Dennis dragged Ty across the foyer, out the front door, and down the steps to the waiting SUV. He opened the back hatch and lifted Ty into the empty cargo area. Amir led his wife out and shoved her into the backseat. “Get in and drive,” he ordered Dennis.
“Where?”
“Head up toward Hwy 130 West. I will tell you when to turn off.”
Dennis drove as fast he dared. Police patrols were scarce out this way. He didn’t know if he should comply or if he should try to get someone’s attention. In the end, the gun pointed at his wife’s head made his decision for him. Once they’d gone a little ways into the Medicine Bow National Forest, Amir directed him to pull off the highway onto a windy dirt road that hugged a few cliffs and crossed a couple of creeks.
“Stop. We’re here.” Amir ordered Dennis and his wife out of the car. The night air was cold in the mountains. Dennis took his coat off and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“Where are we going?” he asked Amir, who’d taken a flashlight out of the trunk. Dennis looked at Ty to see if he was rousing yet. He didn’t move. God, he hoped he hadn’t killed the boy. Though if he had, it might be better than whatever Amir had planned for them.
“Follow the path. I’ll show you where to drop his body.”
The ground was rocky, the path barely discernible in the dark. Amir jerked the flashlight around, using it more for his footing than theirs. Dennis almost fell into a deep fissure before realizing the path had ended right where he stood. He reached out and grabbed his wife.
Amir stepped up and poured light down the narrow hole, a hole too deep to see the bottom in the darkness. “That’s where you’ll dump the body.” He pulled out a long knife and turned to Kathy.
Immediately, she started crying, pleading. “Silence,” he complained, backhanding her. He grabbed her wrists, slashing through the rope that bound them. “Help your husband move the body.”
They trudged back to the SUV. Dennis’s mind was churning quickly, spinning through different options. Amir stayed in the Explorer as they pulled Ty out. He tried to hold most of Ty’s weight to spare his wife as much of the burden as he could.
“Is he dead, Dennis? Have you killed Ty?”
Dennis looked around. He could still see Amir with the flashlight in the driver’s seat. “No,” he whispered. “Let’s be careful how we get him into the hole. I saw a ledge not far below where we were standing. Maybe he can get out when he comes to. Hurry now. I don’t want him to awaken while we are here.”
Kathy was sobbing quietly, broken by fear. She stumbled and hurt her knee. “There is no one to help us, is there?”
“We’ll see. We’ll see, Kathy.”
At the edge of the crevice, Dennis positioned Ty so that he could slide down the one side, hopefully without getting any broken bones, though what good that would be if he couldn’t get out and no one knew where he was, Dennis didn’t know. When it was done, Kathy leaned over and tossed Dennis’s coat after him.
“Why did you do that?” Amir asked, his voice almost a scream. Gone was his knife, in its place was his sleek Glock. Dennis hadn’t heard him come up behind them. He drew Kathy a step away from the ledge. “It slipped is all. It fell off of her when we tossed him.”
“He is still alive isn’t he? Isn’t he?” Amir shouted this last when they didn’t answer quickly enough. “Go back to the car and wait for me,” he ordered.
Dennis grabbed Kathy’s hand and hurried to do Amir’s bidding. Amir shot a couple of rounds into the fissure where Ty was. Dennis had never felt such terror in his life. An idea took form as they rushed down the jagged hillside. At the SUV, he opened the back passenger door and ordered Kathy inside. He jumped in the driver’s seat, then put the SUV in gear, expecting a blaze of gunfire at any moment.
He could see the bouncing light of Amir’s flashlight as he ran back toward the SUV down the rough trail. Dennis cranked the steering wheel and spun the vehicle around. They drove fast down the dirt road. The trail seemed to take forever. Kathy kept a watch behind them. The narrow road made a sharp turn to the left, hugging a ridge. Dennis reminded himself to go slowly. His heart was pounding so that it drowned out Kathy’s whimpers in the backseat.
He hated leaving Ty with Amir. God, it probably didn’t matter. Amir had fired shots down into the ravine-the boy was probably already gone. They made a sharp turn onto another side road. The incline was steep, and the tires did not seem to grip the road through the dirt and gravel. He tapped the brakes.
Surely, there were cops ahead in the town of Centennial, or if not, at least there were people. He could get help there. He tapped the brakes again, realizing he was going too fast for the sheer, winding back road. Nothing. He tapped again.
The brakes were gone.
He tried easing up on the handbrake. He was so focused on the brake that he didn’t steer the SUV around another sharp bend. He looked in the rear view mirror, caught Kathy’s panicked gaze as the SUV launched itself over the mountainside.
Chapter 17
“Owen! We got it! We broke @A__akbar’s code!” Max shouted gleefully. Night had fallen. The team had been at this the entire day. “Every time he mentions coffee in Denver, the plumber goes to Denver. The number of espresso shots correlates to the number of days between the Tweet and the meeting. They met two days ago.”
“Where did they meet? Get me some video footage.”
“We’re getting Buchanan’s bank records now. If he used a credit card, we’ll know shortly.”
Three hours later, Rocco stood up and stretched. He hated paper trail work. They’d discovered the name of the coffee shop, and had found receipts in Buchanan’s bank records going back two years, ever since he first arrived in Wolf Creek Bend. From the schedule recorded in his appointment book, it looked as if he’d been having regular meetings each month at the same location. They were still awaiting video footage to confirm, but it was an interesting lead.
Rocco found Mandy curled up on the sofa upstairs, sound asleep, a book open and forgotten on her lap. He knelt beside her and tried to wake her by gently brushing a bit of hair from her face.
“Hey,” he whispered. “You didn’t have to wait up.”
She opened her eyes, giving him a soft smile that filled him with warmth. She touched his face, palming the rough hair of his beard that was growing thicker every day. “I missed you.”
“I’ll put the boys out, then come to bed. You go on and get settled.” He drew her to her feet and turned her toward her room. He whistled for the dogs and held the door open for them. They moved as sleepily as Mandy. They hadn’t been with her for long, but already they’d become accustomed to the routine she kept.
Something caught their interest down at the construction site. They began barking. Rocco walked out, his eyes searching into the darkness. It had to be after midnight. Had Blade had come back yet? The dogs were now barking in earnest. He caught their collars before they could charge down the hill.
Someone was down there. A phone rang. Rocco could feel the hackles on his neck stand up. He was taking the dogs back to the house when the first explosion lit up the sky. The dogs broke free from him and ran into the darkness, away from the fire. The second blast blew him off his feet. He never heard the third one.
Max sat in front of his monitors, searching for what had tripped the motion detector down at the construction site. A man was standing in the skeletal framework of the stable.
“Kit! Get out here!” he called out. He, Kit and Greer were sleeping in shifts so that one of them manned the monitors around the clock.
Kit sat down next to him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Whatcha got?” He wore his jeans and black T-shirt, but was barefooted.
“Not sure. Someone’s down at the construction site. Can’t make out who it is. Can you?”
