Chapter 2
T aryn glanced at her watch. “Jeff was only in town for about twenty minutes,” she murmured. “He picked up some groceries, whatever the convenience store offered, so nothing out of the ordinary there.”
“No,” Alex replied, “except that it’s quick food, which can be made easily, even while on the run.” She turned to face him and frowned. He shrugged. “It’s not as if Jeff picked up vegetables and steaks. He picked up macaroni and cheese and canned soups. He would need a hot plate and water, disposable cups and plastic spoons.”
She shuddered at that and nodded. “Good point, but that alone doesn’t necessarily convict him in this case.”
Alex chuckled. “No, it sure doesn’t, not as much as we might want it to. I’m a bit of a foodie myself,” he shared, “so serving that kind of food to children should be something we can charge him with, you know? Poor sustenance for those kids or whatever.”
“I don’t think quality meals for the kids is at the top of Jeff’s list right now,” she grumbled.
“Nope, it sure isn’t, but we need to confirm with Levi and Ice that they’re searching the dark web for any buyers, even if some governmental agency or two are supposedly on it.”
“After my private investigator was killed, I’m hesitant to have Levi and Ice go in that direction,” she shared, “so I’ve got Terkel on that path.”
“You think he would be better at it?”
“Well, he is psychic and has all those gifts to forewarn him, I would hope. Also, with his history of working for the government, plus the international aspect of that job, Terk might have better access to things like that, as well as the means to keep it anonymous, or to at least try to.”
Alex pondered that and shrugged. “I agree that Terk may be better positioned, but I don’t care who does it—Terk, Levi, some government agency near or far—as long as somebody does. I hope all of them do, confirming each other’s findings.” He reached for his phone and made a call.
Taryn listened in, and, when Terkel answered, she smiled.
“Terk, it’s Alex.”
“Yeah, I hear you. Go on. What have you got?”
“So far, absolutely nothing. Taryn and I have connected, and we just followed Uncle Jeff and the three kids back to a rural driveway, after they picked up a few simple groceries, you know, convenience food,” he shared and went on to elaborate. “Not exactly ingredients for home-cooked meals, more like mac and cheese.”
“And yet,” Terkel noted, “if Jeff’s sister-in-law was the cook in the family, he might not know how to do more at this stage of his life.”
“That’s possible. We’re just checking in to see if you have any news on the sales ad.”
“It’s still up, though that doesn’t mean some buyer hasn’t already closed that transaction. I’ve contacted a couple other departments,” Terk shared, “so we’ve got more help tracking that website. It’s always been a matter of interest to law enforcement the world over, so it’s not as if this is the first ad on this website that the authorities are concerned about. However, now you have confirmed a physical location for these children, plus have confirmed the uncle is with the children. We’ll see if Jeff is squatting, as Alex suggested, just to cover our bases. Regardless we want to be in a position to pick up those kids before they’re put in any further danger.”
“Did you tell the authorities anything about what’s on that ad?” she asked.
“They got the ad,” Terkel stated, his tone solemn, “and weren’t happy to find yet another one among millions. They see these all too often.”
“One more thing,” Alex added. “Are you or Levi’s team trying to find the absentee father?”
“You getting something?” Terk asked.
“An inkling. So, if your team or Levi’s can locate him, I would like to know.”
“Will do. More updates coming, as we get further intel.” Terk then abruptly disconnected, as was his custom.
Taryn frowned, looking over at Alex. “Okay, I’m not sure what to do next,” she confessed. “I mean, I want to sit here and watch and confirm they don’t go anywhere.”
“I suggest we set up camp somewhere close by, meaning, hiding the car and mostly waiting inside it,” Alex replied, with a chuckle. “We’ll need a few supplies, and maybe I can grab my rental car again.”
“Sure, if they haven’t already picked it up.”
“Don’t care whether they did or not,” Alex stated, with a wry smile. “I’ll just get another one. We can get coffee too.”
“Yeah, except I don’t want to leave the kids to take you back to your rental,” she pointed out.
He nodded. “It’s not that far, so, even on foot, I should be back in an hour or less, especially if I hitch a ride there. If you leave here, if you go anywhere at all, let me know, so I don’t have to worry about where you’ve ended up, or your being deep-sixed yourself.”
She winced at that. “I can’t say I like that idea.”
“It’s unfortunately a little too common in some of these more rural areas,” Alex shared, as he got out of the car and looked back at her. “Don’t leave the car.” She glared at him, and he shook his head. “I don’t know whether you have any experience in this shit or not,” he explained, “but I do, and, when things go all to hell,… they have a way of doing it very, very quickly. We don’t know how dangerous this man Jeff is. We don’t know whether he’s completely overwhelmed after the loss of his sister-in-law and the absence of his brother, or he’s just a completely unfettered animal now. We have our suspicions, but not really a solid clue. Is he just on some weird sidestep right now, or is he a serial killer, and this is part of his MO? For all we know, it could be anything.”
Her eyebrows shot up at the mention of a serial killer. “Maybe we should get somebody to check into that serial killer angle.”
“Terk and his people will do a full background check on Jeff, don’t worry. It’s unusual for a man to go from being a good uncle to somebody prepared to sell his niece and nephews,” he declared, trying to keep the bark out of his tone. “There had to be some trigger for the change in behavior.”
“And yet we know of one possible trigger,” she said. “The one thing that comes to mind is the loss of his brother and his sister-in-law.”
“Sure, but it takes a little more than that to push him so far astray. Seems Jeff lived with the married couple, so Jeff got free room and board, or maybe the couple was a sounding board for Jeff, offering him possible solutions to all his problems. Hell, it could simply be all about the children’s gifts and the possibility of a con with a huge windfall for Jeff. I don’t know,” Alex admitted, “but it would help if we figured it out. And soon.”
With that, he shut the car door, leaving her all alone.
*
As Alex walked along the road toward his rental, he passed Jeff’s driveway. Alex checked for activity in or around Jeff’s house, but there wasn’t any. He quickly sent Taryn a text. Get yourself into a better position. No activity at the moment . She sent back a thumbs-up, and he kept on walking.
It wasn’t long before a vehicle drove by, and the older man driving stopped beside Alex.
“You need a lift, son?”
Alex smiled and replied in a pleasant, grateful tone, “I would love a lift. I’m just heading to the convenience store.”
“No problem,” the man said. “That’s still a good five miles on foot though.” Alex quickly got into the vehicle with the old man, who eyed him curiously. “You all right?”
“Yeah, I am. Just had a bit of a row with my girlfriend,” Alex replied, with a laugh. “I figured we would both do better if I got out and cooled off for a bit.”
The old man cackled. “Isn’t that the truth? Sometimes it’s better though if you put her on the side of the road instead of yourself,” he teased.
“I can see that,” Alex conceded, “but I was hoping that she would calm down sooner than later this way.”
“Yeah, I hear you there, and, if she’s a good one, you’ve got to do everything you can to keep her.”
“Oh, I plan on it,” Alex agreed. “You live around here?” He figured it was an opportunity to get the lay of the land. Plus, the old man might know something.
The other man nodded. “Yeah, been here for a long time.”
“I don’t really know this area at all,” Alex noted. “We were just at the store a bit ago and saw a tall guy with three little kids.… Those children looked like timid little ghosts.”
“Ah, those are Mary’s little ones,” he shared, with a sage nod. “That’s a sad story.”
“Yeah? What happened?” Alex asked.
“She passed away not too long ago, and her old man just abandoned those kids. The uncle was in and out of the home, and, from what I know, he took on those young-uns.… Yet he’s just lost. He hasn’t a clue what he’s doing.” The driver sagged a bit. “It’s pretty damn sad.”
“He’s okay though, isn’t he? He wouldn’t hurt the kids or anything, right?”
The old man grimaced and shook his head. “Jeff’s a bit of an odd one. I’ll give you that, but I don’t think he would hurt the kids. They are his brother’s kids after all.”
“But, when you get somebody who’s overwhelmed in life, like Jeff seems to be,” Alex began, “you know, a bit disconnected, passionless, I worry about his committing suicide or something.”
“It’s hard to know these days. You hear about so many of those bloody murder-suicides going on that it makes you wonder. I certainly don’t want to think about that in this particular case, but I won’t say it couldn’t happen.”
“ Great ,” Alex muttered, half under his breath.
The old man laughed. “I’m not saying Jeff would do that.”
“No, of course not, yet you’re not at all sure that he wouldn’t.”
“No.… I’m not. Jeff’s always been a bit of a weird one.”
Alex wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but was prepared to go with it. “Does he work?”
“Used to, and then he lost his job somewhere along the line, and I know Mary kept working full-time, even though the kids sometimes exhausted her to no end. Yet she wouldn’t give up on her husband and her brother-in-law and her kids. Her husband may have been laid off too, if memory serves. So, if both her husband and her brother-in-law couldn’t find work, Mary just stepped in and did what needed to be done.” The old man snorted. “For that reason alone, I have trouble with both of those lazy-ass guys. That damn husband just ran off to points unknown. The uncle is still here. Surely he could have found some job to do.”
“I agree.”
“Yeah, I am sure you do. It’s one thing for a guy to not have a job for a little while, but it’s another thing entirely to not keep looking for a job. I think Jeff just got a little too comfortable, living off his brother and his sister-in-law, with her earning the money so Jeff didn’t have to do anything.” The old guy shook his head. “In my day, we always looked after our spouses and our kids and our siblings, no matter what. So you’re asking a good question. I hope somebody who knows Jeff better has an answer to that because I sure don’t. I hate to think of anything happening to Mary’s kids. She was a good, hardworking woman, and I was really sad to see what happened to her.”
“What happened to her anyway? How did she die?”
“As far as I know, it was a car accident. The way I heard it, when her husband brought her into the hospital, she was already three-quarters dead. It was the saddest thing. When she died, he had her cremated and basically didn’t tell anybody it had even happened. He kept it really quiet and just went inside himself and didn’t say a whole lot for a long time. Then we slowly started to see Jeff out with the kids. That’s when we first heard that Mary had died and that her good-for-nothing husband had hightailed it out of here, leaving his own children behind. The kids, of course, are pretty-well traumatized over losing their mom. She was everything to them. Dad on the other hand, well, he was worthless.… It remains to be seen whether Uncle Jeff will man up and take care of those kids or move on to another woman who will support him.”
“I’m sorry to hear that about his sister-in-law. It always seems as if the good ones die young.”
The old man laughed and laughed. “Perfect thing to say to an old buzzard like me,” he pointed out, still chuckling.
Alex winced. “Oh, yeah, I should say, present company excepted and all that.”
“No need,” the driver said, still laughing. “I’ll never argue about having lived a long life because I certainly have. I’ve lived, and I’ve lived well, and, when my day comes, I’m okay with it. My kids are all set. My grandkids are doing fine. Everything is hunky-dory. So, I figure I’m living on borrowed time. But the thing is, I know it, so whatever. It’s all good.”
When they reached the corner store, the old man stopped and let out Alex. “There you go. Have a good day now, son.”
As Alex got out, he leaned in and thanked the old man again. “You too. Thanks for the lift.”
And, with that, the old guy drove off, leaving Alex at the store yet again. His rental, luckily, was still here. All of it. A couple phone calls later, it was his again. He smiled as he started to get in, then hesitated and popped into the store. He grabbed two hot coffees, several sandwiches, some bottled water, and a few snacks, not knowing how long they would be sitting outside Jeff’s house tonight—and for future nights probably. Then he headed back out to his rental and drove down the road toward where Taryn should be, watching Jeff’s house.
As Alex got closer, he looked around for any sign of Taryn and her vehicle. He had told her to find a better hiding spot, which was a good idea on all stakeouts, but he had also told her to let him know if she moved and where to. He hoped she hadn’t gone too far. Out here in this rural area, it would be darn hard to track where she was without too much effort. Just then his phone rang, and he checked the Caller ID. He answered it, as Taryn was on the other end.
“You just passed me.”
“Okay,” he murmured. “Are you in the trees?”
“Yeah. I pulled in between a couple, behind some bushes,” she described. “So I have a full view if Jeff leaves, but without his seeing my vehicle.”
“Okay, good. I’ll drive around a little bit and confirm there is no other exit. I’ll also see if I can come up with something that gives me a better way to gauge activity around the back of the house,” he shared. “I do have coffee.”
“Wow.… You picked up coffee.”
Such envy filled her tone that he laughed. “Yeah, don’t worry. I got one for you too.”
She chuckled. “You’re much nicer than me. I probably would have forgotten about you completely.”
“I don’t know about that,” he countered. “I’m hard to forget. Anyway, once I find a spot to park, I’ll come by on foot and make you a coffee delivery.” And, with that, he ended the call and started hunting. He needed a good place to sit and to lie in wait for an asshole who was into selling kids, even his own niece and nephews.