Six Seconds (24 page)

60

In-flight to Montana

Within four hours of Wanda’s call, Maggie and Graham had canceled their flights and had located and boarded a departing charter that served Great Falls, Montana.

“You’re in luck,” the ticket agent had said, smiling. “A number of seats just opened up and we want to fill them.”

Maggie had paid for her ticket out of the six hundred thirty-one dollars she’d won on the slot machine. Graham paid out of his own pocket, deciding to take care of the expense claim when he got back to Calgary.

Because he had accepted the truth.
He could not walk away from the Tarver case. Even though he’d been ordered to return, he couldn’t.

Not yet. There were too many questions. Now, as the plane skirted the Great Salt Lake Desert and neared Yellowstone, and as Maggie drifted off, he searched the clouds for answers.

Emily Tarver’s dying words troubled him. And he swore he’d heard Nora’s voice when he was in the

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water. If he didn’t pursue the family’s deaths, he’d be haunted by the ghosts of his failures for the rest of his life because this went beyond the case.

This was about Nora.

Maybe he could live with what went wrong if he could make something right for someone else.
Maybe.
By the time the plane passed over the Bitterroot Mountains, Graham had resolved to request immediate personal leave, freeing him to investigate the case on his own and on his own dime.
And if that was denied?
He’d resign.
Would he?
If that’s what it took.
Because he’d be finished.
Because he was hanging on by a thread.
Great Falls was about a seven-hour drive from Calgary, or a short flight. Funny, he thought, looking at the snowcapped peaks reaching up to him, reaching all the way north to the Faust River where he’d stood not so long ago, drowning in guilt as he held Nora’s ashes.
He’d pretty much come full circle.

When the captain announced their descent into Great Falls, Maggie woke, left her seat and took her place in line for the restroom at the rear.

Upon returning, she met the intense eyes of another passenger, a man squeezing by her. Her polite little smile was received with stone-cold indifference, send ing a shiver coiling up her spine as he brushed by.

It couldn’t be.

He looked familiar. Like that creep from her book store.
Maggie glanced back at him, but other passengers blocked her view. She took her seat thinking, no, it couldn’t be him. It was her imagination, given all she’d been through.
Nearly overdosing. Graham saving her. Getting her to Las Vegas, which got her to Montana. Closer to Logan. Closer to Jake.
Closer to what awaited her.
Maggie buckled up. The landing gear lowered. As the jet neared the runway, she prayed she would finally find the truth.
Whatever it was.

61

Great Falls, Montana

The Sky Road Truck Mall was situated on a thirty-acre site off the interstate, where it curled a few miles south west of Great Falls International Airport.

It was an expansive twenty-four-hour operation offering fueling, two restaurants, a chapel, a massage therapist, a medical clinic, laundry, shower facilities and more. The complex was landscaped with clipped shrubs; its neo-deco facade had glazed windows. Huge Montana state and U.S. flags waved on gold-tipped poles high above the entrance.

Maggie and Graham parked their rented sedan as dozens of rigs eased in and out of the mall, their diesel engines growling, air brakes hissing.

Before they’d left Las Vegas, Graham again notified local law enforcement. Strangely, one of his calls was bounced to an FBI Special Agent in Billings.

“Thanks for the courtesy call,” the agent said. “Not sure to what extent we can assist. Most of our resources are going to supporting security for the pope’s visit.”

Graham also called upon Novak, the D.C. detective, to help him query Montana Highway Patrol to run Jake Conlin’s name through state motor vehicle records, for an address, for anything.

Nothing came up.
Novak had also run it through NCIC, the FBI’s Na tional Crime Information Center. Apart from the Conlin parental abduction file, nothing showed for Montana.
Now, inside the administrative office of the Sky Road Truck Mall, Cheyenne Mills, the duty manager, rotated her wedding ring as she listened to Graham and Maggie’s situation. Then she made a few calls. Con firmed a Jake “Conlynn” had rented a postal box at the mall for two months. Paid cash. No other useful details were on his rental form. Then she nodded to the glass wall of her second-level office overlooking the busy mall.
“Three, maybe even four thousand people pass through here weekly. Our customers are the salt of the earth. They’ll help you if they can. Anyone gives you trouble, tell them I said it was okay for you to show them pictures.”
For the next few hours, Maggie and Graham talked to men and women in plaid shirts, ball caps and jeans in the restaurants, the lounges, the arcades and the stores while TVs tuned to news networks showed the latest on the papal visit
“…the pope visits Seattle today then it’s on to Montana and Chicago…”
They showed pictures of Jake and Logan and asked for help locating them.
But after scores of inquiries, nothing promising had emerged.
Frustrated but not defeated, Maggie stood in the

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lobby before the huge map of Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Below it was the usual truck stop message board, papered with ads for driving jobs, rigs, trailers and parts. The faces of missing children, women and fugitives also stared at her from old posters.

“Excuse me, are you the lady looking for a trucker and his son?”
Maggie nodded at a slim woman in her sixties, hoop earrings, bright eyes behind bifocals, snapping gum.
“Betty Pilcher. My husband, Leo, and I run the B and L Barbershop, the other side of the mall. The guys were telling us about you showing pictures. I have to run up to admin but drop by our shop in a few minutes, hon. Leo’s good at remembering faces.”
Fifteen minutes later, Leo Pilcher, a retired U.S. Army barber, stepped from the customer in his chair to stare long and hard at the photos of Jake Conlin, as Maggie and Graham awaited his assessment.
Leo nodded and went back to cutting hair.
“He was here. Only he doesn’t look like that since I worked on him.”
Graham and Maggie exchanged glances.
“You’re sure?” Maggie asked.
Leo stepped away again. The needle point of his scissors touched the corner of Jake’s right eye.
“Got a little scar right here?”
“Yes,” Maggie said.
“It was him. I’m sure. He stands out because of the scar and the changes.”
“Changes?”
Graham pulled out his notebook and asked for details.

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“He walked in here, oh, about four, five months back. He had a beard, few weeks’ growth. Good head of thick, healthy hair. He wanted all the hair shaved off and wanted the beard shaved into a Vandyke, some call it a goatee. A beard without the sides. I’ll show you. Can I draw on this?”

Maggie gave Leo a pen from her bag and he sketched a Vandyke on Jake, then put his thick fingers over Jake’s hair.

“See? Like a different guy. I asked him, ‘Hey, you hiding from somebody?’ And he sort of laughed and said, ‘Something like that.’”

“Any chance he said where he was living or who he was driving for?”
Leo shook his head.
“He was the silent type. Kept to himself. I’ve seen him since in the mall, probably couple times a month. He could be local.”

Graham and Maggie went directly to the mall’s business office where Graham scanned the altered photo into his laptop computer. He e-mailed it to the Forensic Identification Section in Alberta with an urgent request for FIS to give him a clean photo of Jake Conlin with a shaved head and a Vandyke.

Less than four minutes after he sent the file, Graham’s cell phone rang.
“Corporal Graham, Simon Teale with FIS. Got your request. We’re swamped, got plenty of priority cases we’re processing now and I’ve got cases out of Red Deer and Medicine Hat in the queue ahead of you. How soon do you need this?”

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“We needed it yesterday.”

“And by the case number, this is the Tarver matter.

The family in Banff.”
“Yes, is there a problem, Simon?”
“No, just confirming. I’ll do my best to expedite

things. Maybe later today or tomorrow.”
“It’s just an updated photo.”
“I know we could do it quickly, but we’re shortstaffed and you know I need sign-off. Bear with us.”

“Call me the moment you have it.”

Muttering about bureaucracy, Graham told Maggie that they needed to find a motel.

62

Great Falls, Montana

The pope’s visit to Montana—the first in the state’s history—was a day away, according to the
Great Falls Tribune.

It ran large photos and a huge headline that stretched across the front page.
The paper sat unread on the bed in Graham’s motel room.
He was in the shower and would read it when he finished, then meet Maggie for dinner, to figure out their next steps.
She was in the lobby using the motel’s complimen tary high-speed guest computer, trying to contact school officials, hoping they could search Logan’s birth date to determine if he was in their system.
It was late afternoon and she wasn’t making any headway. Time was working against both of them be cause Graham didn’t think Teale would get back to him today.
The pulsating hot water had nearly worked all of the tension from Graham’s neck and shoulders when his

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cell phone rang. He stopped the shower, wrapped a towel around himself, grabbed the phone from the towel rack hoping it was Teale.

It wasn’t.

“Let me get this straight,” Graham’s boss said.

“You’re in Great Falls?”
“That’s right.”
“What’re you doing? Taking a bus home?” “Mike, I’m making progress on the link to Tarver.” “Link? There’s no link.”
“Listen.”
“Dan, you have to stop this. From what I understand,

you’re now traveling with the California woman and you’re entangled in her case, a parental abduction?”

“Maggie Conlin. It’s all linked to Tarver. The Conlin name and address were the last things Ray Tarver was checking.”

“You’re sinking deeper into trouble. It’s over. We’ve just got the autopsy on Raymond Tarver.”
“And?”
“And nothing. His death was just like his wife and kids. Head trauma consistent with a wilderness acci dent. Nothing suspicious. Case cleared.”
“No, that’s not right. I told you Emily Tarver spoke to me.”
“Dan, it was in the minutes before she died. The little girl was in shock.”
“It’s
what
she said, Mike. She spoke to me, and
Nora spoke to me.
”
“Nora?”
“I know it’s weird, but I swear when I was in the water, I heard her.”
“Dan.”
Several long moments passed as Stotter absorbed the fact that one of his best investigators had just revealed that his dead wife was speaking to him on the case. In the silence, Stotter groped for a response before he exhaled slowly.
“Dan, at the outset I respected your suspicions on Tarver. They were valid. I thought letting you go after them would help the case. And I thought it would help you. You’ve been through hell and maybe it was too soon to throw you back in the mix. Maybe the Califor nia woman is some form of psychological compensa tion for what you’ve been through.”
“Mike, you’ve got to listen to me.”
“Dan, you’re a good detective, but you’ve still got some things to work through. It’s going to take time.”
“I’m not coming back until I’m done.”
“Dan, I’m giving you an order. If you’re not back here in twenty-four hours, I’m sending somebody to get you. Is that clear?”
Graham hung up then met himself in the mirror.
He’d just refused a direct order.
Everything was on the line now.

63

Montana

Time was going to be tight for Jake.

Around midnight, he was rolling northeast out of Helena bound for Great Falls to take a load of groceries to Shelby. At Shelby, he’d haul lumber back to Lewistown.

He’d be heavy both ways. He made good time with the jobs in Butte and Missoula. He’d make money.
And, if he was lucky with traffic, even allowing for buildup for the pope’s visit, he’d be back in time to catch some sleep before Logan’s big event.
Logan.
Jake ran his hand over his face.
He tightened his grip on the wheel because some thing powerful was pulling at him. He saw it, a few hours ago, in the moment he rolled away from the house.
He saw it in Logan’s tiny silhouette in the window as he watched him pull away.
In that moment, Jake saw the truth.
In that moment, Jake realized that for the past five or six months since they left Blue Rose Creek he had been a fool. He’d made the biggest mistake of his life. So what was he going to do about it?
Jake was about ten miles south of Great Falls when his cell phone rang.
“Hey, it’s Crocker at dispatch. Great Falls, Shelby and Lewistown been scrubbed.”
“No way. All three?”
“Yup. Sorry, amigo, it happens.”
“Man, I was counting my money.”
“Head home. You’ll be paid for the trips you did up to this point. I’ve got you for Atlanta this Sunday. That’s a lock.”
Frustrated, Jake wheeled east through Great Falls to head to Cold Butte and his predicament.
The facts were inescapable now.
The horror of what he’d seen in Iraq had turned him into a monster. Take that day in the supermarket, which led to the embarrassment on the soccer field. Consumed with paranoia, he’d been convinced Maggie had cheated with Ullman.
But he was dead wrong.
It had never happened.
He was the one who’d cheated with Samara. And he was the one who’d ruined everything by running off with her, taking Logan with him and lying to him.
How could he have done that?
Tear the boy from his life and tell him that his mother no longer loved him.
It was unforgivable.
Overcome with shame, Jake steadied his grip on the wheel as the truth continued hammering at him.
Samara had saved his life.
She was a good person who’d suffered her own trag

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edies. She was good to him and Logan but she was distant, aloof, as if she were still in mourning. Jake didn’t belong with Samara.
He belonged with Maggie.
His wife. The only woman he’d ever loved. Dancing with her in the gym.
“Hey, Jude.”
Iraq had taken something from all of them.
Jake gazed up at the stars, wondering if it was too late to go back to Blue Rose Creek and Maggie.
Traffic had slowed ahead at a security checkpoint.
Checkpoint.
Jake fought off a flashback.
He knew about the advisory to drivers concerning all big rigs heading into Lone Tree County. Standard pro cedure around VIP events. He was going to be hung up for an inspection.
No problem, he was empty.
Some forty minutes after the inspectors cleared him, the Montana Highway Patrol waved Jake through.
It was after 3:00 a.m. when he got to Cold Butte, got down Crystal Road, then turned into their lane. He took care to crawl to a near-silent stop next to the house, without waking Logan and Samara.
Hungry, Jake helped himself to a slice of apple pie. As he ate, his problem gnawed at him until he was interrupted by a soft ping in the living room.
Samara’s laptop was on.
That never happened. She never left her computer open like that. Guess she didn’t expect him home. The screen bathed the room in soft blue.
Jake had an idea.

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After he’d finished his pie, he went to their bedroom and checked on Samara. She was asleep. In the room’s dim light he saw the outline of her tailored suit hanging on the closet door.

Jake went to Logan’s room.
The little guy was sawing logs.
A small Bible and rosary that he wanted the pope to

bless waited on his nightstand. Logan’s new suit was on the doorknob in anticipation of the visit.
Then it hit Jake full force. It really sunk in.
His son was going to sing for the pope!
Jake swelled with pride and he blinked several times then closed Logan’s door.
Jake turned to the living room.
He’d reached a decision and pulled out his wallet, thumbing through a collection of IDs and business cards, until he found a worn one for:
Stobel and Chadwick
It was Maggie’s card; it had her business e-mail, and her home e-mail was penned on the back. He sat before Samara’s laptop and logged in to his Internet e-mail account. Waiting for the connection, he no ticed her screen saver. Big photos of Samara’s hus band and son stared at Jake, until the screen filled with his e-mail site.
Maggie, Jake started, I don’t know where to begin. I don’t dare expect you to ever forgive me for what I’ve done. All I can hope for is that maybe you’ll understand. First, I’m going to bring Logan home to you…
For the next half hour, the sound of a tapping key board broke the silence as Jake emptied his heart into

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his letter. When he finished, he read it over. Satisfied, he pressed Send.

The account’s completion bar showed the e-mail going through, until it reached ninety-nine percent, then the machine suddenly shut down.

Some kind of glitch?
Jake considered what he might do, when the machine restarted itself. A symphony of bleating and whirring as images blurred by.
What the heck? What kind of computer was this? It was unlike anything he’d seen. A lot of Arabic, then something just plain weird.
A video popped up, accompanied by a series of timers, some Arabic writing next to it. Then a series of pop-ups, ongoing chat in Arabic. The computer was doing strange things.
A video started.
Jake froze.
Samara was in it.
“What the hell?”
She was wearing a white hijab, sitting with clasped hands before her on a plain wooden table. A framed photograph of her son and husband came into view.
“I am Samara. I am not a jihadist.”
Jake’s jaw dropped. Ice shot up his spine. His gut convulsed with the collision of disbelief and knowing.
As the video played, the pieces locked together.
Jake knew.
Iraq.
The papal visit.
All her time on this computer, her long-distance calls and private conversations.

“And it is for these crimes that I deliver my widowmother’s wrath. For these crimes you will taste death in your country…”

This was Samara’s suicide video.

She was security cleared as medical staff for the visit. She would get close to the pope.
God, what have I done! I’ve got to get Logan out of here! Call the FBI! We have to stop—
A flash, movement of light; a shadow blurred on the screen and Jake felt a soft punch to his throat.
What?
It hurt.
He couldn’t swallow.
He pressed his hands to his throat and something warm and wet cascaded through his fingers. The computer and the room began to spin. Jake’s hands were coated with blood. He turned, fell to the floor.
He saw Samara standing over him.
She held a large serrated knife and watched in silence as Jake’s life slipped away.
Calmly she slid her arms under his, locked them in front and dragged him into their bedroom. Straining, she lifted his corpse onto his side of their bed and covered him with sheets.
Taking pains not to wake Logan, she got cold water, dish soap, a plastic pail and washed away the blood.
She glanced at the faces of Muhammad and Ahmed on her computer before shutting it off.
Nothing would stop her from keeping her vow.
It was down to hours now.