Out of Reach: A Novel (21 page)

“Cody?”

Alec considered. “Possibly. But Digger talked about his son, and called him Ryan. Though I’m willing to bet he knows something about Cody. He reacted when I used the name and said his son had a friend named Cody.”

They’d arrived, following the other car through the gates. As they passed the mansion, Erin said, “Looks like something out of a horror movie.”

“Yeah.”

“I think we need to get a look at more than just those graves.”

He glanced at her. “It’s a good way to get yourself killed.” Though he’d thought the same thing himself.

She wasn’t fooled. “Tell me you wouldn’t go in if you knew that boy was inside.”

He couldn’t, and they both knew it.

“I counted eight armed guards,” she said. “Including the two at the gate. It’s not an army.”

“And the cameras?”

“Near the gatehouse. Along the perimeter of the trees. Ringing the house. No doubt they’d see us coming.”

“As I said, it’s a death trap.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “And maybe we don’t have a choice. Not if we want to see who or what is buried in those graves.”

They stopped behind the dark sedan, near the building where Alec had watched the men bury the bodies. Besides the guards, two other men waited for them, standing under the eaves of the garage, shovels in hand.

“The big guy on the right is Digger,” Alec said.

“Our weak link.”

“The question is how to get to him.”

“There’s always a way. Our problem is we’re running out of time. Neville’s leaving the country tomorrow. If we don’t find Cody before then, my guess is we won’t find him at all.”

Which had occurred to Alec as well, and they climbed out of the car, careful to avoid eye contact with the man with the shovel.

They stood in the drizzle as the men attacked the freshly turned earth, turned muddy now. And when the small bundles were finally pulled from the earth, Alec stepped forward to see them uncovered. As he expected, they were dogs.

Back in the car, as they drove toward the house, Erin spoke his thoughts aloud. “As I said. Maybe we don’t have a choice.”

The room was dark, cheap vinyl-backed curtains blocking the watery afternoon sun. Only the television provided light, though Isaac watched without sound. The picture telling him all he needed to know.

A reporter stood outside Golden Oaks, police and FBI vehicles in the background. An ambulance. For Erin Baker, no doubt. He wondered if she was alive. He hoped so. He’d so enjoyed nearly killing her once, he wanted the pleasure of doing it thoroughly.

His name and picture were all over the news.

Dr. Jacob Holmes, internationally known psychiatrist, wanted for questioning in the assault of a young woman. No name. Or picture of the woman. And, of course, nothing to indicate she was an armed CIA officer.

In the end, she’d been a disappointment. Her eye keen and mind interesting, but her warrior spirit weak. He’d thought she’d put up more of a fight, but he’d put her down almost too easily. It was a shame. He’d such a grand finale planned.

He’d always been a master of improvisation, taking the unexpected and turning it to his advantage. And what he’d come up with this time was no exception. Better to end it all this way, with a surprise or two still waiting for Erin Baker and her sister.

He glanced around the room. Everything was ready. Smiling, he lifted the gun in his lap, the steel cold, even through his latex gloves.

It was time. Jacob Holmes was a dead man.

XXVIII

R
YAN FELL IN
and out of sleep.

Each time he woke, he felt both stronger and more anxious. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Was it already too late for Cody? And for him? Was the other boy already in some foreign place, learning lessons Ryan couldn’t teach him? And would the General’s staff forget Ryan, leaving him here to die in the dark, alone?

The questions teased a panic he barely suppressed, and he’d retreat to the darkness of sleep.

Once, he awoke and found a tray of food by his cot along with a flashlight, and he cried to think he’d missed Felda’s visit. He’d even be happy to see Herrick’s grim face. Or the General’s. Instead, he ate the food, the memory of Cody’s determination daring him to give up, to let the General kill him with fear.

Still, by the time he heard the rattle of keys and the groan of ancient hinges, he would have welcomed anyone. Even Trader. At least then, it would be over.

Herrick stepped through the door, running a light over Ryan on the cot. “You awake, boy?”

Ryan made an effort to sit up, and managed to lift himself from the stale mattress to lean against the wall. “Yeah.”

“It is time.”

Fear gripped Ryan’s stomach. “Time?”

“To go.” Herrick crossed the dark space and dropped a soft bundle on the cot. “Come, I get you away from here.”

Ryan touched the bundle. Clothes. Clean and fresh, smelling of detergent. A welcome scent after the dankness of this cellar and his own blood. “What about the General?”

Herrick frowned, his expression more stern than normal, and moved to stand watch at the door. “We go before he comes.”

“What about Cody?” Ryan asked as he awkwardly slipped on the clothes. He ached, everywhere, though the pain in his ribs had eased a bit. His arm, however, where the dog had sunk his teeth, felt heavy and unnatural beneath Felda’s dressing.

“I can do nothing for the other boy,” Herrick said. “They watch him too closely.”

“Then he’s still here.” Excited, Ryan crossed to Herrick.

“The Trader will come for him tonight.”

Ryan grabbed the man’s arm. “Then we can’t just leave him here.”

“If you stay, they will kill you.”

Ryan struggled with his fear. He didn’t want to die. Yet leaving without Cody felt wrong, like betrayal. “I can’t go without him.”

“You can do nothing,” Herrick said. “They will kill us
both
before we get close to the boy’s room.”

Ryan couldn’t let that happen. Herrick had been good to him, and Ryan couldn’t ask the man to risk his life more than he already had. Still, leaving Cody . . .

Herrick made the decision for him, taking Ryan’s arm and gently leading him out the door, locking and closing it behind them. “Stay close, and stay quiet.”

Ryan followed the big man down a narrow, dark corridor, the flashlight playing over cold concrete walls. They emerged into a big circular room, with more gaping holes than the one they’d just left. The thought scampered through Ryan’s mind that this was a real, live dungeon, deep beneath the gilded prison.

He shivered.

Herrick crossed to a set of stone steps and started up. At the top, he motioned for Ryan to stay back as he opened a door and went through. After a couple of minutes, he returned, gesturing for Ryan to come up.

They were in the laundry room.

Herrick closed the door behind them, then slid a storage shelf in place to hide the entrance. Unless you knew where to look, you’d never know the door, or the warren of damp rooms below, existed.

Suddenly, voices reached them from above, coming closer.

“Hurry,” Herrick said, and led Ryan over to a large canvas-lined bin used for gathering and moving laundry. “Inside.”

Ryan climbed in atop a layer of sheets, and Herrick covered him with several more. Then they started to move, the wheels creaking as Herrick pushed the cart up a ramp into the main part of the house.

Normal household sounds and bustle closed in around him. A couple of young maids hurried by, chattering. The clang of pots and dishes. Laughter. The cook lecturing one of her girls in harsh German. Ryan felt an unexpected pang of longing. He’d belonged here, fit here in a way. Until Cody showed up and ruined everything. If he could take it all back . . .

Then Herrick’s deep voice, telling Felda this was the last of the linens for cleaning and storage, cut through Ryan’s regret. Her reply was curt and quick. He was to hurry back because they had more work to close up the house. But Ryan heard more than their words. He heard their defiance of the General, and their willingness to risk their lives to save Ryan’s life. So he refused to regret his own decision. No matter what happened. He’d done the right thing by trying to help Cody escape.

A brush of cool, damp air eased over him as they moved outside. The wobbly wheels hit metal, and he pictured Herrick easing his last load into the back of the white panel truck he used for household errands. The motion stopped, and his footsteps retreated, followed by the clang of the doors closing and the snap of a lock.

A few minutes later, the truck started.

Ryan began to breathe easier. They might just get away with this. He might actually be free of the General and men like him. And as the motion of the truck settled into an easy rumble, he drifted toward sleep, finally daring to hope that he might actually live to see the morning.

XXIX

E
RIN WANTED TO GET
into that house.

Her instincts told her Neville was involved. He had the connections and resources, and the history. Yet they had no hard evidence, nothing to positively tie him to either Cody’s disappearance or Jacob Holmes. But she suspected that if she could get inside and take a look around, she’d find all the proof they needed.

As they left Neville’s estate behind and night settled damply around them, she considered one scenario after another, throwing out each in turn. Sam had given her the mansion’s floor plan, but it wouldn’t help much. It was a large place, which she didn’t doubt had dozens of nooks and crannies big enough to hide a small boy. But even if she knew right where to find Cody, there was the security system to consider.

She’d seen the cameras and guards herself, but besides that, she didn’t know what to expect. With Neville’s resources, there could be anything. Alarms, silent or otherwise, motion and light sensors, infrared. Granted, with the mansion fully staffed, there would be limits to the elaborateness of the security system, but counting on that could get her killed. And Cody left to his fate.

Reaching up, she touched her bandaged forehead. The aspirin had eased the sharp pain to a dull ache. One she could ignore. Her wrists, too, were sore, but functional. She could hold a gun steady and fight. If she had to.

A shiver of fear went through her at the thought.

She’d told Donovan the truth; she hadn’t seen Holmes coming and that’s why he’d so easily overwhelmed her. What she hadn’t said, nor ever shared with a class of CTs, was that she usually had one advantage when fighting a man. It was a small one, for sure, but one that had never failed her. Men never expected women to challenge them physically. They didn’t expect aggression, or for a woman to come at them first. It was that split second of hesitation, before realizing she wasn’t going to fall back and cower, when Erin would press her advantage.

Holmes had not suffered from that misconception. He’d come at her hard and fast. And she couldn’t lie—not even to herself—and pretend that it hadn’t frightened her.

Still, she had no reason to believe he’d be anywhere near Cody. She’d seen a half-dozen armed men at the estate, hired men, with no stake in the fight except money. A weak motivator when it came to putting your life on the line. Holmes, on the other hand, was on the run, with the FBI and half the state of Virginia on his tail.

Alec’s cell phone rang.

“Donovan,” he answered, went silent, listening, and finally said, “Where?” Then, “We’re twenty minutes away,” and pushed the disconnect button.

“It’s Holmes,” he said as he swung the car around, heading back the way they’d come. “They’ve found him. Dead.”

“Dead? How?”

“Looks like a suicide.”

No. She didn’t believe it. “That doesn’t make sense.” The man who’d attacked her wasn’t suicidal. Far from it.

“They found him in a motel room outside Warrenton. One of the other guests heard the shot.”

It had to be a trick, a setup. Then she caught Donovan’s eye. He was keeping something from her.

“What else?” she asked.

“He left a suicide note.” He hesitated, obviously not thrilled with this latest development. “Addressed to you.”

Sunshine Manor was a dive.

On the outskirts of Warrenton, it clung to the side of a two-lane highway that had been deserted with the completion of the interstate. Consisting of a series of small cabins in a horseshoe configuration, on the surface the place was in bad need of a paint job. Beyond that, one didn’t want to look too closely.

Several police cars blocked off the parking lot, their blue lights strobing the rain-streaked night. Alec pulled up, showed his badge, and was waved through. They parked, and Cathy Hart met them at the door to room number three.

“It’s not a pretty sight,” she said to Erin. “Are you sure you want to go in?”

Erin shook her head. “Not sure at all, but I need to see for myself.” Until she saw his face, his hands, she wouldn’t believe he was dead.

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Cathy stepped aside. “Just don’t touch anything.”

Inside, the motel room was in worse shape than out. Paint faded to gray, carpet worn to threadbare strips, an ancient television bolted to a cheap dresser. And, on the bed, lay Jacob Holmes. Pressed khaki slacks, a navy polo shirt. His long fingers and quick hands limp at his sides. A Colt .38 revolver on the floor. A heavy silver ring on his right hand that she could still feel ripping her skin. And a neat little hole in his temple.

“It’s him,” she said, and turned to leave the room.

Alec followed her outside. “Are you okay?”

She moved farther away from the grisly room without answering. She desperately wanted to believe Holmes was dead, that the man lying on that bed was the Magician, the monster who’d stolen Claire’s life and attacked Erin in the woods. But even seeing him, she couldn’t quite make herself accept it.

“Erin?”

She looked up, seeing the concern on Donovan’s face. “I’m fine,” she said, realizing he’d misinterpreted her silence. “I just need more to believe it’s him.”

“Maybe I can help with that,” Cathy said, joining them. She held up a clear plastic evidence bag with a single sheet of paper inside.

Without taking the note from her, Erin read:

T
O MY FRIEND
, O
FFICER
E
RIN
B
AKER
:

Y
OU WIN
. O
R DO YOU
? E
NJOY THE REST OF YOUR LIFE AS YOU LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER
. O
H, AND KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON YOUR DERANGED SISTER AND HER LOVELY DAUGHTER
.

J
ACOB
H
OLMES

Erin shuddered.

“Sick,” Donovan muttered.

“And smart,” Cathy said. “Alive or dead, he’s messing with your mind, Erin. I wouldn’t even have showed this to you, except news of these things has a way of getting out, and I didn’t want you to hear about it from some other source.”

“He’s right, you know,” Erin said, fighting down the panic that would send her back to town, to her sister. Even knowing he was playing with her mind didn’t ease her worries. “I need to see Claire. And Janie.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Donovan said. “If this is a setup, he’ll be waiting for you. It’s you he wants.”

“And I’m already ahead of you,” Cathy said. “I just checked in with the agents at the safe house, and everything is quiet. But we’re going to move Claire just in case. And we’ve assigned a team to keep an eye on your niece and Marta Lopez in Miami. Just until we’re sure the body inside is Jacob Holmes, and that he’s the same man who attacked you in the woods.”

“And how are you going to know that?” Erin asked, unconvinced. “This man has been eluding you for twenty years.”

“First,” Cathy said, “we’ll analyze the note for fingerprints and compare handwriting samples. Also, the man who attacked you spent a lot of time at Gentle Oaks over the last two days. We’re dusting for prints now, and if they match the man on that bed, we can be fairly certain of his identity.

“Meanwhile, I have a team of agents looking into Holmes’s background and activities. Including cross-checking his movements to unsolved kidnappings over the last twenty years. It will take time, but we should be able to determine if it’s even possible that Holmes is responsible.”

“What about Claire?”

Cathy threw Donovan a glance, obviously uncomfortable with the question and the answer. “It’s inconclusive, and we still have a lot of digging to do. But so far we’ve learned he did a lot of traveling, speaking at medical conventions, consulting at various medical schools. And he was in the same town as several of the unsolved child abduction cases. Which means he had access and could have taken those children.”

She stopped, folding her arms. “There are also cases where we can verify he was nowhere near the right area. Again, that doesn’t mean anything, because even if he is the Magician, he couldn’t possibly have been responsible for all the open missing child cases. But he’s been in the D.C./Virginia area for the past couple of weeks, and—”

“And he was in Miami in 1985,” Erin supplied.

Cathy hesitated. “Yes. He was consulting at UM.” She took Erin’s arm and drew her away from the building and Donovan. “You have to let us do our job, Erin. You said yourself you’re not an investigator. Well, I am, and Donovan’s one of the best. We’ll find out what’s going on here.”

The EMTs wheeled out the body, loading it into a waiting ambulance. Erin watched, knowing she wasn’t certain she’d ever believe Jacob Holmes had committed suicide. Cathy, however, was right. Erin couldn’t let that fear stop her either.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s see what you come up with.” Then she’d decide whether she believed, or whether she’d spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder as the note indicated.

Cathy smiled tightly and motioned for Donovan to join them. “Now, what happened with Neville?”

Donovan explained what they’d found—and not found—at Neville’s estate.

“Which leaves us no closer to finding Cody Sanders.” She sighed, her frustration showing.

“There’s Digger,” Donovan said. “And there’s Neville’s morbid mansion.”

“And we can’t touch it,” Cathy said, eyeing him closely.

Erin met Donovan’s gaze, realizing that for once they agreed on a course of action. One way or another, Middleburg held the answers. All they needed was one small push, just one shred of hope that the key to finding Cody Sanders was inside.

Again, Donovan’s phone rang, and Erin held her breath, hoping it was the call they’d been waiting for.

Donovan answered, listened, then nodded to Erin that they’d finally gotten a break. “Wait,” he said as the caller disconnected. A couple of seconds later, Donovan did the same.”That was Digger,” he said. “He told us where to find the boy.”

Erin expected it was too much to hope that the boy who was waiting for them was Cody Sanders. Just as it was too much to believe that the Magician was really dead. It was more likely they’d find the second boy Digger had mentioned, the one he’d referred to as his son.

Or an ambush, courtesy of the General.

“The boy needs help,” Digger had said, without identifying himself or which boy he meant. Then he’d instructed Donovan to follow a small, rural route off one of the smaller back highways, giving the distances in kilometers.

“Look to the left,” he’d said, just before ending the abbreviated, one-sided conversation. “Behind the trees.”

It wasn’t until they’d reached the location that they’d seen the dilapidated barn, sitting well back from the road, almost hidden from sight. Donovan turned onto an overgrown road and parked behind the shabby building.

For a moment neither he nor Erin spoke.

The place looked like it had been deserted for years. Broken glass etched the dark windows. Long grasses grew up to the foundation, and kudzu marched up the walls. Yet it was impossible to tell whether the actual structure was sound or not.

Erin pulled out the Glock Cathy had lent her and checked the clip.

Alec reached across her to the glove compartment and grabbed a flashlight. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “I have another in the trunk.”

Quickly, he’d retrieved a second flashlight and they moved quietly toward the barn. At the rear wall, they split up, each taking a different side, working toward the front, ducking beneath the glassless windows, listening for some sound from inside, and finally meeting up again at the entrance.

Stopping. Erin braced herself, watching Donovan do the same.

Going through the door was the dangerous part. If this was an ambush, here was where it would hit them.

“Wait here,” Alec mouthed, and went in first, slipping into the dark interior, leading with his gun.

Erin waited. Ten seconds. Twenty.

She was just about to follow him, despite his instructions, when he cracked the door and motioned her inside.

Silence. And a heavy darkness, ripe with the smell of rotting hay.

Alec pointed toward the first stall, and they split up again. She took the right side, he the left, cautiously working their way down toward the back, flashlights level with their weapons, sweeping each stall in turn.

Erin found him.

The boy. Cowering in the last stall, wrapped in a heavy plaid blanket. Her flashlight played over his face, and she saw his fear. And the bruises. Not Cody.

Lowering the Beretta, she held up a hand. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“Donovan, over here,” she said.

She slipped the gun into the waistband of her jeans and edged into the stall. The boy, though obviously frightened, didn’t back away. She approached slowly, and as she got closer, she realized he was older than she’d first thought. Probably in his early teens.

“My name’s Erin,” she said.

The boy looked behind her, and she glanced back to see Donovan standing just outside the stall door.

“That’s Agent Donovan,” she said. “He’s not coming in here, but he’s with the FBI, and he’s here to help you.”

“What about you? Are you with the FBI, too?”

Reaching his side, Erin dropped to her knees. “No, I’m just helping out. What’s your name?”

A brief hesitation, then, “Ryan.”

Digger’s son. She reached up to brush the hair from his forehead and got a better look at his injuries. “How did you get here, Ryan?”

“Did he send you?”

Erin again glanced back at Donovan, who nodded. “We don’t know his name. We just got a call that you needed help.”

“Big man, heavy accent,” Donovan said, keeping his distance so as not to startle the boy.

“Yes, Herrick, that’s him,” the boy supplied, a ghost of a smile teasing his mouth. Or maybe just relief. “He got me out and brought me here.”

“Is he your father?” Erin asked.

Ryan brow furrowed. “No, he works for the General.”

“The General?” Though she knew whom Ryan meant, she didn’t want to put a name in his mouth.