Chapter 25
The van smelled like stale coffee and the vinyl seats that had been baking in the sun before dawn turned to shade.
Noah and Callie had been parked three cars down from the Strutz Agency since six in the morning, tucked between a plumber's truck and a Subaru with a ski rack that hadn't been used since winter.
They'd watched Samuel Bridger arrive at eight fifteen, key in hand, and disappear up the stairs.
Since then, nothing. A woman walked her dog past the storefronts.
A delivery truck pulled up to the hardware store and left ten minutes later.
The town moved at the pace of a town that had nowhere urgent to be.
Noah had his seat reclined two inches and his eyes half closed.
Not sleeping. Drifting. A state that cops on surveillance learned to occupy, where the body rested but the brain kept one channel open.
He'd done this a hundred times over the years.
Stakeouts were ninety percent boredom and ten percent everything else, and the trick was staying sharp enough for the ten percent without losing your mind during the ninety.
Callie tapped his arm. "Heads up. We got action."
Noah blinked hard and straightened. Through the windshield he caught sight of a girl on a bicycle pulling up to the building. She leaned the bike against the wall beside the brass-numbered door and went inside.
"Oh great," Noah said. "What is she doing here?"
It was Ruby.
"Probably still searching for Fiona," Callie said. She reached for the door handle. "I should go in."
Noah placed his hand on her arm. "And draw attention to us. No. We wait."
They waited five minutes but it felt longer.
Noah watched the door and thought about Ruby breaking into Garrett Finch's studio, Ruby showing up at the station with bruises on her arm, Ruby identifying the windmill in the photograph.
The girl had a talent for inserting herself into places she didn't belong, and so far it had paid off more than it hadn't.
But walking into the office of a man they were actively surveilling was a different kind of risk.
The door opened and Ruby came back out. She grabbed her bicycle, swung a leg over the seat, and pedaled away down Main Street without looking back.
"Wonder what that was all about," Callie said.
Noah sank back into his seat. "No idea. We should do a run to the coffee store. This could be a long day."
"You think he's guilty?"
"Of the murders? Who knows. Of an offense against Hailey Benton?" He looked at her. "You heard the witness. What do you think?"
"Credible. I mean, I understood what Ray was saying.
If Marisol had been fired, she might want to snap back at Bridger.
And the connection to the agency is there for all the girls, so it's easy to point a finger.
But that seems a stretch. Messing with someone's livelihood?
Toying with a parent's emotions? No." Callie shook her head.
"I think she has a strong hunch, or she knew more than she was telling. "
Noah nodded. "Let's go get some coffee. Bridger didn't look like he was in a hurry this morning."
He fired up the Bronco and pulled out, heading through Elizabethtown toward the Pleasant Valley Café.
"So I heard from Jake recently," Callie said.
"Oh yeah?" Noah replied through the fog in his brain.
"He left some of his belongings here. Back then he said he was going to come back and collect them, but now he wants me to ship them. Says he'll send the money."
Noah glanced at her. "How do you feel about it all?"
"I'd be lying if I said it hasn't bothered me. But it is what it is, right?"
She looked at him as if he might have an answer. He didn't. "I'm the last person to ask. Never really had much luck in that department."
She chuckled. "You and me both."
Noah pulled up outside the café and they got out. Callie headed inside to order. Noah stayed on the sidewalk, stretching his back, when his phone rang. He pulled it out. High Peaks Police Department.
"Uh-huh. Go ahead." He frowned. "Are you sure?" A pause. "All right. On our way."
Callie came out with two cups of coffee and stopped when she saw his face. "What's up?"
"We got part of the background back." He took the coffee from her but didn't drink it. "Samuel Bridger died seven years ago. Cancer."
Callie stared at him. "Well that brings a whole new meaning to what Marisol said."
Noah nodded. "He's not who he says he is. Which begs the question, who is our guy?"
The station was buzzing when they got back.
Officers moving between desks, phones ringing, the energy that fills a building when a case breaks open and everyone can feel it.
Ray met them in the corridor before they reached the office.
He had a folder in his hand and looked like he had been waiting for them to walk through the door.
"The reason ViCAP and CODIS came back clean was because Samuel Bridger kept his nose clean his whole life," Ray said. "Worked in the logging industry up in Vermont. Had nothing to do with modeling. Never so much as a parking ticket."
"So who is our guy?" Noah asked.
"David Hughes. That's his real name."
Noah stopped walking. "Hughes? David Hughes?"
"The name sound familiar?"
"Sue Braxton told us that Seraphine's mother, Jessie Maddox, was going to marry someone called David Hughes."
Ray pointed at him. "That explains the connection between the agency and Three Pillars."
"Did he do time?" Noah asked.
"Not a day. But he has a history." Ray opened the folder and handed it over.
"Classic case of a survivor's case going south.
David Hughes ran a modeling agency in Colorado called Elite Frames.
Operated out of Denver for about four years.
Had a decent client list, local magazines, commercial work, nothing national but enough to keep the lights on and attract a steady flow of young women looking for a break.
Then six years ago a nineteen-year-old recruit named Emma Lawson accused him of rape during a locked private fitting session.
She claimed he drugged her drink, assaulted her, and took compromising photos.
Media went after it hard. 'Model Mogul's Studio of Secrets.
' It was on every local news station. Picked up nationally for a few cycles. "
"What happened?" Callie asked.
"Before trial, Emma recanted. Cited bipolar disorder. Said she'd fabricated the whole thing for attention. Had a psych evaluation to back it up. Charges were dropped."
"Recanted or was pressured to recant?" Callie said.
Ray shrugged. "That's the question everyone asked. The psych eval came from a private practice, not court-appointed. Someone paid for it. Draw your own conclusions."
"But the damage stuck," Noah said.
"He was done. Didn't matter that the charges were dropped.
The agency hemorrhaged clients overnight.
Sponsors pulled out. The models scattered.
Lawsuits piled up from other women, civil claims, breach of contract, one alleging inappropriate conduct during a shoot that never made it to criminal court.
David declared bankruptcy and vanished. Dropped off the map completely. "
"And shows up here," Noah said.
Ray nodded. "Resurfaces in upstate New York with Strutz Agency. Keeps a low profile. Scouts ambitious college girls."
Noah opened the folder and scanned the Colorado case file. He read through it, muttering pieces aloud. "Girl cried rape, recanted, but Hughes' agency was basically toast." He looked up. "Now modeling-obsessed college girls are vanishing after auditions? One of them managed to get away."
"Hailey Benton," Callie said.
"And he's not letting another girl survive to talk.
" Noah closed the folder. "So David Hughes takes on the identity of Samuel Bridger.
More than likely the real Bridger was connected to the Three Pillar Community.
Hughes works out some arrangement with Three Pillars to refer girls to him.
Opens a new agency. And now he has the perfect cover.
Girls go missing, maybe they joined the community, which is already known for helping people disappear from their families and. .."
"You have the perfect cover," Callie finished.
The three of them stood in the corridor and the noise of the station moved around them. Phones ringing. An officer laughing at something on a computer screen, oblivious to what was about to happen. The hum of a building that was about to shift from investigation to action.
Ray looked at both of them for a moment, then motioned over his shoulder toward the back of the building where the tactical unit kept their gear.
"SWAT is already getting ready. We hit his home and the agency.
Both at once. Simultaneous entry." He held up a finger.
"There cannot be any problems with this one.
No Garrett Finch situation where we grab him and have to let him walk.
No Derek Hollis where he slips through our fingers.
We go in clean, we come out with David Hughes in cuffs, and we take apart every room he's ever set foot in. "
Noah looked at Callie. She looked back. Neither of them needed to say what they were both thinking.
They'd been here before. Twice. And both times the case had shifted under their feet the moment they thought they had their man.
Garrett Finch turned out to be a predator, not a killer.
Derek Hollis was still in the wind. Now David Hughes, wearing a dead man's name, running a pipeline that funneled young women through his office and into the dark.
Third time. It had to stick.
"Let's go get him," Noah said.