Black Daylight Page 15

  The dog wasn’t neglected or sick, as far as he could tell. It looked sad.

  The kitchen bled into the dining room. There were small appliances and a table filled with clutter.

  He moved on, swept the rooms, one by one, with the revolver out in his right hand and the bat in his left. It was leaned over his left shoulder, casually.

  In the next room, he found more clutter, an ugly green carpet that needed to be steam cleaned, if he was honest with himself.

  There was old, secondhand furniture everywhere, a sofa, a couch, a coffee table, and a TV stand with an old box TV on it. A pair of rabbit antennas stuck out the top, one bent and one broken off at the end.

  The TV was on, set to a channel with static and the grainy sound that came with it.

  The couch looked like it was made up as a temporary bed for a third guest, who was not here.

  Lainey slept there, he thought.

  He ignored it and moved down a short hall, but he stopped near the front door. There was dirt and snow and mud all over the tile.

  The floor looked stomped down on like someone came in from dancing around in the snowy woods, somewhere, and just stomped the mud off the boots. Which he confirmed a second later when he took a look at a boot rack behind a lounge chair. There was a pair of boots in it, covered in mud.

  They were women’s snow boots.

  He found a bedroom, piled with thrift-store clothes and laundry baskets and old watercolor paintings of no value but sentimental.

  The next room was a tiny bathroom. The door was wide open, and the room was empty.

  He moved on to the last room with another wide-open door. It was the master bedroom. He saw more secondhand furniture, all a bedroom set. There were photographs everywhere.

  There were clothes everywhere; dirty laundry spilled out of a hamper.

  So far, he saw no sign of anyone home.

  He moved on to the master bath, where he found women’s clothing on the floor.

  The light was on from under the door.

  He tiptoed over a pair of muddy jeans, worn socks, and panties and a bra and pushed the door open with the muzzle end of the revolver.

  He shoved, and the door creaked open, slow.

  The bathroom had white tiled floor, which was also dirty in places, not as bad as the entrance, but noteworthy.

  Inside the bathroom, he saw two other things that were quite shocking, but only one was shocking to him.

  First, he found Kylie Olsen. She was dead.

  Her naked body was laid out in a bathtub full of murky water right up to the faucet.

  The water was red and brackish. It was colored with her blood.

  Her wrists floated in the water.

  She had long, deep slashes down them, vertical, not horizontal like in the movies.

  Suicide.

  There was no note.

  She had done it the right way, in McCobb’s opinion.

  Her eyes were open and lifeless. They stared at him.

  “Why?” he asked out loud.

  He tucked the revolver into the waistband of his jeans.

  He found a pipe and other drug paraphernalia on top of the toilet seat. He recognized all of them. Looked like she had done more than one thing. There were even two empty bottles of pills.

  He looked at her eyes. The pupils were huge, like two lifeless black holes.

  Whatever was her reason to take her own life, it consumed her, unlike anything he had ever seen before. She had no intention of being resuscitated, not by anyone.

  The only thing that can make a person commit suicide like that was guilt, but McCobb wouldn’t understand that. He felt no guilt. He had no room for guilt when money was better.

  And that was the second thing he found, and it did shock him.

  On the floor, in the center of the bathroom, laid out on horrid white tile, was a turned-over duffle bag and a heaping stack of cash poured out of it.

  Chapter 23

  R OWER PUT HER HAND on her Glock out of training, out of habit.

  She stood behind Widow who wasn’t answering her and was taking a long time.

  “What’s the problem?” she asked.

  “It’s gone.”

  “What is?”

  “The rug.”

  “What happened to it?”

  Widow turned and looked at her.

  “They came back for it. Had to have.”

  Rower stepped left and looked at where he had been staring.

  “I believe you.”

  He looked at her but said nothing.

  “I do,” she said, “I’m not stupid. I can see that someone tried to wipe away the tracks. Did someone come back to clean up?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “And it wasn’t you?”

  “How could it be me? You guys have had me behind bars for sixteen hours.”

  Rower nodded.

  “I do believe you.”

  “That’s good to know. But what now?”

  “Now, we talk about who could’ve known that Lainey was found. Because my take is someone knows that you found her and rescued her and they came back to clean up.”

  “It’s a little bizarre though.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Because whoever dumped her last night were complete amateurs. They never killed anyone in their lives. We know that because they didn’t kill her at all.”

  “Unless their plan was to leave her to die.”

  “I doubt it. Why bother strangling her at all?”

  “So what do you think? I know you were NCIS. You must think something?”

  “I think what you think.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think between the bar filled with witnesses, the sheriff’s department, and Deadwood Hospital, there’s a leak.”

  “Or an inside man?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Let’s take a look at the road again.”

  “What for? Now, you want to follow my tracks all the way to that bar? If they’re still there.”

  “Tire tracks,” she said.

  They turned and walked back up the trail, through the snow, to the road.

  Roberts and Rousey were standing by the Explorer.

  Roberts was standing at attention, shotgun down in a safe position, but Rousey was weird, Widow thought.

  He was messing with his coat sleeve like he had been with his shirtsleeve the night before. The bags under his eyes were worse, darker, like the last time he slept was more than twenty-four hours ago.

  Not once, but three times, Widow had participated in a SEAL Special Op, where one of his guys had been injured. He and the other guys had managed to get them back to safety under hostile fire, and back to base, and all three times they had been medevaced back to Germany, the US Air Force Base, for surgery.

  But the first time that had happened to him, he demanded to go along. Normally, this would’ve been denied, but he had pulled rank, pulled strings with his secret NCIS Unit Ten CO, Rachel Cameron, and she had made it happen.

  He remembered being in the waiting room for thirteen hours, waiting for the guy to pull through. He had the guy’s wife on and off Skype all night.

  The guy died in surgery, but Widow remembered the wife’s face when he met her at the funeral, two days later. She had those same huge bags under her eyes. It was two nights of insomnia.

  That’s what Rousey looked like.

  His shotgun was laid out across the hood of the Explorer, and he was too busy to notice that Rower and Widow were walking back.

  Widow’s cuffs seemed to tighten around his wrists like the cold was expanding the metal. He felt them.

  He kept his eyes on Rousey.

  Rousey had his face down, texting on his phone.

  Chapter 24

  G ADE DID NOT SPEAK TO HIS MEN the whole time he was on the jet. He just stared out the window, occasionally twisting in his seat, or looking at a five-thousand dollar Rolex on his wrist.

 
One hour down. One hour to go.

  He hoped that whatever was happening with the girl in South Dakota, that they could find out, solve the problem, and be back in the air.

  He hated working at night like this because his boss required him to be up and at ‘em every morning. He didn’t get days off unless his boss took them.

  He glanced over at the other two guys. One was asleep, head folded against the window. And the other was reading a magazine.

  He stared back out the window.

  Thinking about being inconvenienced was making him angry. He wasn’t sure what the issue was on the ground, but he was pretty sure that the best option was going to be just to kill all the parties involved and be done with it.

  When you got fleas in your house, you don’t shampoo the carpets; you bomb the whole house.

  Chapter 25

  W IDOW SAT on the left rear side, his head out the window, and Rower was to his right. She had moved closer to him, leaned up and over his shoulder so that she could see out past him.

  Rousey drove the Explorer slowly.

  Widow and Rower were watching the ground, tracing what was visibly left of his boot prints from the night before and the tire tracks that Widow claimed were from the night before and a new set.

  They figured the new set was from whoever had come and tried to clean up, only they left the tire tracks behind.

  Amateur, Widow thought, again.

  Rousey was driving straight and normal, so Widow disregarded his obvious sleeplessness.

  Roberts was talking to Rousey in the front. They went on about baseball and football, and then they repeated the conversation.

  Rower half-whispered to Widow.

  “So, you left the Navy and the NCIS, and now you’re just a vagabond?”

  “I prefer a violent nomad, but sure.”

  “Why ‘violent’?”

  “It’s a SEAL thing. We’re all violent nomads. It’s like a group nickname like you’re a Fed.”

  “Oh. Okay. Weird.”

  “Not really. We’re supposed to be terrifying. It’s like the whole deal. A nomad is a wanderer, someone without a home, and therefore has nothing to lose. And violent because…well, you get that part.”

  “Do you have nothing to lose?”

  He felt her Glock under her coat push against his bicep, under his borrowed thermal. It caught his attention and imagination, as a beautiful woman in uniform who carries a firearm often does. Even though her uniform was a suit, it counted.

  “That’s right.”

  “So then you have nothing to live for, right? I mean by that logic?”

  Widow looked over his shoulder at her. Her face was close—close enough to kiss, but he didn’t.

  “Not so.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I have the most important thing to live for.”

  “Which is?”

  “Freedom.”

  “I have freedom.”

  “Do you?”

  She stayed quiet.

  Widow said, “I don’t have bills to pay, debt, I answer to no one. I go where I want when I want.”

  “You’re untraceable?”

  “Yeah. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about choice. I have pure, free choice.”

  “I have a choice.”

  “True, but not like I do. You answer to a SAC.”

  She thought of Bukowski for a quick second.

  “Yes. So what? Are you like a cowboy? A loner?”

  “Pretty much.”

  She smirked and looked at the snow outside.

  “How much longer?” Roberts asked.

  “Till what?”

  “How much longer you want us to drive alone like this?”

  “Till I tell you different.”

  Roberts looked forward and said nothing.

  Widow said, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why Alaska?”

  “What about it?”

  “Why did your parents name you after a state?”

  “They didn’t name me after a state. They named me after a person.”

  “Who?”

  “My dad was a Fed. His dad was a beat cop, and his uncle was a Fed. He wanted me to be a Fed.”

  “Okay.”

  “So he named me after Alaska Packard Davidson.”

  “Who is?”

  “The first female FBI agent.”

  Widow looked back at her. Not realizing she had leaned closer, his face almost touched hers. His lips almost touched hers.

  He paused a beat and asked, “That true?”

  “Yeah. That’s true.”

  “Alaska?”

  “That’s true.”

  Widow turned back to watching the thin tire tracks and the thinner tire tracks flash slowly along the ground.

  Chapter 26

  M cCOBB DEBATED whether or not he should call Holden and tell him about the money that he’d found. He debated it hard.

  What made it even harder for him to make the phone call was the fact that he had counted it, twice. There was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars here. It was hundreds and fifties. It was real, and it was unmarked, and it could all be his.

  While contemplating this decision, he did text the boyfriend again, after he received a text. They had had a heated exchange.

  He told him that he was onto him and the boyfriend had denied everything.

  McCobb wasn’t a rocket scientist, but he knew a scam when he saw one. Even though the boyfriend was a local sheriff’s deputy, he was no mastermind criminal.

  It didn’t take McCobb two seconds to figure out that Kylie and her boyfriend, Deputy Rousey were in on this together. Lainey was Kylie’s sister, and they had stolen her sister’s money, which they must’ve known came from dangerous people.

  McCobb was pretty sure that Shostrom had no idea that Rousey was dating a junkie, which wasn’t because Rousey was smart enough to hide it. It was because Shostrom was an old man and he had a lot of territory to cover. He didn’t pay attention to who his deputy was dating and living with.

  McCobb smiled thinking about how oblivious to things his county sheriff was. Rousey and Kylie had plotted right under his nose. Then again, they were doing meth under his nose too. Plus, Holden sold a lot of product out here.

  The benefits of living on the rural side of Lawrence County.

  McCobb started piecing it together. He figured the two lovebirds must’ve been present when the transaction took place. He had not met the two representatives of the buyer personally, but he had known Holden for years. Anyone he was scared of was worth being terrified of. No getting around that.

  However, McCobb wasn’t the same as Holden. The guys from Chicago might never even find him. He could just toss the money back into the bag, zip it up, and run off with it.

  He could just stash it somewhere. Keep it for himself, and when the Chicago boys came calling, he could deny ever seeing it.

  How would they even know?

  In the end, McCobb came to the sensible conclusion. He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t deny it.

  He had heard that the Chicago boys were a part of a huge bio conglomerate and they made their money on organ trading.

  The kinds of guys who deal in that trade weren’t to be crossed.

  He might get away with the money, but they would certainly kill his kid sister trying to find him. And Holden would give her up too.

  Better to turn the money over and let them give him a reward.

  Maybe he could cut Holden out of that deal somehow.

  For now, he zipped it up and kept it to himself. He did tell Holden about the dead sister.

  Holden told him to track down Rousey and take him alive for the Chicago boys. That way, all they had to do was step off the plane, see that Holden had taken care of it, and be back on the plane with no fuss.

  McCobb texted one last time to Rousey: “Where are you?”

  A moment later, Rousey texted back the location fro
m a screenshot of Google Maps off his phone.

  “What a stupid, stupid cop you are,” McCobb said to himself.

  Chapter 27

  T HE EXPLORER DROVE slowly with all four people inside. It seemed to slow down, even slower than Rower had asked Rousey to drive.

  Widow asked, “Think you can take these cuffs off now?”

  “I will soon.”

  “When?”

  “Make you a deal.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Come with me to meet Lainey, and I’ll take them off when we stop.”

  “Why do you want me to meet with her? You want her to identify me as the guy who tried to strangle her?”

  “I told you I believed you.”

  “What about Shostrom?”

  “It’s not his call.”

  “Sure, I’ll go with you. What choice I got?”

  “You could say no. You’re the one with choices, remember? You could just say no.”

  “And what? Stay locked up?”

  “We’d let you out eventually. I’m a good agent. I’m not gonna put an innocent man away. Trust me.”

  Roberts looked over his shoulder, just a quick glance. There was judgment in his eyes.

  Rower saw it too but said nothing about it. She did move back away from Widow.

  She said, “Rousey, speed it up. Just follow the tracks.”

  Rousey looked at her in the rearview.

  He sped the SUV up to around twenty miles an hour.

  “You can go faster than that.”

  What they couldn’t see was that Rousey’s phone had multiple messages on it, asking where he was, who was with him. He’d replied that the FBI was there with a witness.

  At which point, he was told to stall and wait on the road for McCobb to show up.

  Chapter 28

  M cCOBB DROVE on the Interstate Ninety, which allowed him to step on the gas. He had his phone in a cup holder. A voice gave him instructions and updates on where to go.

  Traffic was normal, not empty, not crowded.

  He looked at his watch. The sun was starting its climb downward over the mountains to the west. It shone in his face here and there, but the cloud cover helped to block it out for most of the trip.