Chapter Sixty-Three.
Andie started at a noise outside her window. She looked out toward the main house. Past evenings on the farm had been tranquil to the point of dull. Tonight, however, the old farmhouse was filled with commotion. Lights were on. Doors were slamming, people coming and going. Men on ladders were bolting shutters to the second-story windows. The shutters appeared to be made of solid metal, not the old wood-slatted kind. From the way the men were straining to hoist them up, Andie would have guessed heavy-gauge steel.
Bulletproof? she wondered.
She stepped outside. A man was rushing by her unit, one of the young recruits. "What's going on?" she asked.
He stopped just long enough to catch his breath, winded but elated. "Preparations!"
"Preparations for what?"
He sprinted away without an answer. Andie called after him, again asking, "Preparations for what?"
He shouted back, "The transformation!"
As he ran toward the house, Andie stood and watched with a sinking sense of dread.
"Meredith?" Gus stood in the doorway, half inside and half out. The flashlight from his car was in one hand. The gun was in his right. The door was hanging by one hinge. Broken glass was scattered across the landing.
There was no reply. Not that he'd expected one.
Cautiously, he reached around the door frame and tried the kitchen light switch. Nothing. Dex was right. The electrical lines had been cut.
He switched on his flashlight and took just two steps inside. The narrow beam of light cut across the refrigerator and cabinets, then came to rest on the kitchen table. There were four chairs, but only one place setting. A good amount of food was on the plate. The water glass was nearly full. The napkin was neatly folded, seemingly unused. The intruder had apparently caught her at dinnertime. Or perhaps Gus had caught him at dinnertime.
Was that bastard cold enough to whack her and hang around to eat?
With each step forward, broken glass crunched beneath his feet. The thought of Meredith clinging to life, barely hanging on, drew him in. The thought of another intruder lurking around the corner made him freeze, in his tracks.
"I have a gun," he said loudly, as if that would scare a murderer into surrender.
He aimed the flashlight and leaned forward to see down the hall into the living room. The sofa was straight. No lamps were tipped over. No sign of any disturbance at all. No sign of Meredith either.
He walked the other way, across the kitchen and toward the dining room. Crystal and silver glimmered as the flashlight cut across the breakfront to the display cabinet. A collection of framed photographs stood like dominoes on the credenza, one after the other. A wedding picture. Some baby photographs. None recent. The flashlight zipped past the last one, then zipped right back. It was a five-by-seven of a woman and a teenage girl. The girl was Shirley, five or so years ago. But it was the woman who intrigued him.
He picked it up and studied it. The woman had to be Meredith, though she barely resembled the skinny woman with short hair he'd come to know. Seeing what she looked like with long hair and an extra seventy-five pounds was a watershed for him.
He'd just made the connection.
Sirens and swirling lights in the front lawn interrupted his thoughts. The police had arrived and were pounding on the front door.
"Police, open up!"
Gus stole one more look at the old photograph, then stuffed it in his jacket and hurried out the back.
The Op Center at the FBI office in Seattle was up and running by the time Isaac Underwood arrived. The phone call from Gus was but one of the triggers.
"What do we got?" asked Isaac. He entered like the wind with two assistants in his wake.
Lundquist answered, "Meredith Borge is confirmed dead. Strangled."
Isaac moved to the big table in the center of the room. A bright light from the ceiling illuminated a detailed drawing of Blechman's farm and a series of aerial photographs. "What's the latest from Yakima?"
"Our surveillance agents report a high level of activity at the compound, especially for night. They're placing shutters on the windows of the main farmhouse," he said as he pointed at the corresponding box on the drawing. "They appear to be bulletproof."
"Any sign of Andie?"
"No"
Any chance she snuck away?"
Lundquist shrugged. "If she did, she hasn't made contact with us."
"Any concrete insights as to what the hell set these people off?"
"If we're to believe Gus Wheatley, Meredith Borge was the one person who could link Blechman's group to his wife's disappearance. No doubt that got her killed. But maybe they're afraid they didn't shut her up soon enough and anticipate some kind of offensive from law enforcement. That scenario would be especially consistent with the theory that they're holding Beth Wheatley against her will."
"Yes. That's one possibility."