Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Caleb held out his hand. “I’ll drive.”
For a second, he wondered if she would argue. He would press the issue. She was worried about her father, and he was a control freak.
She dropped the keys in his palm with a shaky hand and hurried around to the passenger side of her small SUV.
Caleb had to move the seat almost all the way back, but he got them going fast. Just in case their arrival time meant the difference between life or death.
He followed the GPS on her dash screen, connected to her phone, his mind full of the implications and questions that came with finding that shoebox of letters.
Letters from his parents that they’d sent to his grandfather. Caleb hadn’t managed to read more than the first one and wanted as much time as he needed to go through them all. To soak up and absorb the words.
For years he’d figured they were dead, or they didn’t want to come back and take care of him and Noah. Now he knew that Pops had been communicating with them this entire time it put a whole new spin on things. At least on what Pops had led him to believe.
Caleb couldn’t reconcile it.
It was about as astounding as a delivery envelope with information that connected to Caleb’s case in it. Information sent to the preacher of all people—made no sense.
Nathan Kessler was a former CIA agent who had gone freelance and become a businessman, funneling money he had embezzled from the US government into purchasing companies all over the world.
Mainly focused on South America, he had used his legitimate shipping businesses to give cartels and other smugglers a free pass through checkpoints and borders.
Kessler also laundered money for criminal organizations. Using business transactions to hide turning illegal funds into income. How on earth that information got to Tessa’s father was anyone’s guess. He had no clue.
They definitely needed to find Tessa’s dad. Not just so she’d know he was safe, but also so that Caleb could ask him what on earth was going on—and where he got those papers from.
He couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t some form of divine intervention. A little of what he’d prayed for earlier. “There’s a reason for me being here.”
Tessa glanced over from looking out the window. “Huh?”
“Sorry. I just meant that there’s a reason I thought to come home. Not just because it’s a safe place to be where I could recover, but also because maybe there was something here that God wanted me to find.”
Answers that he needed, and maybe even a way to take Kessler down.
Would Tessa’s father really be the key to finally bringing down Nathan Kessler, and uncovering all the dirty agents in federal law enforcement, and in the CIA?
Not just that, but there were more turncoats in all kinds of hidden places.
Caleb had lain awake at night thinking it through and figured there had to be more to it than just his team.
“You believe in God?” Tessa glanced over at him. “I didn’t get the feeling you did when we were in high school, but maybe I was wrong.”
He gripped the steering wheel. “You aren’t wrong.
It’s only been a few weeks. But God definitely brought me home.
With the injury and everything that happened after, I decided I needed to start believing again.
That I needed to follow God and what He wanted for my life.
It was part of why I decided to come home and try to heal with Pops.
So I could have someone steady in the faith around me while I was figuring everything out. ”
And maybe it was all so that God could have him here to discover the shoebox. To find the truth about his parents. The thing that Pops had been lying to him about.
He shook his head. No point dwelling on that until they could talk it out.
“I’m so used to people with faith that seems so flimsy, or people who just show up to church on Sundays and the rest of the time they don’t even act like Christians. Especially online.”
Caleb nodded.
“It’s nice to talk to someone who has genuine faith.
A lot of the time it seems like I’m getting cynical about there still being true believers in the world.
I mean, I know there are. People across the world are facing persecution and even death for their faith.
There’s not much of that here in Montana, but we can still be strong in what we believe and stand up for what’s right. ”
“It’s all still pretty new. But once that priest in the hospital started talking to me about it, it made me remember everything Pops ever told me about God, and about the Bible.”
To discover that the old man had been lying to him this entire time didn’t sit well.
Not after he had been the one that brought truth into Caleb’s life.
Pops was a guy who took in two teenage boys that otherwise would’ve ended up in foster care.
The man who had prayed with them and encouraged them to ask God for help when they needed it.
“I can’t believe he’s been lying for years.” Caleb shook his head. “Those letters went back decades.”
Tessa nodded. “It seemed like Pops was sending your parents photos and maybe updates about things that were happening in your life. Those letters were like the replies to whatever he sent them.”
“And he never told us they were alive? I just can’t believe he never even said, ‘I know they’re alive.’ He just let us think they were dead.”
“Isn’t it good that they wanted to know what was happening with you? If you’re inclined to look on the bright side, it means they still care about you.”
Caleb held onto the wheel around the corner. Tessa stiffened in her seat. Probably could’ve slowed down. “If they wanted to know, they could have just called. Or shown up and seen for themselves.”
The fact they hadn’t meant that maybe they weren’t able to—for whatever reason. But how did that make it any better? What could they possibly have been doing that… what, endangered their lives if they saw each other?
Maybe he was taking on a little bit of that cynical thing she’d been talking about. But this wasn’t about someone who had shallow faith. This was about parents who abandoned their children.
Caleb shook his head. “Let’s just find your father.”
“Looks like he should be just around this next bend.” She leaned forward in her seat to peer out the front window. The road straightened in front of them, both sides of the highway tall pine trees that nearly blocked out the sun overhead. “There. I see his car.”
A dark blue compact had pulled over to the side of the road. This stretch of highway between their town, Breckenrow, and the neighboring town, Morriton, was nothing but tall peaks and pine trees. No one even lived out here as far as he knew and he hadn’t seen a turnoff for miles.
Caleb pulled over behind the compact. “The driver’s door is open. I don’t see anyone in the car or around it.” He reached to the back of his waistband under his jacket, pulling out his personal weapon.
He kept the car keys and slid the holstered gun onto the side of his belt.
That movement made him feel more like himself than anything in the last six weeks.
Ever since that building exploded around him and he’d hunkered down in the bathtub, barely protected from the fireball.
Something about having a gun on his hip felt far more natural than being without it.
Tessa raced ahead of him. He caught up and snagged her elbow. “Hold up. We’re going to do this without rushing.”
“He isn’t here.” She looked around. “Where is he?”
“Walk all the way around the car and see if you spot anything.” He didn’t even really know what they were looking for, but it would give her something to focus on. “There could be fingerprints on anything so don’t touch unless you absolutely have to.”
“The Sheriff’s Department sends all their forensics to Bozeman. It takes weeks for test results.”
He glanced over at her. “How do you know about forensics?”
“I saw a news report about it on the local channel a few months back. About how they need so much more funding from property taxes to cover locally tested forensics. But no one wants to put the money into it.”
“Okay, that’s good to know.” Caleb figured he could get results faster than the police anyway. After all, if this was connected to his investigation he would only be working one case at a time. The cops covered the whole county.
He crouched beside the car. Along with the open driver’s door, the keys were still in the ignition. A wallet in the center console. She could flip through that and ensure it was her father’s, but she didn’t seem to think this was anyone else’s car.
Caleb spotted a stain on the steering wheel. Someone had slammed Tessa’s father’s head on the hard plastic. Possibly to incapacitate him. He headed for the front of the vehicle and saw twin tire tracks in front of the car. The depth indicated whoever was in the other car had sped away quickly.
He looked back at the blue compact.
“I need to call the Sheriff’s Department.”
Caleb nodded. “I think he pulled over because someone was on the side of the road. Maybe it looked like they needed help, and he stopped to render assistance.”
She looked up from her phone. “Then where is he?”
“They sped off in a hurry.” He pointed to the tire tracks. “Maybe they took him, too.”
“They kidnapped him?” Her jaw dropped open, shock and terror on her face. “Who would do that?”
The better question was whether it was connected to the contents of the envelope in the preacher’s safe. “Did they take him and then break into the house, or did they break into the house and not find what they were looking for—and then they took him?”
Her face paled. “Caleb, what’s going on?”
Caleb moved to stand in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders. He probably shouldn’t have voiced his question aloud, but it was out now.
“I’m going to figure that out. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.” He couldn’t promise he would find her father, or that the old man would be in one piece when he did. But he could promise her that he would do an investigation.
Another thing God might have brought him here for. So that he could use the skills he had to help Tessa and her father.
The local sheriff’s department probably wasn’t going to be super happy with a supposedly deceased DEA agent working a case in their jurisdiction, but they were just going to have to deal.
And not tell anyone that he was here.
She bit her lip, tears edging to the corners of her eyes.
Caleb didn’t really know what to do with a woman in the throes of an emotional reaction.
But he had plenty of experience with witnesses and victims. “Now that we know something happened to him we can figure out who did this. I’m going to need you to tell me everything about your father and the last few weeks.
But first we need to see what else we can learn right here. ”
She nodded, and he walked around her. Something over here had touched on his instincts making him need to check it out. He wasn’t quite sure what it was that he’d noticed, but he didn’t entirely believe that whoever stopped had kidnapped her father. He just couldn’t have said why.
Behind him, he heard her talking to someone on the phone. Whatever amounted to 911 dispatch in this town asked her questions while Caleb scanned the bushes and trees beside the road.
He reached out and touched a branch that had broken off a thorn bush. Not definitive on its own. But added to the snagged piece of blue material, it definitely indicated something.
Caleb eased between bushes about six feet, discovering an animal trail that ran alongside the road and went between the trees, winding through the thick brush.
When he was too far to hear Tessa’s voice any longer, he spotted a smear of blood on the trunk of a tree.
He turned back to her. “I think he ran this way.”