Chapter 68
CHAPTER
SIXTY-EIGHT
The van came into Andi’s view too slowly.
Every step felt wrong, stretched thin by dread. Her mind filled the distance with images she didn’t want to envision, scenes she couldn’t stop.
She reached the van and paused.
Everyone was there.
They were shaken.
They were breathing.
They were alive.
Andi’s knees threatened to give out.
Then she saw Ranger.
He stood several feet away, his hand locked on a woman’s arm.
Fake Pam.
The woman twisted against his grip, hair wild and eyes bright with something sharp and unhinged. Purple liquid dripped down her face and covered part of her hair.
What was that?
“Why’d you have to ruin everything?” Fake Pam screeched, her gaze focused on Jack as Duke walked out of the dark with Jack in custody, hands bound behind his back. Jack’s head hung low, and his shoulders had lost their rigid set. “We had a plan, and you messed it up!”
Jack said nothing.
“People need to be taught a lesson!” she continued.
“You messed up everything! I should have never listened to you. You had to take things too far and leave those women to die. That was never part of our strategy, but you were just having so much fun. Mom always said you were good for nothing. She was right!”
Mom? Wait . . . were Fake Pam and Jack related?
“Easy,” Ranger murmured.
Ben stepped closer to Andi. “She must have parked down the road and cut her lights before she got too close. She showed up on foot with a gun. Ordered us out of the van. Said she was finishing things.”
“What happened then?” Andi asked.
“You can thank Mariella for the next turn of events.” Ranger nodded at her, indicating she should take the lead.
Mariella practically beamed. “I happened to see one of the energy drinks in the van. I had it in my hand when Fake Pam showed up. When I got out of the van, I didn’t put it down.
I knew we needed a distraction. So I did what anyone in my shoes would.
I shook the can, opened it, and sprayed her in the face. ”
“That distracted Fake Pam,” Ranger continued. “She wasn’t that hard to take down, thankfully.”
“I knew those drinks were worth endorsing,” Mariella added in a singsong voice.
Andi nodded, her chest still tight.
Police lights washed over the desert now, sharp and real as patrol cars crested the ridge.
Doors slammed. Voices rose. Control returned in pieces.
As the officers took Jack and Fake Pam away, Andi and Duke paused in front of each other.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Everything around them moved—officers, medics, voices—but the space between them held.
They were here.
They were standing.
They were alive.
And for the first time in hours, danger no longer pressed in from every side.
They still needed to find Kate.
But Jack’s reign of terror was over.
Four hours later, the team—along with Ben—met together back in Andi’s room at the hotel. The FBI were on their way, and they’d probably have to rehash their stories with them also.
The scene at the trailer had been a flurry of activity. The gang had given statements. Had offered timelines. Had answered questions that looped back on themselves.
Police radios had crackled in the desert. Medics had shone lights into their eyes and asked the same things twice, sometimes three times. Rupert had insisted he was fine while looking anything but.
“Kate is still out there,” Andi announced.
More than anything, she wanted to celebrate their victory. But she couldn’t. Not yet.
Matthew had his computer out. “Now that we know who’s behind these disappearances, it will be easier to follow Jack’s digital footprints. I’m looking at his credit card statements. I have to assume the places he’s kept these women were private rentals. Most don’t accept cash.”
“I can’t believe Jack was behind this.” Mariella rubbed her arms and shook her head. “He seemed so nice. How did he even manage to get on the tour with us? It’s disturbing, really how someone who was such a threat just wormed his way into our orbit.”
“According to what I heard from the police—and Rupert—back in the desert, Jack really is a bus driver,” Duke said. “He heard about our tour, applied for a position with the company we’re using, and they hired him. On paper, he looked fine.”
“And he just so happened to also know how to erase video footage in parking garages?” Ranger narrowed his eye skeptically. “He knew how to set up a bomb under the trailer?”
“Apparently, he had Pam—Crystal, I guess I should say—purchase everything he needed for the explosives. He was a bomb tech in the military for a while, but after his unit was attacked, he seemed to go off the deep end. As far as the security camera footage, he actually worked security for a while as a civilian. He probably learned those skills there.”
“I can’t figure out how Fake Pam knew all those details about Gina’s life,” Mariella said. “She knew how hard her breakup with Colin had been. She knew her work schedule, the fact she ate with her sister every Tuesday. She really sold it.”
“When I looked at Gina’s social media, I noticed a lot of those details,” Andi said. “They weren’t all spelled out directly, but when people would comment on Gina’s posts, sometimes she replied with specific information. I’m guessing that’s how she knew.”
“But didn’t she have a key to Gina’s apartment?” Simmy asked.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure about that one.” Andi frowned. “Maybe she had one made or found one under a doormat. The door was cracked open when we arrived, so she didn’t actually need a key that day. Either way, she did a great job selling the idea she was Gina’s sister.”
“How is Jack connected to Crystal?” Simmy asked.
“She’s his baby sister,” Matthew answered, pushing his glasses up higher on his nose.
“There’s a fifteen-year age difference. I just discovered that information.
I also found a police report saying that Crystal really had been stalked but no one took her seriously.
I believe she told you that when we thought she was Pam. ”
“Wait—was it the stalker who took her?” Mariella asked.
“Yes, it was,” Matthew continued. “He held her captive in a mountain cabin for a week. Her brother managed to find her after the police basically dismissed his concerns.”
“I can only imagine the trauma that experience caused affected her in ways that materialized into all of this,” Simmy said. “I’m not excusing her behavior, but this all ties together.”
“I’m sure it did,” Duke said. “But not everyone who’s abducted turns into a criminal.”
“Agreed,” Simmy said. “It’s just all around tragic.”
Andi inched closer. “Anything about Kate?”
“I’m still looking.” Matthew frowned at the screen. “Hacking into a person’s finances isn’t as easy as they make it look on TV.”
A few minutes of quiet passed as they waited.
Then Simmy said, “Poor Rupert. I hope he’ll be okay.”
He was at the hospital now, just as a precaution. His girlfriend had driven into town to be with him.
“He will be,” Andi said. “He’ll twist this around, make it a part of his story, and his business will thrive.”
“Did anyone hear how he was grabbed?” Mariella asked.
“Jack called him—on the hotel phone so it wouldn’t be traceable,” Duke explained.
“Said there was a problem with one of the vans. Rupert went behind the building to check it out. When he did, Jack knocked him out and put him in the back of Crystal’s car.
They drove him to the trailer—she’d secured the place earlier and set things up there.
Then Jack came back to the hotel, and Crystal waited for instructions.
Jack met up with her later, after he was sure everyone had seen him during the fire alarm. ”
“I’ve got it!”
Everyone turned their attention to Matthew.
“There was nothing on Jack’s credit cards.” Matthew’s words came fast. “Then I checked Crystal’s. She put a deposit on a cabin between San Francisco and LA. That has to be where Kate’s being held.”
Andi already began dialing Alverez with the FBI. “I need to let him know. We’re too far away to get there in time.”
He answered, and she gave him the update.
Then she began praying that her friend was okay.