Mason barreled into the office. The traffic had finally let up. He’d passed a nasty-looking accident between a semi and one of those tiny Smart cars. The site had been crawling with cops and emergency personnel, so he hadn’t stopped, but he’d done as much rubber-necking as all the other vehicles, adding to the slowdown. It was one thing to rubberneck at a simple fender-bender on the side of the freeway, but this was a sight he hadn’t seen before.
The damned fairy-sized car was under the semi.
It appeared the truck had jackknifed, and the car had zoomed directly into the side of the trailer. And stuck underneath. It was about half of its original height now.
Mason didn’t want to think about the driver.
He took off his hat, hooked it on its knob, and nodded at Ray, who was flipping through a stack of paperwork on his desk. Ray wore one of his two hundred polo shirts—his summer uniform. This one was a girly colored lavender. Mason didn’t bother teasing him. Ray didn’t give a shit about the color, and he easily pulled off the look. Mason didn’t know crap about fashion, but somehow, Ray always looked like he’d stepped out of a men’s health magazine.
Mason always felt like he’d stepped out of AARP magazine.
“Took you long enough,” Ray greeted.
“Would you believe it was an accident like we’d never seen before?”
“Bullshit. Between you and me, we’ve seen everything”
“I shoulda took a picture. This was something else. A Smart car and a semi.”
“Really?” Ray’s brows shot up. “That’s new.”
“Told ya. What’s going on?”
“I just finished up with the ME’s office. Dr. Campbell got another positive ID on a pit body from her dental records. One of the women.”
“Hooker?”
“No. This one walked the straight and narrow as far as I can tell.”
Something odd in Ray’s voice put Mason on high alert. “What?”
Ray reviewed his notes and cleared his throat. “Katy Darby. Reported missing fifteen years ago at age twenty-seven. Grew up and lived in Salem.”
Mason’s gut tightened. Ray’s voice was off.
“She was into politics. Belonged to a half dozen political groups and was a paid employee for several of Senator Brody’s reelection campaigns.”
“She worked with the senator? For how long?”
“I’m trying to find out. People come and go during election time. I have a call in to his chief of staff to see what kinds of records they have. But employment records list Senator Brody as one of her employers for three different years in the 1990s. She also worked for two other members of congress from the state.”
“Democrat or Republican?”
Ray looked up in disgust.
“I’m joking! Christ. Lighten up.”
Ray rubbed at his nose. “F*cking long day. I’ve got calls to the other congressmen to see what they know about her. Only one of them is still in office. The other owns a Ford dealership in Medford now.”
“Let me guess. That one was Republican.”
Ray’s gaze rolled toward the ceiling. “Anyway, she simply vanished off the face of the earth. Like the other ones. But she had more publicity and people looking for her. Her boyfriend was questioned pretty hard, but he had proof he was out of the state at the time of her disappearance. Her mother said she never believed the boyfriend was involved. Katy left work one evening as normal and didn’t return the next day. Her car was still in the lot. No one started to ask questions until the afternoon of the next day, when someone clued in that her car was still there. They’d figured she was sick and didn’t call.”
“Was she working for Senator Brody at that time?”
“Yep. It was deep in reelection time. Not that Brody ever had anyone seriously oppose him. That guy’s always been pretty popular. I have to imagine his campaigns weren’t too difficult.”
Elected office held no appeal for Mason. There was no way he wanted to beg for his job in public. It took a special type of person to be a politician. Senator Brody did it well; he was likeable and appeared honest. Mason had no personal problem with the senator or his politics; he just didn’t trust any politician. They couldn’t do their job without compromising something.
Mason didn’t compromise. His job was black and white.
He thought he did it pretty well.
“You have the senator’s personal cell, right?” Mason asked.
Ray rocked back in his chair, his face blank. “Yeah. So do you.”
“You call him?”
“Hell no. It’s eleven p.m.”
“Probably the best time to reach him.” Mason bit the inside of his cheek to keep from chuckling. Ray looked mildly ill at the thought of disturbing the senator at home this late. Ray had a hardcore set of social rules. Late-night phone calls were high on the list.
Mason enjoyed pushing Ray to break as many of his uptight rules as possible. Last month, he’d convinced the man to leave his garbage can at the curb two extra days after pickup. It cost Mason ten dollars for the bet, but he’d enjoyed watching Ray squirm over what the neighbors might think.
“This is a murder investigation.”
“Well, I want to read his previous statements on Katy Darby before I question him.”
“Good plan. Get reading.”
“That’s what I was doing when you walked in and started distracting me.”
“What did he say back then?”
“Great employee, deeply saddened, didn’t know her outside of a working relationship, yada, yada, yada.”
“Cooperative?”
“Very.”
Mason leaned back in his squeaky desk chair. “We need to talk to him again. Soon. Where’s Darby’s boyfriend these days?”
“New Hampshire. Married with two kids.”
That didn’t help much.
“As a cold case, it’s been reviewed four different times. Looks like they call the boyfriend and some co-workers, ask the usual questions, then re-file it. There’s been nothing new added.”
“And now we’ve got the body…well, the remains,” Mason corrected. “Anything unusual from the ME? Cause of death?”
“Dr. Campbell told me this is one of the bodies that had a broken hyoid, so they strongly suspect strangulation.”
“What’d they get back on the gun found at the kid’s murder?”
“Chris Jacobs says it was probably his. Says it was left at his home. Which was burgled, of course.”
“I want to talk to Jacobs.”
“Get in line.”
“I want him here. Tomorrow. And I want one of us talking with the senator within the next twenty-four hours, too. I’ve got a good feeling about Katy Darby.”
Chris explained the significance of the Twinkies, and Michael felt acid burn in the back of his throat. There was no doubt who had Jamie now.
In the hands of a f*cking-psycho-freak.
Where were they?
How were they going to find them? Hove and Spencer didn’t have any leads pointing them to the tattooed man. Ghostman. That was a better name. The guy had been invisible for twenty years, silently tormenting the families of his victims.
Michael’s phone vibrated. Detective Callahan. Crap. He’d forgotten to call Callahan back after his surprise meeting with Chris. Maybe the detective had good news?
“Callahan. You got some information, I hope?”
“Did you find Chris Jacobs?”
Michael studied his brother. He was sitting on the porch with Brian’s head in his lap, the boy half asleep. “Yes, and I found a hell of a lot more than that.”
Michael shared Chris’s story.
Callahan was stunned into a full five seconds of silence. “Where’s the real Jacobs kid?” he finally asked.
“Dead. Daniel buried him. But Daniel goes by Chris now. It’s his name.”
It was getting easier for Michael to say. He was starting to think of his brother as Chris.
“Well, we’ve got an ID on one of the pit bodies who was a former employee of your father’s. Katy Darby worked on a few of your father’s reelection campaigns before she vanished. She doesn’t fit the profile of the other victims. She seems to be squeaky clean.”
Katy Darby?
“I remember the name,” Michael said slowly, brain spinning. “I remember when she disappeared. My parents were pretty upset. They’d both liked her. I can remember my mother saying she was a very enthusiastic worker. I don’t think anyone ever thought about her disappearance in conjunction with my brother.”
“She’s connected now. Looks like the same perpetrator who killed her killed those kids. That makes a double connection to your father.”
“Chris said the Ghostman always threatened our family. He says he didn’t harass the other kids in that way. Only him.”
“Ghostman? You mean Mr. Tattoo?” Mason asked.
“Yep. That’s what the kids called him.”
“Formerly Gary Hinkes. We’ve got to figure out what name he’s using now and what his connection is to your family.”
“Christ. You don’t think this is about The Senator’s politics, do you? Don’t tell me all these people have died because of the way he voted on a bill.” Anger ricocheted through Michael’s chest.
“I don’t know why he has a hard-on for your family. I need to talk to your father again.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I was going to call him in the morning. You want to try reaching him tonight? We need to pull him in on this ASAP,” said Mason.
“I’ll call immediately. We need to figure out who the Ghostman is.”
Michael ended the call, and Chris met his gaze. “It’s linked to the senator?”
“I f*cking hope not. But one of the bodies in the pit is a former campaign worker.”
Both men turned as Hove jogged up the walk. “Got a sighting. He was headed west on Highway 22 about an hour ago. One of my troopers says he had the tattooed wrists we mentioned in the APB.” Hove’s eyes were bright. “We pulled him over for talking on his cell. He gave a fake ID. Well, he gave a legitimate ID, but now we know that it wasn’t him. And the car is a rental. We’ve got the plates, and we’re keeping an eye out for it.”
Michael scanned a mental map of the state. Highway 22 crossed the Cascade Mountain Range and ended up in Salem. If he was going to Portland, the killer would have most likely taken a different highway pass. “Was he alone in the car? Was there a woman with him? He’s not going back to Portland. I wonder why he’s going to Salem? Did you pass this on to Callahan?” A million questions swirled in his head.
“Yes, he was alone, and I’m about to call Callahan.”
“F*ck. Where’s Jamie?”
“We’ll find her.”
Michael looked at Chris. “I’m heading to Salem. You coming?”
“You couldn’t stop me. She’s my sister.”
With Brian asleep in the backseat and Chris riding shotgun, Michael tried to call his father as they raced across Central Oregon in the dark. The Senator’s phone dumped into voice mail.
“Damn it!” He tried calling his parents’ landline at their home, and his mother sleepily answered.
“Michael?”
“Sorry, Mom. I’m trying to reach Dad. It’s important.”
“Is it about Daniel?” Her voice was instantly alert.
“Uh…” His mind went blank. He wasn’t ready to tell her about Chris. And Chris had asked to do it himself. “Not really. They’ve identified one of the female bodies from that pit as Katy Darby, remember her?”
Cecilia sucked in her breath. “Oh, that poor girl. We always wondered what happened to her. I had a gut feeling it wasn’t good. She had such a zest for life, and she loved working with your father. She was really going places. I knew she didn’t just run off.”
“The police want to ask Dad some more questions about her. He’s not answering his cell. Can I talk to him?”
“He’s not here, Michael. He and Phillip are leaving first thing in the morning for Japan. He’s staying at Phillip’s tonight.”
“At the governor’s mansion? That’s farther away from the airport.”
“They’re flying privately out of Salem to LA, meeting up with some other officials, and then flying out of LAX, I believe.”
“How early are they going?”
“I don’t know. He thought it was easier to stay down there than leave from here, so I had the impression it was a crack-of-dawn type flight.”
“I guess I’ll see if I can catch them before they go. I’m actually headed to Salem, but I’m several hours away.”
Michael glanced at Chris as he ended the call. “Feel like seeing The Senator today?”
Chris stared back at him.
“Better get your story ready.”
See the senator, thought Chris. In a few hours?
His life had completely turned upside down and inside out in a matter of hours. He’d put the senator and Cecilia out of his head years ago. It was the only way to keep his sanity.
He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes, a dizziness settling in his brain. For a few years as a kid, he’d fantasized about his reunion with his real parents, but he’d always felt a shadow watching over him, waiting for him to make one wrong move that would signal the Ghostman to kill them and Michael. So he’d stopped thinking about them, forcing himself to look at the Jacobses as his real parents, and he embraced Jamie as his sister.
But now it was time to own up to the truth.
His stomach churned, and he swallowed hard. He didn’t want a repeat performance of the scene in the alley.
“They’re gonna stop him, right? He’s not going to hurt anyone else.” He didn’t clarify whom to Michael.
“If the police don’t stop him, I will. They’ll spot that car on the highway, and I’m not going to stop until I know what he’s done with Jamie.”
Chris opened his eyes and studied his brother in the dim light. Even though it’d been twenty years, he knew the determined set of that stubborn jaw. When Michael had his mind set on something, he didn’t rest until he achieved it. Right now that obsession was Jamie.
He noted his brother didn’t say “when I get Jamie back.”
There was a very good chance his sister was dead.
Chris took a series of deep breaths. Everything was coming to a head. He was caught in the nightmare he’d been trying to prevent for twenty years. A killer had his sister.
He turned in his seat to check on Brian. The boy looked at ease with his head tipped back in the corner of a seat, his mouth slightly opened, deep in the sleep of childhood.
Brian was safe.
He might be able to put an end to his nightmares tonight. If he knew the Ghostman was behind bars, he’d be able to sleep.
Why him?
He’d asked that question for twenty years. Why had the Ghostman threatened his family and no one else’s? Obviously, he’d kept Daniel and the real Chris alive the longest because he’d had a taste for young boys. How much longer would they have survived? The real Chris wouldn’t have lasted another month. Maybe even a week.
“I still don’t know why he took us,” Chris told Michael. “We all asked him several times why he had to take all the kids from the bus. He never said why.”
“How did it happen?” asked Michael. “I never understood how someone could make a whole group of people and a vehicle vanish the way he did.”
“We were all back on the bus after touring the capitol building. The younger kids were getting whiny. It was a long day for them. I loved going there, you knew that. I loved visiting Dad’s office, and Uncle Phillip’s new representative office wasn’t too far away. Other kids weren’t excited about politics the way I was.”
Michael snorted. “Politics suck.”
“I wanted to be president one day.”
“I remember,” Michael laughed. “I was so f*cking jealous of you. The Senator gave you so much more attention because you wanted to follow in his footsteps.”
“No, I was jealous of you. You could do sports and didn’t care what other people thought of you. Your mindset was always independent and cool. I wanted to be like that.”
The two men locked gazes for a split second. Chris saw shock in Michael’s eyes.
“Bullshit.” Michael broke the moment. “You had nothing to be jealous of. Mom and The Senator thought you were perfect.”
“Doesn’t mean I thought I was. I wanted to be more like you.”
“Jesus Christ. Once I realized you probably weren’t coming back, I tried to turn myself into you. Tried to show more interest in The Senator’s job, tried to make my schoolteachers happy. That lasted about a month.
“I had so much guilt. Did you know I lied about being sick to get out of that field trip? For years, I blamed myself for you getting taken. If I’d been there, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Or maybe I could have talked him into releasing you and taking me instead. F*ck. I figured Mom and The Senator hated me because you were gone and they were stuck with me. The lazy kid, the school skipper and skateboarder who nearly flunked out of math. How many times do you think they said, ‘If only Michael had vanished instead of Daniel’?”
“They never said that!”
“They did in my brain. I believed they were too polite to say it out loud.”
Chris stared at his brother. He’d often wondered how Michael had handled being left behind. As a kid, he’d figured his brother probably missed him on one level but cheered that he was an only child on another.
The Ghostman had wreaked havoc on everyone.
“I had no idea,” Chris said quietly. “You know those are probably normal thoughts for a kid who experienced what you went through, but Mom and The Senator always loved you. They didn’t wish you were gone.”
Michael shrugged. “You have to love your own kid.”
“No sane person wishes for their kid to be harmed.”
“I couldn’t keep the thoughts from occurring.”
“Did you ever talk to someone?”
“A therapist? Yeah, I did that a few times. They wanted me to talk about my feelings too damned much. I just wanted them to help certain thoughts go away. I shoulda seen a hypnotist instead.”
An overwhelming affection for his brother touched Chris. Michael had been in pain, too. They shouldn’t have hurt alone.
He should have told the truth twenty years ago.
“You didn’t finish your story,” Michael prodded. “What happened to Sylvia Vasquez, the driver?”
“Oh.” Chris struggled to focus. He was still thinking about Michael, young teenage Michael wishing he was dead instead of his brother.
“Sylvia coordinated the whole tour. She was a lot more than just a driver.”
“I remember. She seemed to do a little bit of everything at the school.”
“Well, we’d all gotten back on the bus and were starting to leave the parking lot when the Ghostman flagged us down. He was waving a jacket at us, like one of us had left something behind during the tour. And he was shouting her name like he was familiar with her.”
“So maybe he knew her?”
“I saw her face. I don’t think she knew him. But he got her attention, and she stopped the bus. When she opened the door for him, he said that one of us had left behind a coat, and he stepped on the bus.”
“What were the kids doing?”
“Everyone sorta looked at each other, waiting to see who admitted leaving a coat. Sylvia turned in her seat to look at us, and that’s when he crouched down and revealed the gun wrapped in the coat. He pointed it at Sylvia and told her to drive.”
“Holy crap. And she just did what he said?”
“He eventually pointed the gun at Kendall, who was in the front seat. That made Sylvia drive.”
“No one saw the bus leave,” said Michael. “They asked for tips all over the city, and no one came forward to say they’d seen the bus. How in the hell did it just vanish?”
Chris shook his head. “We drove right through plenty of traffic. A million times, I wanted to flag someone and say we needed help, but he watched us like a hawk. Kendall was crying. He had the gun on her the whole way. Most of the kids were crying at one point or another. He kept saying he just needed a ride, and if we’d take him where he needed to go, he’d let us go safely.
“The first thing he did when we got to the woods was shoot Sylvia Vasquez. Then threaten to do the same to everyone else if we didn’t obey him.”
Michael was silent as he drove.
Chris looked out the window. How many times had he relived that bus ride? If he’d flagged another motorist. If he’d tackled the Ghostman as his attention waned for a second. His life and everyone else’s could have been different.
“You were only a kid,” Michael said. “Nothing you could have done would have made a difference.”
Mind reader.
Chris wiped at his cheek. One day he might actually believe that.
It felt like she’d been in the trunk forever.
Jamie dozed in and out, the scenery never changing. Dark. Confined. The small access Mr. Tattoo had opened from the car to the trunk had probably saved her life. The cool air was heavenly. She was still thirsty, but at least she didn’t need to pee. Thank God for small miracles, because she had a hunch he didn’t want to be a bathroom escort.
Hopefully, she wasn’t getting too dehydrated. No muscle cramps yet.
The car slowed and went through a series of turns. She continually lost her balance and rolled awkwardly several times in the trunk. Were they actually nearing a destination?
Please don’t take me to the bunker.
She’d seen the faces of the cops who’d been in the bunker. And she’d read the descriptions in the newspaper. That’d been enough.
Surely he was taking her somewhere else. Only an idiot would go back to the scene of the crime. But would a new location be an improvement?
She was still alive and above ground. That was giving her hope. He had something in mind for her; otherwise, he would have killed her already.
That meant she had a chance. She was a fighter, and she’d fight with whatever she could get her hands on.
You’re no good to me roasted or barbecued. That statement indicated he had something planned. But what? A ransom? Michael was probably loaded. He practically came from blue blood. Did her kidnapper know of her relationship with the reporter?
The tattooed man hadn’t asked anyone for money when he had taken Chris and all those other kids. Ransom didn’t sound like his style. It appeared he’d kept those kids for his own twisted purposes.
When he’d attacked her in her home, he’d wanted to know where Chris was. Did he think Chris would look for her? Did he think kidnapping her would bring Chris out in the open?
Why did he want Chris?
Chris didn’t remember anything. Chris couldn’t have identified Mr. Tattoo as his kidnapper. Why had he come out of the woodwork now? What could Chris do to him?
Another turn slammed Jamie’s head against metal.
Shit.
She blinked away the wetness from her eyes. The car slowed and took a long turn. Then stopped. They idled for fifteen seconds and then slowly moved forward. Jamie listened hard, searching for any audible clue of where she could be. The roadway was smooth and paved, so at least they weren’t near the bunker.
She exhaled slowly through her nose. Like anywhere with him is okay.
The car moved slowly for a short time and stopped. The engine turned off.
Jamie held her breath. She heard the car door open. He got out, slammed the door, and his footsteps grew fainter. He was leaving her alone. In the dark.
She strained her eyes to see in the dark. He’d left the space open to the trunk, but all she could see was a narrow view of cement walls, like the inside of a parking structure. An indirect light source gave the walls a soft glow.
Where was she?
Silence.
She relaxed and closed her eyes, thinking of Michael. If anyone could figure out where she was, he could.
Ray stretched in his chair, joints audibly popping. “Brody says the senator is spending the night at the governor’s mansion and then leaving with the governor for Japan in the morning on some political trip. He tried to reach him, but his cell is probably off. He’s heading to Salem to try to catch his father before they head to the airport.”
“Looks like our killer is headed that way anyway.” Mason rubbed at his eyes. It was four in the morning, and he wasn’t going home anytime soon. There were too many irons in the fire that he wanted to keep an eye on.
“We’ve got his vehicle description and plates out to every trooper on the road. We’ll find him,” Ray said confidently.
“I want to know who this son-of-a-bitch really is. And I can’t believe that trooper took a fake ID.” Mason paced in the police building. He and Ray were the only ones on their floor working. Normal folks had gone home long ago.
“Wasn’t fake. Was legit. Just wasn’t him.”
“I want to catch this a*shole. Then I want to pull the lever on the electric chair.”
“I suspect there’ll be a brawl to be the lucky guy who gets that job.”
“There’s got to be something in that old murder case that points us in the right direction.”
“You already talked to Lee Fielding. You think you could get any more out of him?”
Mason shook his head. “I’ve listened to that interview twice. Fielding doesn’t know crap.”
“What about the Darby file?”
“Until one of us talks to Senator Brody, I don’t think we’ll get much further there. I want to know what exactly his relationship was with the young woman.”
Ray wrinkled his nose.
“For f*ck’s sake. You know as well as I do. Senators and their employees get it on all the time. Anytime a man has power like that, he’s suddenly attractive to a lot of women. Especially the young ones,” Mason stated.
“I don’t like to think of anyone taking advantage of Cecilia Brody.”
“Of course not. She’s a very ill woman. But she’s smart, and I’ve seen her and the senator interact. He cares. If he hurt her at some point in the past, she’s forgiven him. But that doesn’t mean she’s forgotten about it.”
“Are we gonna draw straws to see who gets to talk to him?”
“I’ll do it. I wish he wasn’t leaving the country. I’d rather talk to him in person again. I just can’t get the same feel for a person on a cell phone. People are much more comfortable lying on a cell phone. I need to see his face so I know what he’s not telling me.”
Ray nodded. “Maybe we need to try to talk to him before he gets on a plane.”
“Shit, I drove to Salem yesterday. I don’t want to go again. And I haven’t f*cking slept.” Mason rubbed a hand over his face, pulling at his cheeks. It felt like the blood had left his skin; there was an odd numbness to his face. Lack of sleep.
About three times a year, there’d be a case that would keep him and Ray up all night. A case where they were so close to something big that neither man could sleep because the answer might be right around the corner. This damned tattoo man was just out of their reach. If they didn’t close their eyes, maybe they could sneak up on him.
“Let’s both go. Let’s just get in the car and head south. We’ll hit Starbucks and be waiting at the Salem airport when the senator gets there. He’ll have to take a few minutes to talk to us. Hell, he can catch a plane to Japan the following day if he needs to. Leave a message on his cell to call us back, saying we want to talk to him this morning. He’ll get the message when he wakes up.”
Ray was right. Standing around the office, staring at their phones wasn’t helping. They might as well put themselves in the senator’s path. At least it’d feel like they were doing something.
“You’re right. But damn, I wish I could take a shower first.” Mason discreetly sniffed at his armpits. “Christ! I reek.”
“I’ve got some extra shirts. Go wash up, and I’ll loan you one,” Ray offered.
Mason eyed the width of Ray’s weight-lifter chest. “Your stuff won’t fit me. I’ll look like an idiot.”
“You want to stink for the senator? Or just look like you don’t know your size? Your choice.”
“I’ll take the shirt.”
Thirty minutes later, Mason and Ray were headed south out of Portland. Two coffees in Mason’s sedan’s cup holders and a file from Lee Fielding’s murder trial on Ray’s lap.
Mason was wearing an orange polo shirt. It had the damned little horse on it and everything. He felt like he glowed. Ray had offered him three different polo shirts. Pastel stripes, solid yellow, or solid orange. He went with the lesser of three evils. The shirt wasn’t as baggy as he expected, probably because Ray had a tendency to wear them a little on the snug side.
Ray had referred to his shirt color as “tangerine.” Mason had stared at him.
“It’s orange.”
“No, I have an orange one at home. This one’s a little different.”
Holy shit.
“You buy this stuff or does your wife shop for you?”
Ray looked hurt. “I buy my own stuff. Jillian likes how I dress. She’d tell me if I looked like an idiot. What the hell’s your problem? There’s other clothing in the world besides button-down collared dress shirts. Other colors besides blue, gray, and white.”
“Drink your coffee.” Translation: I’m ending this stupid line of conversation.
Ray took a sip of his Venti black coffee and dug through the papers in his lap. He cleared his throat. “Since all the stuff from Gary Hinkes’s trial has vanished, I’m getting what references I can from Fielding’s case.”
“Right.”
“We’ve already been through the transcript. Now I’m just looking at all the letters sent between the DA’s office and Fielding’s attorney and the judge. I can’t believe how formal and longwinded all this crap is. It takes ten pages of letters to get everyone to agree on one little thing. It’s like that over and over. No wonder attorneys rake in the big bucks. They charge three hundred dollars an hour to write a letter. I could send a text in ten seconds that accomplishes the same thing.”
Mason grinned. “If only texts were nicely kept legal documents.”
“Anyway, they spend a lot of time arguing back and forth. Most of this shit doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m just looking for the Hinkes name. He’s in here quite a bit. The prosecutor reprimands Fielding’s attorney every time he mentions him. Says his case is separate and to keep his focus on Fielding only.”
“Fielding’s attorney was appointed, right?”
“Yeah, he couldn’t afford one. Same with Hinkes. Glad to know we paid for their trials.”
“Same guy from the DA’s office prosecuted both?”
“No…” Ray shuffled through papers. “I’d thought so at first, but there’s a reference somewhere for Fielding’s attorney to take some issue up with a different prosecutor…I’m looking for it.”
Ray sucked in a breath. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Gerald jogged up the stairs from the parking area below the house. He’d let himself into the secured parking area and tapped the security code to disarm the house. He knew all the security; that was his job. He also knew that at five in the morning on a Saturday, his boss would still be asleep and the house empty of employees.
How was he going to be received? The boss wasn’t going to be happy that he hadn’t taken out Chris Jacobs. But he’d found some good bait to bring the man out into the open. Once Jacobs heard about his missing sister, he’d have a good idea who took her. And if the word about the pile of Twinkies got back to him, Jacobs would have no doubt.
Jamie had said she contacted her brother by leaving a phone message. He could get the number out of her and do the same if things didn’t move fast enough.
He liked the idea of Jamie being locked in his trunk. And tied up. He’d experimented a bit with the bondage-type play but had never gotten turned on by it. But the long-haired woman in his car was sticking in his brain and distracting him in a big way.
Even if she never led him to Chris Jacobs, he still came out ahead.
He needed to find a different place to take the woman. He’d considered and rejected his own home or a hotel, and there was no way he could go back to the bunker. His boss had a few private vacation homes in the state that he could drive to in a couple of hours. He just needed a thumbs-up from his boss—and a key.
The big house was quiet and dark. Feeling a bit like a burglar, Gerald quietly sped through the halls and up another flight of stairs to the boss’s bedroom. He raised his hand to quietly knock and then froze.
What if he wasn’t alone?
He’d never walked in on his boss with anyone, but that didn’t mean this couldn’t be the first time. Gerald was often in the home at night, the boss knew that, but they’d never established a protocol for him needing to talk to the boss during sleeping hours. He still wasn’t answering his cell phone.
The intercom.
There was an intercom system through the phone extensions on the house landline. He’d call from one of the other rooms first. His boss hated mornings. The man was a night owl and always struggled to wake up even on normal mornings.
He tiptoed away from the door. The intercom was a bit obnoxious sounding, but that should be better than Gerald appearing at the door if the boss wasn’t alone. He headed back to the kitchen.
Nearing the kitchen, he stopped and sniffed the air. Coffee? Clinking of dishes told him someone was up. He pushed through the swinging door. His boss stood at the counter in front of the coffeemaker, his back to Gerald.
“Oh, I thought you’d still be asleep,” said Gerald.
The man whirled around, his mouth in an O.
Not his boss.
“Sorry, Senator. I didn’t know you were in town,” Gerald apologized. His boss’s brother was a common visitor in the governor’s mansion. He tugged his jacket’s sleeves down an inch and wished he’d worn his usual driving gloves.
“You scared the shit out of me, Prentice. You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”
“I didn’t know anyone else was in the house.”
“We’re leaving for the airport in a couple of hours. I should wake Phillip up.”
That would take care of Gerald’s dilemma. “Good, I need to talk to him real quick. I was about to call him on the intercom. I’d rather you did the honors.”
The senator chuckled with a smile, and Gerald understood why the man had never lost an election. He knew how to appear completely charming and relatable. “Phillip’s never been a morning person. I‘ll let him know you’re waiting to talk to him. Must be urgent if you’re here this early on a Saturday morning.”
Gerald shifted on his feet and pulled his sleeves again. “A personal matter, actually.”
The senator nodded. “Got it. I’ll let him know.” He poured two mugs of coffee, adding plenty of cream to both, and backed through the swinging kitchen door. “A little peace offering. We were up till one last night packing and talking. Coffee should wake him up easier.”
Gerald sincerely doubted coffee was going to help after his boss found out he hadn’t completed his mission.
“What? What the hell is it?” Mason asked Ray again. The other detective was frantically rooting through his papers. Mason was about to pull the car over and grab the papers to see for himself.
“Hang on. I want to make sure I’m not totally wrong first.”
“Christ, Ray, you’re slower than my mother’s dial-up.”
Ray scanned a page. “Here it is. Here’s the name again. Yep. Phillip Brody was the prosecutor for Hinkes’s trial.”
“What the hell? Our Governor Brody?”
“Yeah, our governor started out in the Multnomah County district attorney’s office before moving into politics. Ran for state representative, succeeded, and moved up from there. But before that, he was a lowly assistant district attorney.”
“Wait a minute.” Mason’s brain was making leaps and bounds. And somersaults. “So, Phillip Brody knew Hinkes at some point. Also had to learn what a scumbag he was.”
“There’s no way he’d keep up an association with that kind of person.”
“Christ, I’d hope not. I like to think our elected officials have better taste.”
“Governor Brody also has the type of power and access to make someone’s past disappear.”
“Shit.” Mason didn’t know if his brain could accept that step.
“Think the governor knows where to find Hinkes these days?”
“That’d be a big help. But wait a minute. Katy Darby.”
“What about her?”
“She worked on Senator Brody’s campaigns…maybe she also worked with Governor Brody? She seemed to be the type of person who would work with both men. Their politics are similar. I have to imagine that working on a campaign isn’t a year-round job once the election is over. I wouldn’t be surprised if she worked with both men. If one was happy with her work ethic, surely he’d recommend her to his brother. It’d make sense that she’d spend time during one man’s off-season helping out the other one,” said Mason.
“And she met up with Hinkes that way? That’s implying Hinkes was still in association with the governor back then…or whatever position he held at that time.”
“Why would the governor maintain a relationship with a scumbag he prosecuted? Especially a potentially murdering scumbag?” Mason was afraid to let his brain follow the possibilities presented by that train of thought.
Ray’s brain zipped right up the path. “Because he needed someone to do some sort of dirty work.”
“And he exchanged it for getting him off the murder charge,” Mason finished. F*ck. “This isn’t a TV show. Shit like that doesn’t happen in real life.”
“It shouldn’t,” agreed Ray. “But we have to look at this.”
Mason glanced at his speedometer and saw he was over the speed limit by twenty-five miles per hour. He let up on the gas, his leg aching to push harder. “I don’t like this theory.”
“It’s making my stomach cringe. This is our f*cking governor. The people in this state are crazy about him. He seems to be a great guy.”
“Well, people thought the same about Ted Bundy.”
“Governor Brody isn’t a serial killer.”
“No, but I think he might have hung out with one.”