Chapter 5 #3
“Thank you, Dr. Hodges,” Grant said. “We appreciate it.”
The doctor grinned. “I’m old friends with Perry’s family, too. I got to learn how it’s not great for the lives of many for twisted information to be out there!”
He turned and walked back toward the central nurses’ station.
“So—” Shelly began.
“One sec,” Grant murmured. His phone was buzzing. He looked at Shelly and grimaced.
“We’ve got an ID on the remains that were discovered at George Maynard’s house. The ME has requested our presence.”
“He has an ID on the remains we found at Maynard’s house?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Well?”
“John Smith,” he told her dryly.
“John Smith?” she replied with an aggravated sigh. “Is the good doctor trying to get a rise out of us?” she asked.
He shook his head, glancing at the message he’d received again. “Legitimately, the man’s name is John Smith. John Reginald Smith, served in the military, honorably discharged, kept winding up in layoffs, and apparently, from what they’ve discerned so far, he was living on the streets.”
“A veteran—living on the streets,” Shelly said unhappily. “And yet, living on the streets doesn’t explain how you wind up as a pile of ash in the foliage on the property of a man who was threatened—and who was seized to be tortured.”
“I’d like to find out more about John Smith,” Grant said. “But I’d also like to see if the forensic crews have discovered anything else out by the cabins.”
“We’ll head to the cabins,” she said. “I’m willing to bet our people are looking up everything that they can about John Smith.”
“And trying to discover his last known whereabouts,” Grant assured her.
Perry was with Ainsley, and Miranda was coming. The hospital was well-guarded. Angela and the home-office crew would be working with whatever ethernet magic they could discern online.
Shelly looked at him and grimaced.
“After all, we are ‘field’ agents. Might as well work in a field!”
They left the hospital. As they walked to the car, Grant saw that Shelly was thoughtful.
“What?” he asked as they got into the car.
“Patricia Norton,” Shelly said, fastening her seat belt.
“She’s an ‘influencer.’ Supposedly, she admires George Maynard tremendously.
But she seemed to know before she got to the hospital that she wouldn’t be able to speak with him.
I mean, okay, somehow the legitimate news—if there is such a thing—got wind that George Maynard had been discovered, severely injured, but alive.
So, she knew that. I think she came to the hospital to get a rise out of Ainsley, to try to get her to do something wild on camera, maybe. Why?”
“Because she likes to cause trouble?” Grant suggested.
“Maybe. Miranda Drake seemed to think Norton could be hateful enough to have come after George.”
“But Ainsley said that if Patricia Norton wanted to kill someone, it would be her,” Grant reminded Shelly.
“I don’t know. And, hey! What happened in George’s room?” Shelly asked. “I don’t understand my own gift, much less yours, but the man is alive—”
“I know what he saw,” Grant said.
“Then …”
“I doubt if even Jackson and Angela understand the strangeness of the so-called gifts of the mind or the soul or whatever they may be. Often my real talent—if you want to call it that—comes when I can hold the hand of someone recently dead. Sometimes even if it’s not so recent.
But today, it was as if we could speak through the touch.
George Maynard got to his house. He opened the outer door and then the inner door. ”
“Then he saw something!” Shelly exclaimed.
“Nothing helpful. He saw a shadow. A giant shadow. Then, he felt a terrible pain in his head.”
“And when he woke up, he was tied to a chair,” Shelly said. “Helpful, of course—”
“And not all that helpful.”
“Here’s the thing, though. Yes, those cabins are far apart. But with what was done to that man, he had to have been screaming just about loud enough to wake the long dead,” Shelly said.
“Music?” he suggested.
She was thoughtful. “Maybe. But forensics must have found something. Because, while he was being tortured slowly to death, I do believe death was the endgame. It’s sad but true that he’s only alive because someone really wanted him to suffer.”
“And he was alone when we got there,” Grant murmured. “I wonder. Do we or don’t we think they would have just left him as they did? Was someone supposed to go back and finish the job?”
“Possibly. If someone is paying for all this, they must be pretty angry. Both George Maynard and Cecil Cartwright are still alive. But still …”
“You think someone was going to come back. Only now, they’ll never come back. The place is crawling with officers, agents, and forensic crews,” Grant noted. “But do you think whoever was doing it would have driven away? Possibly because they needed something?”
“That is a possibility. But there’s another,” Shelly said.
He looked at her, smiling. Their minds seemed to travel in the same direction often.
“You think they might have moved into the woods—or even into another cabin.”
“I even think they might have rented another cabin.”
“That was all that was discovered using our suspect’s name,” Grant reminded her.
“Which means nothing.”
“All right, so everyone in the entire recreational area knows what has happened by now. I’ll bet many have checked out—”
“And maybe some are just hiding out,” Shelly suggested.
“We’re going to need warrants,” Grant told her. “But luckily, I’ve got friends in high places!”
“Yeah!”
Grant made the calls he needed, and he was indeed in luck.
But then again, the George Maynard case was huge across the country. People cared. They wanted to know what had happened.
By the time they were parked at the campground, he had what he needed; he put a call through to Perry.
Perry would pick up the warrants and meet them, and they would go cabin to cabin.
Maybe they were wrong.
But they had to start somewhere.
“I can’t imagine anyone hiding in the woods for hours and hours,” Shelly murmured as they got out of the car. It would be a few minutes before Perry could get there, but they were ready to move. “Still …”
“You go left; I’ll go right?”
“Great plan!” she told him.
“Watch your phone; Perry has both our numbers. He’ll call as soon as he’s almost here. He’s beating himself up, thinks he should have thought of this sooner,” Grant told her.
“I’ll be paying attention,” she promised.
He started off through a hiking trail to the right of the parking area.
It was quiet. So quiet.
He surmised he had been right. When all the law enforcement personnel had swarmed the place, many people had probably decided it was not going to be a charming and quiet vacation in the woods.
And they’d headed out.
No one was on the trail.
But he hadn’t gone more than a tenth of a mile when he heard a shout.
A shout from Shelly.
“Grant!”
Then …
Noise. The noise of a struggle, thrashing in the foliage, thuds upon the earth.
He turned and raced back. Tree branches slapped his face; his feet moved hard and fast over the forest floor, feeling the heat of the sun as it fell upon the world on an all-but-cloudless day.
Thankfully, the struggle going on was fierce and loud; if he could find the trail, he could race right along it.
He wondered what the hell had happened. Shelly was armed! She could have turned on anyone …
Unless she had been taken completely by surprise.
Or …
She had run into more than one person attempting to take her down.
He ran harder, heedless of whatever noise he might be making in his hurry, but looking carefully ahead.
And then he saw her.
She was in the center of a clearing. One man was down by a grove of trees; it appeared that she had just flipped a second one.
And yet, even as she did so …
A third figure, dressed not as a shadow, but rather in clothing that suggested military camouflage, was racing across the clearing toward her.
“Stop!” he shouted, drawing his Glock. “Federal officer! Stop now!”
The man didn’t stop.
His first priority was Shelly’s life. But they wanted these men alive; they wanted to know just what the hell was going on.
He instinctively and instantly noted his position; he had it.
Rather than fire, he burst forward with speed, slamming into the man right before he could reach Shelly, who was still dealing with the man she had flipped to the ground.
They all tumbled down to the ground together. His eyes met hers within their strange, entwined position.
Then he rolled up, dragging the third attacker up with him with one hand, digging zip-tie cuffs from his pocket with the other, as Shelly dragged up and cuffed the man she’d been battling.
The man who had been on the ground screamed. “You broke my arm!” he raged. “Police brutality! You’re going to be arrested, not me!”
“We’re not the police,” Shelly said with a shrug. “But you are under arrest for attempted murder!”
The man started to laugh. “Attempted! Ah, come on, might as well go all the way! Arrest me for murder, no attempt about it!”
“Sorry, the man you were attempting to murder is still alive,” Shelly said.
“Ah, one man is alive … and then again …” the man said, smiling.
Grant looked at Shelly, who was looking at him.
Yes, they had a corpse burned to a crisp. But …
How many others out there might be dead?