Silence. But one of the men on the floor squirmed. She nodded at Samuel, who was already moving toward the man. He hauled him to his feet and took him outside.
“Do you know what GPR is?” she asked the remaining silent men. “It’s ground-penetrating radar. We use it to find buried remains. Rumor has it that there’s a grave on these grounds. And in it is a member of your little ring who you wouldn’t let walk away from your dirty business.”
Kenneth Forbes now faced her but said nothing, his bright blue eyes defiant.
“We were expecting a few more men here,” she stated. “Where is everyone?”
After a silent moment, she continued. “Don’t tell me you two are the type that can’t bear to answer to a woman?” She sighed dramatically. “Poor me, I guess I’ll have to wait for Samuel and his testosterone to come back if that makes you more comfortable.”
As if on cue, Samuel entered with the third suspect. Mercy was pleased to see the man didn’t have a split lip or black eye—Samuel knew better, but she knew his emotions were running high due to his missing boss. Samuel ordered him back on the floor by the other two, and the man didn’t make eye contact with his two buddies. “Truman got away several days ago, and three of their men are out searching for him,” Samuel announced. “They suspect a kid set him loose.”
“A kid?”
“A teenager. Some forest-dwelling hermit who’s a pain in their butts. Raids their supplies and damages their equipment.”
“I’d like to meet him,” admitted Mercy. Some of her worry evaporated. Truman wasn’t alone in the woods. “Why do they think this kid did it?”
“The handcuffs were cut with a bolt cutter, and they found dog prints around the shed. The teen always has a dog with him.”
“Where do we find this teenager?”
“These guys don’t know. I suspect if they did, the kid wouldn’t be breathing anymore.”
“I want to see the shed. Have county process these guys,” she told the SWAT team leader. She followed Samuel outside. He pulled a flashlight from his utility belt and lit the way. “What did you do to the guy you took outside?” Mercy asked Samuel as she stepped around the puddles.
“Nothing.”
She smiled in the dark. As they approached the shed, her smile faded. The small wood structure had a metal roof and sat on a concrete slab. It was the creepy place in a horror movie that teenagers should never enter. But they always do.
Her hand covered her nose and mouth against the stink as she stepped inside. A few glass jars were on the floor, the flashlight revealing their contents. Shattered glass covered part of the concrete, and a single handcuff bracelet hung from a pipe along the back wall.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. It was too easy to imagine Truman cuffed to the pipe. How long was he here?
Samuel shone his flashlight over the floor, and Mercy knew he was looking for blood. There was none. A small relief.
They silently filed back out.
“I’d like a few minutes alone with each one of those guys,” Samuel muttered as the two of them stood outside the house, breathing rain-cleansed air.
“He’s still alive,” Mercy said.
In the poor light, Samuel turned his gaze on her. “That’s the first time you’ve said that. I’ve heard you say we need to keep looking, but you’ve never said you believe he’s still alive.”
“I was too scared to think it. What if I was wrong? It’d tear me apart . . . more than I already am.”
“What if you’re wrong now?”
“I’m not. I can feel it.” She couldn’t explain. Two months ago an unusual woman had told Mercy she’d seen an invisible connection that strung between Mercy and Truman. Mercy didn’t believe witchy mumbo jumbo, but as she’d lain bleeding out in the snow the day her cabin burned, Mercy had seen . . . something . . . and known it was true.
Is that what I’m feeling? As she’d stepped out of that shed from hell, a confident warmth had filled her chest. It was still there.
Or else I’m finally cracking under the strain.
“That idiot inside gave me the last check-in location of the three guys who are out looking for the teen and Truman,” said Samuel. “I’ll pass it on to the SAR team. I know they’re planning to meet at seven tomorrow morning and start searching as soon as the sun comes up.”
“Can you trust what he said?” Mercy asked.
Samuel grinned. “Yeah.”
Mercy no longer wanted to know what Samuel had said or done to the man.
“Text the location to me. I’ll be there too.” She wanted to start searching now. “I’m not going to get any sleep tonight.”
“That makes two of us.”
THIRTY-SIX
“I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you’re capable of. We can’t have anyone slowing us down,” the search-and-rescue leader stated as he glared at Mercy.
“Trust me, I can probably outlast all of you,” she said as she scanned the rest of the SAR crew, ignoring the threatening twinge in her thigh.
She’d been in place that morning before anyone else arrived. Her backpack was stocked for at least three nights in the woods, and she was dressed in waterproof, breathable gear. She wore her most reliable hiking boots and had popped three ibuprofen. She had backups in her pocket. “I know what I’m doing.”
The group was composed of various local officers. Three, including the leader, were from the Bend Police Department, one was a Deschutes County deputy, and one was from the Redmond Police Department. They looked experienced and skeptical.
“Aren’t you the FBI agent who helped bring down that militia?” asked Anna, one of the officers from Bend.
“Yes.”
“She can handle it, Lou,” the woman said. “That was some nasty shit she was in the middle of. I heard about it.”
Mercy met Anna’s gaze and gave a small nod.
“Okay. But if you slow us down, I’m leaving you behind. You armed?”
“Yes.” Mercy touched the side of her jacket.
Lou focused on his map. “We’re about a half mile from where those perps out searching for the kid and the chief reportedly checked in. They claimed they found footprints at one point, so we’re going to operate on the assumption that they’re in the right place, because I don’t know who else would choose to be out in this crappy weather over the past week.
“If we follow the general direction from the place where Truman was held, it appears the two of them are heading here.” Lou circled an area with his finger. “I don’t think they would go any further north, because there’s a wide section of sheer cliffs that you can’t get around. But this is an isolated, sort of protected area. If this mystery kid has a hidden place in the woods, this is where I’d build it. No one goes here.”
Mercy couldn’t disagree with his logic. But there’s so much forest. What if he’s wrong?
They were truly searching for a needle in a haystack.
As they headed out, Mercy fell into the middle of the line, pleased to be doing something.
It finally felt like progress.
I hope my leg doesn’t give out.
“I think we should have waited one more day,” Ollie said, watching Truman catch his breath.
“I just need a moment. I feel pretty strong,” Truman lied as he leaned against a tree for the fourth time that morning. There was no way he was going back to the cabin. He could taste freedom; he had to keep moving forward. “It doesn’t matter if we go a little slow,” he argued. “No one is expecting us.”
He wanted to ask how much farther but knew he wouldn’t like the answer.
Shep touched his nose to Truman’s leg and then went back to sit next to Ollie. Truman wondered if he’d passed the dog’s inspection. Surely the dog couldn’t smell exhaustion, but his eyes looked at Truman in sympathy.
“What will you do when you get rid of me?” Truman asked, stalling for more rest time.
The teen shrugged. “Go back home. Keep preparing for the winter.”
The thought of Ollie spending the winter in his little hut made Truman shudder. No doubt Ollie didn’t mind . . . or did he?
“What would you like to do with your life, Ollie?”
He tilted his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I guess I’m asking what you want to be when you grow up,” Truman said awkwardly.