy magazines.
Little Cuties,
read the one on top. He handed another to Lyle.
Lollipop Girls.
Lyle flipped it open and then slapped it shut, his gut churning.

“What’n the name of Christ is that?” The owner’s voice was outraged. “Kiddie porn? Jesus Christ!”

“This was like his rec room,” Eric said. He looked at the computer monitor as if it were a huge, hairy spider waiting to strike. “What do you think’s on that hard drive?”

“Nothing I ever want to see,” Lyle said. He turned around in a slow circle. “Is there anything that might tip us off where the girl is?”

“He could’ve kept her in here,” Eric said. “With the heaters running. A couple sleeping bags on the floor, some water in the little cooler…”