They must have followed me.
Twenty times over the last year, he’d sworn he would install security cameras at his home. It had never happened. He crossed his fingers that one of his neighbors had cameras and his officers had thought to check them.
Assuming they know where I disappeared from.
His truck would still be in front of his house. He hoped.
Assume nothing.
He had confidence in his men and Mercy. They would push until they tracked him down.
He closed his eyes as another wave of dizziness swamped him.
“Wake up.”
A pause.
“Wake up.”
Truman jerked and gasped for breath as cold water splashed his face. He tried to lunge forward but was stopped by the handcuff on his wrist. Pain shot up his left arm as he wiped the water from his face, making his vision blur. He sucked in a breath, struggling to stay conscious and look at the man standing before him.
He was tall and lean, with slightly stooped shoulders, wearing a heavy coat and holding a cowboy hat in one hand and Truman’s now-empty water jar in the other. Truman couldn’t see his eyes with the light streaming in the door behind his captor.
A memory of his field-training officer popped in his head. This man had the same stance and physical build, but Truman didn’t recognize him.
My hand. Numbness had set in again, and he slowly slid up the wall to let the blood run to his hand, never taking his gaze from the stranger.
A silent power struggle filled the small shed. Truman knew the stranger was waiting for his captive to ask who’d locked him up or where they were.
Truman kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want the stranger to know he knew nothing.
The silence stretched for thirty seconds as Truman stared at where he knew the man’s eyes would be.
“Stubborn, eh?” the man finally said.
Truman said nothing.
“Know why you’re here?”
Silence.
The man shifted his stance, frustration rolling off him. “Think you’re tough, do you? I bet you don’t feel so powerful now, chained up like a pig.”
In the pit of Truman’s belly a small snake of fear started to coil.
“You’ll get what’s comin’ to ya, fucking cop. Fucking pig.” The man snorted in laughter. “I was right. You are a chained-up pig. Damn, it stinks like pigs in here.”
“I’d like some food,” Truman stated.
“You won’t need food.” The man tossed the glass jar in his hand into a corner, where it shattered. “Won’t need that either.” He shoved his hat on his head and turned toward the door, giving Truman a clear view of a profile with a strong nose and chin. He slammed the door shut behind him, and a bolt scraped across the wood.
Truman slid back down the wall, his heart racing as rampant thirst instantly overtook him. He looked in the direction of the shattered water jar, unable to see the shards. Fuck me.
He shoved the image of drinking the only alternative fluid in the shed out of his mind.
What will he do to me?
Mercy’s face arose in his mind, and he ached to touch her, feel her warmth beside him. Several nights ago, they’d stretched out on his couch together and watched TV, sharing a bottle of wine and Chinese takeout. Simon had alternated between trying to paw food from their plates and wedging herself between them.
It’d been an intimate, calm evening. And looking back now, he realized it’d been heaven.
He wanted it again.
Hurry up, Mercy.
TWENTY-NINE
Mercy quickly reviewed her current murder cases in her office, getting them ready to set aside. Truman was her priority now.
I promise I won’t leave Amy and Alison for too long.
Sporadic updates came from the Eagle’s Nest officers and Bolton. No one in Truman’s neighborhood had seen anything occur in his driveway. No one had outdoor security cameras. Evidence at the campground did not indicate how Truman’s truck had gotten there.
An arson investigator was examining the truck, but Mercy was pessimistic about him finding anything. Yes, it was arson. Yes, it was gasoline. How could there be anything left in the fire to lead them to Truman’s abductor?
Struggling to focus, Mercy read the latest reports from the Hartlage investigation.
She was pleased that four of the Hartlages had been positively identified, but the unknown Caucasian male skull she and Dr. Peres had found farther down the slope still bothered her. Only Kenneth Forbes had stated that Corrine Hartlage’s brother was living with them. There was nothing else to back up his identity.
She had confidence in Dr. Peres’s theory that the Asian skull was a war trophy. Especially after Mercy had done some online research. People collected weird shit.
But that doesn’t help me find their killer.
The family’s old Suburban hadn’t turned up. No one had used their missing credit cards or accessed their bank accounts, so the motive didn’t appear to be financial. The post office had closed their mailbox when no one renewed the lease and returned all the mail that hadn’t been picked up. The Hartlages got their water from their well and generated their own power. They’d truly been off the grid. So far off the grid that no one had missed them for eight months. A calendar hanging on the back side of a kitchen cupboard door was open to August of the year before. The few pieces of mail that had been found in the home were postmarked last August.
Those weren’t confirmations of the time of disappearance, but several of the windows had been left open, and summer clothing was in the laundry. All that was enough to make Mercy pretty darn certain the Hartlages had been gone for eight months, and that had been more than enough time for their remains to skeletonize.
Mercy understood people not being missed for a week or two, but was this family so socially isolated that there was no one to care?
Is that the reason this family was targeted? The killer suspected no one would notice for a long time?
Switching to the Jorgensen file, she wondered if the killer had planned to remove the Jorgensen family from their beds, but been interrupted by the neighbor. That family hadn’t lived in isolation like the Hartlage family. Sharla Jorgensen had many social interests, the kids attended school, and the husband had an employer.
The trace evidence from both homes had yet to reveal that a unique presence had visited both homes.
Her gaze fell on Janet Norris’s name. The woman had been involved with the Verbeeks and the Jorgensens, and the coincidence still made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. But coincidences did occur. People knew people. The population in the area where the families had lived wasn’t huge. It could happen.
Can I connect her to the Hartlages?
Mercy made a note to see if the Hartlages had ever stayed at the DoubleTree hotel where Janet worked.
She switched again to Truman’s case.
Joshua Forbes’s traffic stop with Truman continued to dart through her thoughts. She and Detective Bolton had yet to track down the sovereign citizen. A county deputy had gone to Joshua’s home that morning and reported no one was home.
Did he leave the area?
He could be at a girlfriend’s house.
He could be crashed on a friend’s couch, venting about his time in jail.
She’d assigned more officers to track down Joshua Forbes. Currently it was the best lead in Truman’s case.
The ringing of her cell phone distracted her, and Britta’s name and number showed on her screen. Mercy had added the woman to her contacts after she’d called two days before.
“Agent Kilpatrick.”
“I’ve got a problem,” Britta stated in a calm voice.
“How can I help?” Mercy leaned back in her chair, determined to win more of the woman’s confidence.
“That reporter Chuck Winslow is sitting on my floor. I may have shot him.”
“What? Is he dead?” Mercy jumped up as shock shot through her nerves.