Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
“We were never here,” he says without looking at him.
I circle to the driver’s side. The man behind the wheel is dead. His neck is twisted at an unnatural angle, and his eyes are still open. I don’t recognize him, but that doesn’t matter. Marcus clearly had a network I knew nothing about.
“Marcus?” I yell without looking.
“He’s not here,” Yuri answers. He’s already on the shoulder, scanning. “It looks like he ran after her.”
Of course he did. I cross to the open passenger door. The airbag is blown and streaked with blood. Not a lot, but still fresh. I crouch and study the shattered glass. There’s a drag in the scatter where someone slid out. Small prints lead to the guardrail, then drop into the ditch, tight and small. She ran hard.
“Here,” Yuri says. He holds up a white band, cut short and nicked gray. A zip-tie. “Five million says this is hers.”
I take it. The edge is rough. She did it without a blade. I assess the scene again, and it occurs to me that she might have caused this. Her fight-or-flight kicked in and she fought hard. Hopefully she’s still fighting, still running.
“Build a grid,” I say. “Now.”
Our second SUV rolls in behind us. Then a third and a fourth. Doors pop. Our medic hauls bags to the tailgate. A K9 handler clips leads. My men fan out with rifles low, vests under jackets. I cut to the county sergeant and meet his eyes. He’s not happy, but he’s also not stupid enough to argue with me.
“No one touches that line except my people and the dogs I authorize,” I say. “Hold your guys on pavement. You’ll get what you need for your report.”
He looks at my face. He looks at my men. He looks at the wad of hundreds now sitting in his palm. He nods once.
“Ground’s slick and rocks are worse,” he says. “If your guys get turned around, I’m not sending mine in after them.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
Back at the SUV, Pavel passes out radios. We go to the hood for a map. I draw with a dry-erase marker and my finger.
“We slice it four ways off the shoulder. Creek. Ridge. North. South. Two-man teams. Radios open. Flag blood, fabric, fresh breaks. Police rules, no contamination. We’re not adding our DNA to this murder board. If you see Marcus, you don’t chase. You call me and hold your position.”
No one argues. They move. They’ve been training for something like this for years.
Yuri walks to the place where the guardrail breaks. He crouches and points.
“Looks like she cut off her zip-tie here,” he says. The rail edge is sharp and red with blood. “The blood is still pretty fresh.”
We flag it. Creek noise rises. One man finds a bit of torn gray fleece on a thorn. Another points out a heel slide where she lost footing and caught herself. We mark it and keep moving.
“Ridge team,” the radio crackles, “broken branch waist-high, direction east-northeast.”
“Hold and mark,” I say. “We’re thirty seconds out.”
We step around a blown-down tree limb and climb a short shelf. The creek opens in a run. The lip is slick. A log lies across like a low bridge. There’s a handprint in the near-side mud and prints on the log. One small and tight. One longer, sloppy, trying to hurry.
“She crossed here,” I say. “He tried to go around.”
“Or he cut high,” Yuri says, pointing at a faint deer path angling into scrub. “He could be trying to get in front of her. He’d have the advantage of sight.”
I radio to my teams.
“Ridge, you’re on me up the deer path. Creek team crosses and stays with the dog on the lower. North floats ten off creek right. South holds our six at the last good cover. Everyone calls if you find fresh blood.”
We move. The deer line is narrow and rough, the soil loose. We watch our footing; we could easily slip and fall. My Italian loafers weren’t made for this kind of work. I keep my eyes on the ground, my head on a swivel. I listen for anything, for screams or heavy breathing. I say a silent prayer to whatever gods are listening that I find her before Marcus does.
Two minutes in, the K9 barks once and goes quiet on command.
“We’ve got blood on this stone,” the handler says.
“Mark it,” I say. The dog tugs forward.
My phone vibrates. It’s IT.
“Nothing on a Catskills IP yet. I did see a cell phone pinging near where you are before it went dead a few minutes ago. I think it’s his.”
“Flag the last tower,” I say. “Send to Yuri.”
I hang up and force my breathing to steady. We could be closing in on Marcus, but where the hell is Mari? The forest is so deep and dense, we could be looking for days.