Dying for Love (26 page)

She was right. Worse, the attack at the Baylers and the fire at The Gateway House proved that whoever they were dealing with was dangerous.

His stomach tightened. He wasn’t crazy about leaving her alone either. But confronting this group could be dangerous.

“You can ride with me, but you have to stay in the car,” John said.

Amelia agreed, and he drove deeper into the mountains toward the coordinates Arianna had sent him.

Tall pines and oaks surrounded them. The road was deserted, the night sounds echoing in the air, adding to the eerie feeling that they were heading into trouble.

He turned onto a narrow dirt road that literally cut through the forest, the trees obliterating any remaining daylight.

Questions ticked through his mind—had the Ellingtons told the truth? Or had they sold the children to Axelrod for a profit?

And if they had, did they know where the man was hiding? Had they known he was grooming boys to be suicide bombers?

If so, they had to pay for their crimes.

“Look, I see a light down there,” Amelia said as he maneuvered through the dense woods.

He spotted it, too. A run-down shack, a couple of outbuildings, another shack out back.

Desolate, surrounded by the mountains. Dark. Off the grid.

He slowed, searching for vehicles, but he didn’t see any. The place looked deserted.

Dammit, had someone warned the group that the police were looking for them?

“They’re gone,” he said as he shifted into park.

“You think they knew we were coming?”

“Either someone warned them, or they picked up enough on the Internet chatter to know we were closing in on them. Stay here. I’m going to look around.”

“I can help,” Amelia said.

“I said to stay here,” John said. “They may have left someone behind to ambush us.”

Fear flicked in Amelia’s eyes. “Be careful, John.”

He gave a clipped nod, then pulled himself from the SUV. Dirt and leaves crunched beneath his boots as he walked toward the building. Instincts on alert, he removed his gun from his holster and clutched it at the ready.

He scanned left and right, searching the darkness, half expecting an army to be hiding at the edge of the woods. But nothing moved. Not even the air.

In fact, it seemed strangely silent. His senses kicked in.

The quiet before the storm.

Shoulders tense, he slowly approached the front door, then decided to look inside the window instead. He pulled his flashlight from his pocket and shined it into the dust-coated window.

Bare minimum furniture. Except . . . there were chains dangling from chairs. Chains connected to several twin-size metal beds lined in a row like a barracks—or a prison. A rancid odor seeped through a broken windowpane. Raccoons skittered across the floor.

Fury railed inside him, and he walked back to the door and turned the knob. A click sounded, and he realized too late that the door was wired.

He turned to run just as a bomb exploded.

The boat rocked Zack back and forth, back and forth, the wind beating at the sides. His head felt funny and his stomach hurt. The air smelled yucky, too. He wished the rocking would stop . . .

He crawled through the darkness and pulled himself up to look out the tiny window. But all he could see was water. Icy gray waves that chopped up and down.

The voice in his head started again. He’d heard it before.

A boy’s voice. It sounded like it was coming from him.

What was wrong with him? Sometimes it was the banshees. Sometimes the other boy.

No, it was
him
.

The boy who came to him in his dreams. The one with the mommy and daddy. The one who lived in the house with a swing set out back. And he had baseball bats and a soccer goal and normal stuff . . .

Not like the place where he and the other boys lived.

But this time the boy was crying. Great big wails that sounded like he was dying.

Where was he?

He closed his eyes trying to see. The mountains. Somewhere. Trees and weeds rushed past.

He wasn’t with his mommy and daddy anymore.

This time he was in a bad place, too. A place that was just as dark as the place where Zack stayed most of the time.

He wanted to go back and help the boy.

But the boat was taking him farther and farther away. He could swim a little but not enough to make it across the ocean. Besides, if he jumped in, the sharks would eat him.

He thought about yelling for help, but no one would hear him.

No one ever heard him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

A
melia watched in horror as the building exploded. Wood splintered and popped, pieces flying, flames bursting from the structure shooting against the gray sky like orange spikes. Fire crackled and shot upward, thick smoke clouding the air.

Where was John?

She jumped from the SUV and screamed his name, searching the flames and rubble as she ran toward it. Her boots dug through the snowy ice, but heat seared her as she neared the outer edges of the blaze, smoke clogging her lungs.

Seconds later, she spotted John lying on the ground, face down. Wood from the building lay in fiery patches around him.

He wasn’t moving.

Dear God, he couldn’t be dead.

She wove to the right to avoid a burning patch of debris and knelt beside him. “John?” She gently turned him over to see if he was breathing. Relief filled her when she felt his chest rise and fall.

He had a couple of cuts on his face from the wood and glass, and a nasty-looking bruise on his cheek.

But he was still the most handsome man she’d ever known.

“John?” A wave of intense heat scorched her side from the flames, but she ignored it and stroked his cheek. “John, please talk to me.”

He moaned, then slowly opened his eyes, disoriented.

“I’m calling an ambulance.” She scanned the burning debris, wondering what had caused the explosion.

“No, I’m fine. It just knocked the wind out of me.”

She touched his forehead. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing.” He pushed her hand away from his forehead and tried to get up but swayed. “What happened?”

Amelia caught him. “You went up to the door and the whole place exploded.”

“Hell. A bomb.” John gripped her hand and allowed her to help him up, although his eyes still seemed blurry. He looked around at the patches of flames and debris surrounding them. “Come on, let’s get away from the heat.”

He leaned on her as they hurried away from the fire. When they reached the SUV, she helped him into the driver’s seat.

She ran around to the passenger side to retrieve her phone, but John was already calling a crime team by the time she got in.

When he hung up, he called his partner. “That group was gone, Coulter. They must have known we were coming.”

Amelia hugged her arms around her middle as the roof of the building collapsed with a roar. God help them. Was her little boy living with this group?

John’s head throbbed, but he was too angry to give in to a migraine. He had to catch the son of a bitch who planted that bomb. If Amelia had followed him up to the house, she could have been hurt.

Lieutenant Maddison met him at the edge of the blaze. “Did you see anyone when you arrived?”

“No, no one. They must have gotten word that we were coming.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” John said. “But see if you can find anything in that mess that will help us figure out where they’d go next.”

“Another remote location,” Lieutenant Maddison said.

“I’ll call Arianna and ask her to check the Internet chatter.”

He left Amelia at the SUV and followed Maddison over to the rubble. The flames were starting to die down, wood still crackling as the embers continued to burn.

Maddison stooped down to examine something, then looked up at John. “Looks like a homemade bomb. See this pipe? He probably filled it with gunpowder.”

John turned and scanned the forests and ridges, wondering if the bomber had been watching. Was the explosion meant to kill him, or to hide evidence of the group?

Amelia watched John, Lieutenant Maddison, and the other CSIs comb the area, collecting evidence. In spite of the fact that John had been knocked unconscious and still looked pale, he refused to allow her to call the medics for him.

Lieutenant Maddison stepped aside to answer a phone call, then walked back to John and gestured toward her. Amelia tensed. Judging from the expression on his face, he had bad news.

She steeled herself as they approached. “Ms. Nettleton,” Lieutenant Maddison said. “I got the DNA back from Davie Miller and Eddie Sweeny.”

“And?”

“Neither one of them matches your DNA.”

Amelia exhaled, and John stroked her arm. “I’m sorry, Amelia.”

“What about the Bayler boy?”

“We don’t have those results yet.”

John’s eyes darkened. “Sheriff Blackwood just called. Two bodies were found on Rocky Ridge.”

Fear seized Amelia. “Children?”

John shook his head. “No, a woman and man. I’m going there now.”

Amelia nodded, then addressed Lieutenant Maddison. “Let me know as soon as you get those results.”

Amelia followed John to the car, desperately trying to hold on to hope, but at every corner they were hitting a dead end.

John veered onto another road that took them out of the isolated area where the camp had been. Then he wound down the mountain, tires grinding against the sand and icy pavement, slowing as they passed over the bridge and crossed Slaughter Creek.

Amelia spotted Jake’s police car on the embankment as they approached the accident. John parked behind him, and they met Jake at the edge of the ridge. A team was already there, working to lift the couple from the ledge below while an ambulance waited to transport the bodies.

She wrapped her scarf around her head to keep the wind from freezing her ears as she watched them work. The drop-off to the ridge was steep, the guardrail intact.

Meaning they hadn’t gone over in their car. They could have jumped, but had probably been pushed.

The rescue team laid the bodies on stretchers, and Jake leaned over the man’s corpse. Both bodies were stiff with rigor, although the frigid temperature had slowed decomposition

“Gunshot wound to the back of the head,” Jake said after examining the man.

John checked the woman, noting bruises on her wrists and arms. He angled her head sideways and pushed her hair back, gritting his teeth at the sight of the bullet hole in the center of the back of her head. “Same with the woman.”

Jake dug in the man’s pocket, removed a wallet, and flipped it open. He muttered a curse as he read the man’s ID.

“Eugene Bayler,” Jake said.

The woman had no ID on her, but Jake found a photograph of the couple in the man’s wallet. Another picture showed the couple with the little boy they had adopted. Mark Bayler.

Amelia’s heart sank. The Baylers were dead. Where was Mark?

John moved aside to allow the medical examiner to examine the bodies. Dammit, this had to stop.

The body count was rising. And he still hadn’t connected all the dots.

Amelia looked shell shocked as she huddled in her coat, but she didn’t retreat to the car, as if she refused to run.

“Both of the vics bled out due to the gunshot wounds,” the ME said. “Shot at close range. Died instantly.”

“It sounds like a professional hit,” John said.

Jake’s brow rose. “Or someone with military training.”

The ME turned the woman’s hands over and indicated her jagged nails. “It looks like she fought, and fought hard. I might get some DNA from beneath her fingernails.”

John gestured toward the man’s knuckles. “Looks like he fought as well.” He looked down at the steep drop-off. “No car up here or down there. The shooter shot them and dumped them over the ridge hoping no one would find them.”

Jake pointed to skid marks on the side of the road leading to the overhang. “Looks like he was in a hurry.”

“Who discovered the bodies?” John asked.

“A trucker called it in. She pulled over at the overhang for a smoke. Dropped her cell phone and bent to pick it up. That’s when she looked over the ridge, saw the couple, and phoned it in.”

“A female driver?” John asked.

Jake nodded. “I questioned her and took down her contact information. She was pretty shook up. Said it was the first dead body she’d ever seen.”

Lucky her.

Jake stooped to examine the road. Tire tracks marked the sludge and led to the shoulder near the ridge. Only one set, meaning somehow the killer had been in the same car as the couple. He tried to piece together a possible scenario.

A car hijacking? The unsub had surprised the couple at a gas station or motel, then forced them to drive out there, where he shot them and dumped their bodies, thinking no one would find them.

Or he’d ambushed them at their home and forced them to go with him at gunpoint?

What about their little boy? So far the serial kidnapper had only snatched children at opportune moments. No murder involved.

This was different.

Because the Baylers had run? Because they knew the kidnapper and could identify him? Because Mr. Bayler had handled the adoptions and the kidnapper was afraid he’d talk?

“I assume you’re looking for the Baylers’ car,” John said.

“An APB’s been issued, and there’s an Amber Alert for Mark Bayler,” Jake said.

John turned to one of the CSIs. “Take a plaster cast of that tire print to narrow down what kind of car the unsub is driving.”

The CSI went to the crime van to retrieve supplies, while the medics loaded the bodies in the van to transport to the morgue.

“I’ll search for next of kin,” Jake said.

Amelia walked away, the worry in her body palpable as she tapped her fingers up and down her arm. Her nerves looked frayed now, making him want to comfort her.

Unfortunately he knew what she was thinking. A cold-blooded killer had taken Mark Bayler.

The little boy she thought might be her son.