“Veck,” she bit out. “This case is no longer missing persons. You and I are off of it.”
“The hell we are—she’s still mine until they find a body. Meet me there so you can suspend me if you want. Or even better, come to lend a hand.”
There was a long, long pause. “You’re putting me in a terrible position.”
Regret made him grind his molars. “I seem to excel at that when it comes to you. But I have to do this—and I promise not to be a pain in the ass.”
“You excel at that, too.”
“Stipulated. Look, I can’t pull out of this until I at least know what happened to her. I don’t have to be all up in Kroner’s face if we find something and I won’t touch a goddamn thing, but I’ve got to do this.”
Another interminable pause. Then: “All right. I’m on my way. But if de la Cruz shuts us out, we’re
“Crystal.” Veck sent up a prayer of thanks. But then . . . “Did he say anything else? Kroner, that is?”
There was a rustling, like she was switching the phone from hand to hand. “He said he knew you.”
“Kroner said he knew you.”
“That’s a fucking lie. I’ve never met him before in my life.” When there was nothing from her, he cursed. “Reilly, I swear. I don’t know the guy.”
“I believe you.”
“You don’t sound like it.” And for some reason, her opinion didn’t just matter; it was dispositive. “I’ll take a polygraph.”
Her exhale sounded exhausted. “Maybe Kroner was just screwing with me. It’s hard to know.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“Something along the lines of ‘like recognizes like.’ ”
Veck went dead cold. “I’m not Kroner.”
“I know. Here, let me get to my car and start driving. The quarry’s on the far edge of town, and we might as well get in on the ground floor if de la Cruz will let us. I’ll see you in a half hour.”
As he hung up, the investigator glanced over from the microscope. “Get what you need?”
“I think so. Let me know if you find anything on that earring? I have a feeling it’s from my missing girl.”
“No problem.”
“Where’s the ‘quarry’?”
“Take the Northway south about twenty miles. I don’t know the exact exit, but it’s marked. You can’t miss it, and there are signs that’ll take you in.”
“Thanks, man.”
“It’s a good place to hide things, if you know what I mean.”
“I do. Unfortunately.”
Five minutes later, Veck was on his bike and roaring off toward the interstate. No reason to call de la Cruz ahead of time. They’d just do the showdown face-to-face when he arrived.
The exit in question appeared fifteen minutes later and read, THOMAS GREENFIELD QUARRY. The signs were easy to follow, and no more than a couple miles later, he was turning off and following a small dirt road that had trees tight to its flanks. In the summer, they would no doubt form a romantic canopy; at the moment, they looked like skeleton arms clawing at one another.
He cut the speed back as he rounded a fat right-hander that gradually climbed higher and higher. Wind whipped around, cold and stark, and the clouds seemed to close in as if to choke the ground. He was beginning to think he was lost when he crested the rise, and there it was.
Quarry? More like the Grand fucking Canyon.
And members of the CPD as well as the Caldwell Fire Department had already gathered: Two search and rescue vehicles. A couple of squad cars. An unmarked that had to be de la Cruz. A K-9 unit.
Veck parked a ways away and made no bones about his approach as he came up to the huddle of men and women and dogs.
De la Cruz peeled off from the core and came toward him. The detective’s permagrim expression didn’t shift in the slightest. Then again, he couldn’t be all that surprised, and the arrival was hardly happy news.
“Fancy meeting you here,” de la Cruz muttered. But he put out his hand for a shake.
“This place is huge.” Their palms met in a clap. “Betcha can use some help.”
The quarry was easily a mile across and a half mile down—and more of a natural formation than anything left over from a mining operation. Three-quarters of its walls were solid drops, but the one to the south was a nasty- looking slope that was marked by boulders, scruffy brush . . . and a lot of dark holes that had to be caves.
“So are you going to let me work?” Veck demanded.
“Where’s your partner.”
“On her way.”
De la Cruz glanced back at the tight band of colleagues. “We’eeping a light crew on here because we don’t want any attention. The press gets word of this, we’re going to have a field day with the rubberneckers.”
“So is that a yes?”
De la Cruz nailed him right in the eye. “You don’t touch a goddamn thing, and you don’t go out until Reilly’s here.”
“Fair enough, Detective.”
“Come on—you might as well join in the planning stage.”
Jim’s old place was not all that old and not his, either.
He’d rented the garage and its second-story studio apartment from an ancient guy in a butler’s suit after he’d first come to Caldwell, and when he’d pulled out about a week ago, he’d assumed it was for the last time: His former boss, Matthias the Fucker, had been breathing down his neck, and he’d been Boston-bound to fight the next battle with Devina.
But really, what went according to plan? Matthias was no longer in the picture, Jim had returned to Caldwell, and he and Adrian needed a secure place to stay.
Hello, old haunts, as it were . . . And it was time to pray that the owner hadn’t gone in to find the rent money and key that had been left behind.
Pulling his F-150 into the long drive that led to the place, he checked to make sure Adrian was still behind him on that Harley—and the guy was. Together, they passed the owner’s vacant but perfectly maintained farmhouse and continued down the lane, cutting through a rolling meadow that had to be a good twenty acres in size. The garage was far back on the property and had probably been used to house farming equipment and mowers, with a caretaker living above. He’d gotten the impression when he’d leased it, however, that it had been empty for a while.
Stopping grill first at the big double doors, he got out, grabbed one of the drag handles and threw his weight into it, wondering whether the place would be—
The panel rumbled open on its tracks, revealing a perfectly clean cement floor and a raw beam ceiling more than tall enough to park a horse trailer in.
Jim got back behind the wheel and let the engine’s idle take him inside. And Adrian was right on his ass, parking the Harley and yanking the door shut behind them. As the gray light of day was cut off, Jim killed the motor, sprung his door—
The clean, fresh scent of flowers invaded the air. To the point where he nearly retched, even though the smell was arguably beautiful.
He and Adrian didn’t say a word as they took up res on either side of the truck bed by the back. The tarp they’d bought at Home Depot an hour ago was secured by a half dozen bungee cords, and one by one they freed the hooks and bands. Rolling up the thick, blue cover, they revealed the sheet-wrapped body they had been so careful with.
They had left the lobby of the bank not long after Jim’s fury had busted out all the windows, and they’d taken Eddie with them—which had been no struggle, as it had turned out; at least not physically. After the death, the body was light as a feather, as if all the critical mass had vacated the skin and bones, and what was left behind was nothing more than the outline drawing of what Eddie had once been.
