Chapter 16
“He’s coming to.” Agent Bradley leaned over the man in the hospital bed. “Robert, wake up.”
Grant stood back, letting Melissa be the first face the hitman saw. Perhaps it would lull him into a false sense of security to see a pretty face as he swam back to consciousness.
“That’s right. Open your eyes,” Melissa coaxed with a fake smile curving her lips. “You’re going to be all right. Come on, wake up and let the doctor know how you’re feeling.”
The man’s eyes fixed on Melissa as she leaned close to his face. The messy bun she’d worn all day had slipped loose. The coppery strands of her hair fell over her shoulders, giving her a softer, gentler look.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Melissa.”
He blinked, and his lips moved. “Redhead.”
She chuckled. “That’s right. I’m a redhead.” She leaned back, snagged the doctor’s arm and drew him forward. “This is Dr. Stillwell. He’d like to check you over and ask you some questions.”
Robert “Blade” Martin shifted his gaze to the doctor.
Dr. Stillwell examined him, shining a light into his eyes, having him follow his finger as he moved it back and forth, then asking him questions he could easily answer. Once he finished his exam, he stepped back and turned to Melissa. “He’s all yours.”
Melissa’s smile straightened into a flat line. “Robert Martin, I’m Special Agent Bradley. You’re under arrest for murder. You have the right to remain silent—” She got halfway through her recitation of the Miranda Rights when Robert held up his hand.
“Wait. Murder? I didn’t murder anyone. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Special Agent Avery Hart and the driver of the vehicle. You’re also being charged with the murders of three women over the past week and a half.”
“Wait. Wait. Wait. Back up a minute. You got the wrong guy.”
“You were apprehended last night after running the car carrying Agent Hart and her driver off the road, in an attempt to kill her.”
“That was an accident. I don’t know anything about three women. I wasn’t even in Texas over the past week and a half. I didn’t get here until the night before last. I was in Miami. Unless those women were murdered in Miami, you got the wrong guy.”
Grant stood back in the shadows. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention.
The hitman had more or less admitted to the attempt to run them off the road, but he was adamant he hadn’t killed the other women.
Grant’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and read a text from Swede.
Swede: Facial recognition scan in Miami International Airport showed Robert Martin entering two days ago and leaving DFW later that night. Dark web reported he’d been seen at one of Miami’s clubs, the Wharf, every night for four nights straight before that.
Grant frowned. “He didn’t kill those women,” he said to Sheriff Taylor. “He wasn’t in the state when they were taken.”
“What he said,” Robert called out. “I didn’t kill three women. And I had no intention of killing that agent who screwed me out of a job.”
“Talk to the judge,” Melissa said. “Is there another former employee of the Miami Elite gunning for Agent Hart or anyone who looks like her?”
“How would I know? I don’t keep in touch with any of them. They all scattered like rats on a sinking ship.”
Melissa met Grant’s gaze.
He gave her an almost imperceptible shake of his head and mouthed the words, “Not him.”
She stepped away from the bed and strode for the door. “Sheriff, he’s all yours. He knows what he did.”
Sheriff Taylor completed reciting the Miranda Rights as Melissa and Grant left the room.
Grant glanced at the clock on his phone. Avery and Bree had been gone for twenty minutes. The distance to TJs should have taken no more than five minutes, to and from. Swinging by for a wellness check on Mr. Logsdon might have added another five minutes.
“Shouldn’t Bree and Avery be back by now?” Melissa voiced what Grant had been thinking.
“Yes.” He called her phone. It rang four times before going to voicemail. His gut tightened, a cold sense of dread blanketing him. “She’s not answering.”
Melissa was already on her phone. A moment later, she shook her head. “Bree’s not answering, either.”
Grant headed for the elevator, walking fast. Melissa caught up. Together, they stepped into the lift. Grant punched the button for the ground floor, counting the seconds it took for the door to close and then the time it took for them to make it down.
The door had barely opened when Grant squeezed through and ran for the exit.
Melissa raced after him. “My truck,” she said and veered toward the bright red pickup, parked closest to the hospital.
Grant stayed on course for his rental car, yanked open the door and retrieved the gun beneath the seat.
Behind him, the roar of an engine was followed by the sound of tires squealing.
Melissa screeched to a stop beside him. “Get in,” she called out through the open passenger window.
Grant stepped up on the running board and dove into the passenger seat.
Melissa took off before Grant was fully inside.
In his opinion, she couldn’t move fast enough. “Go!” he called out, pulling the door shut as Melissa gunned the accelerator, shooting the truck out of the hospital parking lot and onto the main road.
“They were heading for Mr. Logsdon’s place,” Grant said, fumbling with the map on his cell phone. “Where the hell does he live? Why don’t I know this?”
A text came through from the sheriff with a pin of Logsdon’s address and a note that he was on his way.
Melissa broke all speed limits getting to the little house on a quiet street.
Bree’s SUV was parked on the street. A light shone brightly on the porch, and the front door gaped open.
Before Melissa came to a complete stop, Grant was out of the truck, racing for the house. He leaped onto the porch, gun drawn and charged into the house. The lights were on.
Grant ran through the cottage, checking every room before he arrived back on the porch, breathing hard, his heart a hard rock in his chest. “Not here,” he said through his teeth. “Dear God, he’s got them.”
“Fuck,” Melissa said.
Grant’s pulse pounded through his veins, his mind ripping through everything they’d learned over the past few days, coming up with nothing useful. They hadn’t found the killer’s lair, and now he had Avery and Bree and had taken them there—wherever there was.
“We have to find them,” he said. “They have to be close. He couldn’t have taken them far.”
Melissa bent down, grabbed two items from the ground and held them up. “I was hoping we could track their phones.”
Grant recognized the cell phone he’d purchased for Avery. His heart sank to his knees. How the hell were they going to find them?
“They came to check on Mr. Logsdon. Even he’s gone,” Melissa said.
Grant shook his head. “The killer wouldn’t take the old man. He’d have his hands full with the two women. He’s been dealing with one woman at a time. Two will slow him down enough as it is.”
“Is it possible Mr. Logsdon tried to follow them?” Melissa asked.
“The killer had to have taken them away in a vehicle. He couldn’t have followed on foot.
But he might’ve seen the killer’s face, maybe recognized him.
” Even as Grant said it, he realized it was a stretch.
Mr. Logsdon’s mind wasn’t a reliable source of information.
Still, it could be all they had. “We have to find Mr. Logsdon.”
“A man with dementia wandering around at night?” Melissa shook her head. “He could be anywhere. He could be lost.”
“When he ran into us on the street near the sheriff’s office yesterday, he talked about going to work. He’d been heading to wherever he’d worked for years. His caregiver, Seth Ryland, had reminded him he’d retired years ago. It had to be from there. He might be on the way there now.”
“Which would explain why Logsdon and his caregiver aren’t here. Ryland is probably trying to find Logsdon as well.” Melissa hurried toward the truck.
Grant followed and jumped in. “Head for the sheriff’s office and keep your eyes peeled.”
Melissa turned the truck around and drove through the streets as quickly as she could while they looked left and right for the old man.
They’d passed the sheriff’s office when Grant spotted a whitehaired man walking in an unsteady gait, like someone who’d had too many drinks.
“That’s him,” Grant said.
Melissa rolled to a stop beside Mr. Logsdon.
Grant got out and approached the man. “Mr. Logsdon.”
The old man jerked to a stop and swayed. He looked at Grant, his eyes narrowing. “Do I know you?”
“I’m Grant Hayes. We met yesterday. Have you seen Avery Hart?” he asked.
“Don’t know anyone by that name.”
Grant tried again. “Have you seen Sarah?”
Mr. Logsdon’s glazed eyes filled. “She came home.” His brow wrinkled. “Only there were two Sarahs. I don’t understand.”
“That’s right,” Grant said. “Two Sarahs. Where did they go?”
“Two Sarahs,” Mr. Logsdon fixated on that fact. “She came home. But there were two.”
Grant bit back his impatience, knowing the longer he was delayed, the worse were Avery and Bree’s chances. “Did you see where they went? Did you see where the two Sarahs went?”
“One fell down the steps,” he said. “The big man put them in a van and drove away.” He looked into Grant’s eyes, his face drawn and anguished. “Sarah’s gone.”
“We’re going to find her, Mr. Logsdon. Can you tell me the color of the van the two Sarahs left in?”
“Gray, with the chance of lightning.” The old man turned away. “I have to get to work. I’m late for the night shift. Have to keep the boiler going, the heat just right.”
“Where do you work?” Grant asked.
“I have to go. I’m late.” The old man staggered away, on a mission to get to work he no longer did.
“We can’t let him wander around at night,” Melissa said, joining Grant.
Grant hurried after him.
About that time, Sheriff Taylor drove up beside him. “Mr. Logsdon on his way to work again?”
“He is,” Grant slowed to a stop, his gaze following the old man. “He said the Sarahs were taken away in a gray van with lightning.”
The sheriff frowned. “The Sarahs?”
“His missing daughter,” Grant said. “He was confused that there were two.”
“I remember when that happened. It was a big story in town. Tom hadn’t heard from Sarah in a couple of months, and then he got a call from her husband, asking if she’d shown up at home. Said she’d disappeared. Tom and Maggie spent years looking for her. He’s never been the same.”
Melissa drove up in her red truck and nodded toward Mr. Logsdon. “Want me to follow him?”
“He knows where he’s going,” the sheriff said. “He walked to work every day for forty years. It’s muscle memory, even when the rest of his memories are fading.”
“Where did he work?” Grant asked.
“The old lumber mill,” the sheriff said. “It’s been closed for a few decades. The place employed a lot of people when the town was growing back in the early nineteen hundreds.”
“He won’t get hurt there?” Melissa asked.
“We don’t always know when he goes there. Maggie used to call us when he would go to work. We’d keep an eye on him and make sure he got home safely, even the night shift knows what to do.”
“It was shortly after Tom’s daughter disappeared that the mill shut down. The original owner had passed years before and left it to his son. The big lumber companies were taking over. He couldn’t compete, so he shut it down, sold his house and moved to Dallas.”
“In a few short years, Mr. Logsdon lost his daughter and the job he’d worked for most of his life.
” Grant shook his head. “I can see why he was never the same. As sad as that story is, it’s not helping us find Avery and Bree.
Do we gather Mr. Logsdon and take him home, or continue our search and hope he makes it back on his own? ”
“He’ll get to the old Stenson Mill sign, look up at it and then turn around and go home.”
Grant froze. “What was the name of the factory?”
“Stenson Mill,” the sheriff said.
“Holy fucking shit.” Grant leaped into the sheriff’s truck. “Get us there. Now.” He yelled to Melissa. “Follow us.”
The sheriff slammed his foot down on the accelerator and roared through town. “Why are we going to the mill?”
“Avery was right. We were missing something. We were on the right track, but basements might’ve been a poor guess.” He turned to the sheriff. “John Stenson.”
“The founder of the mill.” The sheriff slowed at a turn, but not enough. The back of his SUV skidded sideways before he got control. “So?”
“He was a big bootlegger back during prohibition. He was known for both selling and making spirits. He liked cutting out the middleman. We went to the house he owned and found nothing in the basement.”
“Because he didn’t bring his brewing operation home to his family.” The sheriff shook his head and negotiated another sharp turn. “Why would he when he had a lumber mill he could use as a front to hide his still?”
“Right under our noses,” the sheriff said, shaking his head. “No one but Tom Logsdon ever goes there. The place is falling down. The roof is caved in in places.”
“Thus, rain gets in and causes mold.” Grant leaned forward, wishing the truck would move faster.
His phone chirped. Grant glanced at the name on the screen and answered. “Swede, what have you got?”
“Might have found the parents of the twins.”
“Tell me quick. We think we found the killer’s hiding place.”
“Then you’ll want to know this. I traced back through reports of missing persons, including a mother and her twin one-month-old babies from thirty-four years ago.
I got a hit on the wife of a Dallas Police detective who went on public television asking for help finding his missing wife and baby daughters.
His name was David Raymond. His wife’s name was Sarah. ”
Grant’s gut bunched into a hard knot. “Sarah Logsdon Raymond?”
“Yes. Her maiden name was Logsdon.” Swede went on. “Even though David was a detective, he was the first suspect. They couldn’t pin it on him. He even passed a lie detector test. Though he was cleared, the suspicion eventually ruined his career. He left the force a year later.”
A text pinged on Grant’s phone.
“I just sent you an old photograph of David Raymond.”
Grant hit the speaker button and brought up the photograph. “Oh, hell.”
“What?” Sheriff Taylor’s foot slipped off the accelerator.
“Don’t slow down now. We need to get there as fast as possible. The picture Swede sent is a younger version of your coffee guy, Dan.”