It was after midnight, and he was exhausted. The search had brought nothing of interest, but he had hopes some sort of information would find its way to his ear. Something to give him a fighting chance. It had been too long. The likelihood that girl was found alive was well past expired, and it took the wind from his sails.
His cell rang, and he pressed the answer icon on his console screen. “Bartlett.”
“Detective, it’s Deputy Rich Stringer here.”
Tom was curious to find out why the deputy was calling him at midnight. “Go for it.”
“Someone called in to dispatch an hour ago. He said he had news about a missing person.” Rich’s voice was drawn out, as if he was stifling a yawn.
“And?”
“And what?” Rich asked.
Tom’s head fell forward, his chin resting on his chest. “What did the man have to say about it?” he yelled, his tiredness making him cranky.
“Oh… he said he saw a woman in the fields that night. Didn’t think anything of it at first, but after hearing all the news, and with us asking anyone to come forward with out-of-place details, he called in,” Rich said.
“Good. Good. What did she look like?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know. Didn’t say.”
Tom was about to lose it on the deputy, but he tried to keep his aggression in check. “Rich, tell me you got this caller’s information?”
“Sure. I’ll send it over to you now.” Rich sounded proud of himself.
“Thanks. I’m going home. I’ll be in first thing,” Tom said, and hung up before the inexperienced deputy could say another word. He checked his email and saw the contact. He’d follow up with the caller first thing in the morning.
Tom started away from the line of cars parked on the grass strip near the farmer’s field. Everyone was going in for the night. It was wet, muddy, and pitch black. Searching now wasn’t doing any good. He was about to turn right so he could get over to the highway, but something about the Orchards condos caught his memory. He should wait until morning, he knew it, but if he took the back roads, he could make it on his way home to Gilden.
He went left, and in half a mile, hit a gravel road that took him north. Searching for the girl was terrible business. Her parents were there, so quiet and subdued, they hardly said a word. They’d walked the line like zombies, a tragedy so fresh they didn’t know how to process it.
Tom drove down the road, keeping his speed to thirty along the way. He’d heard of far too many people running into deer or blowing a tire on a porcupine while driving the county roads, and he wasn’t going to be added to those statistics.
Rain fell heavily on his windshield, and his wipers fought to give him visibility. Trees lined either side of the gravel road, giving Tom the sense of walls closing in on him as he went. His lights were bright, and he felt on display out here alone, a shining beacon in the dark night.
After several miles, he saw signs for the Orchards condo complex. They’d seen better days. He was told they’d built them almost a decade ago, after the Granny Smith’s fire, and the sign appeared that way. It was weather-worn, and it looked like someone had used it as target practice with a .22.
Tom slowed as he neared the area and found open gates at the end of the gravel road leading up to the condo building. The cast-iron openings were more decorative than functional. The place looked dismal, unfinished. Tom could almost get an idea of the look the developer was going for, but since the funding had dried up, it was a shell of their initial plans. The condo building was four stories, stark white, which contrasted with the darkness around it.
Tom pulled up to the parking lot, which appeared to only be large enough to hold ten or twelve cars. Maybe eight were in the stalls now, an assortment of vans and run-down cars from previous decades. He wondered who the clientele were. Surely different than the ones the builder had intended.
So this was the land the Smiths had lived on. Underground, somewhere close by, they’d secreted the children they’d abducted away, their remains piling high in a cave. Some of the older guys at the Gilden police department were privy to the footage a local had filmed before one of them had torched the place.
Tom wasn’t so sure that was the best idea, but a good fire could cleanse a lot of things, even evil. The old man, Conway Smith, was just a man, but Tom believed evil to be real. He’d seen too much in the alleys of Chicago to think anything else.
Tom smelled cigarette smoke as he walked around the building’s corner to see a man and woman sitting on their walk-out patio, lights off. Their cigarettes burned hotly, their faces glowing behind the tobacco embers.
“Who you here for? Travis again?” the man asked.
Tom shook his head. “Nope. Should I be here for someone named Travis?”
The man shrugged and put out his cigarette in a giant coffee can; the smoke poured from his bad snuff job. The woman kept smoking, choosing to remain silent.
“You guys seen anything strange out here lately?” Tom asked.
Now the woman laughed, a coarse sound like sandpaper running across concrete. The man joined her. “What’s your name? I ain’t seen you around before,” the man said.
“Detective Tom Bartlett. I’m investigating the disappearance of Brittany Tremblay.” He pulled his badge from his blazer’s breast pocket, but they didn’t seem too keen on getting close enough to read it. If Tom had to guess, this pair had some hard drugs inside their condo unit, maybe even on their persons at that moment. He didn’t care. He was here
