The Buried (The Apostles) (26 page)

A
re you hurt or in any pain?” Hatch asked Linc, the Gravedigger’s third victim. A boy. She’d abducted a thirteen-year-old boy. He swallowed the curse swelling in his throat and forced himself to remember what he was trained to do.

Stay calm. Keep others around him calm.

“I…I…passed out for a while.” Linc’s voice cracked, but he cleared his throat. “But I’m okay now. No bleeding or anything.” The kid was holding it together, trying to be brave.

“Do you have fresh air?”

“Yeah. Got a few holes in the top of the plastic lid. I’m breathing good.”

Excellent. Good mental and physical health. Jim Breck of the local phone company and Lieutenant Lang were both tapped into the line and ready to go. Breck and his team were triangulating the call, and the lieutenant’s team was ready to dig as soon as they received coordinates. Grace and Allegheny Blue sat in the SUV with him on one of the many back roads snaking through Cypress Point.

“Be as still as you can, Linc. We don’t need any dirt jostling and obstructing those holes. Do you know where you are?”

“No clue.”

“Do you hear running water or cars or boats or birds?”

“It’s quiet. Don’t hear a thing.”

“What about smells? Do you smell fish or car exhaust?”

“I smell dirt.”

They weren’t going to get a quick fix on him. Time to backpedal. “Where were you when you were taken?”

“The alley behind Robson’s Grocery Store off Main Street.”

“What time?”

“Midnight or so.”

“How did you end up in the box?”

“A girl popped out of nowhere and came at me. A freakin’ girl. I almost got away but she hit me with some kind of stun gun and jabbed a needle in my neck. That’s when I passed out.”

“When and where did you wake up?”

“Don’t know how long I was out, but I woke up in this stupid laundry tote. I kind of went all sissy until I found the holes and realized I could breathe.” A sob caught in Linc’s throat.

Nope, he wasn’t letting the boy slip into panic like Janis Jaffee had. “Then what did you do, Linc?”

“Then I screamed and punched the box. Really pissed me off.”

Linc needed to hang on to that anger. That fighting-mad spirit would keep him in the game longer. “When you woke up, were you already in the ground?”

“No. I was outside and moving. I felt the wind kind of beating on the tote, and I could hear the road below.”

If Linc felt the wind, he must have been in the bed of a truck. Most likely a white four by four with wide tires with a cross-hatch pattern. “Asphalt, like on a highway or city street?”

“First asphalt. Then we must have turned down a dirt road because it got bumpy.”

“How long were you on the asphalt?”

“Don’t have a clue. She took my cell phone. That pissed me off, too.”

“Did you hear anything while you were on the asphalt? See anything through the holes?”

“Nah, nothing.” The kid’s voice wavered. “This…this isn’t good, is it?”

“You’re doin’ great, pal. You need to just keep talking to me because my buddies at the phone company are figuring out where you’re at.”

“Yeah, that’s right. They can do that, can’t they?”

“You bet they can. So the truck turned onto a bumpy road. What happened next?”

Next to him, Grace wrapped her fingers around the pearls at her neck. She’d spent her childhood playing the What Happens Next Game, but never with these kinds of stakes.

“Made lots of turns,” Linc continued. “Not sure how many, and I have no idea how long we were on the dirt road. Box slid around. Thought I was going to puke.”

“And when you stopped?”

“She pulled the tote from the truck, right off the end, and I crashed to the ground. I bit my freakin’ tongue.”

“One person? Same person who nabbed you behind the grocery store?”

Pause. “Yeah, just one. Probably the same chick. I let a stupid girl nab my ass. A stupid girl!” A series of sharp smacks sounded.

“And we’re going to catch her.” He needed to de-escalate the search. “Do you hear me, Linc? We’re going to get you out and nab her ass.”

“Yeah, that’s what I want. Her ass in a box like this one.”

“Okay, pal, so what happened next?”

“She dragged the box on the ground.”

“Were you on pavement? Grass? Gravel? Shells?”

“Not gravel or shells, but there must have been some rocks. Tore a hole in the bottom of the tote. Small. Can fit two fingers through it.”

“Did you see, smell or hear anything as you were being dragged?”

“Nothing.”

“What happened next?”

“She slid me and the tote into a hole. Got banged around but landed upright. Then I heard and smelled dirt clods dumping on top of me.”

“Think hard, Linc. During this time did you see anything through the holes?”

“No. Too dark.”

“Hear anything? Dogs or birds or boats? How about smells? The ocean or fish or car exhaust?”

“No, noth—” He sucked in a fast breath. “Smoke. At one point I smelled smoke, the campfire kind. I swear at one point it smelled like roasting marshmallows. That’s stupid, huh?”

“Marshmallows definitely aren’t stupid.” Lieutenant Lang was probably mobilizing one of her search teams to head into local campgrounds to scout around for marshmallow roasting sticks. “Anything else? Other smells or sounds? Maybe people talking or even singing?”

“Nothing.”

He checked his watch. “What about your attacker, what do you remember about her?”

“Short. My size. Skinny, too. Dark, long hair. Curly.”

“Anything else?”

“Big eyes. And she had a tattoo on her wrist. Saw that when she jammed the stun gun on my neck. A bee. A freakin’ bumblebee. A pansy ass girl with a freakin’ bumblebee.”

“And we’ll get her. Did she have—”

“Hang tight, Agent Hatcher. I think I got another hole.” Shuffling sounded, along with a splash and a swear word.

Grace frowned. “Did he say hole?”

“Linc?” Hatch said. “What’s going on?”

“Hey, sorry ’bout that. I’m back. Yep. Got two holes, not one. I tore my shirt and got the new one plugged. Not too much water’s coming in.”

“You have water coming into the tote?”

“Yeah, almost an inch now.”

“Salt? Fresh?”

A soft swish sounded, and Linc said, “Salt, really muddy. But I don’t need to be worried about the water because you’re on your way, right? Your guys are triangulating the call, just like on all the cop shows on TV. You’ll be here and—”

Silence stretched over the phone. “Linc?” More silence, not even a hint of breath. “Linc!”

The phone light died, the face blackening and becoming one with the night. “Dammit!” Hatch’s hand tightened around the phone. “The call dropped.”

“He’ll call back.” Grace pressed against his side, staring at the black, silent hunk of metal in his hand. “Lia called nine times. Linc will call.”

Hatch willed the phone to ring. “Come on, pal. We’re not done talking. Call me.” When it remained silent, he shook it, as if trying to scare it into submission.

A phone rang, and Hatch’s heart slammed against his ribcage. He went to push the call button, but the face was still black.

Grace nudged him in the chest. “Your phone. It’s Jim Breck from the phone company.”

He took his phone from Grace. “What the hell happened?”

“Signal’s gone,” Jim said. “We lost the control channel completely. We’ll continue to monitor, but it looks like the battery may have died, the boy turned off the phone, or the phone malfunctioned.”

“Or more likely our killer programmed the damn thing to cut off after five minutes because we’re on Level Three.” Hatch’s hand shook as he handed Grace her phone. Linc wasn’t calling back. But they hadn’t lost him, not yet. This kid was strong and coherent. Hatch pulled solid information from him. “You got a location?”

“We’ve been on it since the boy turned on the phone,” Jim said. “We’re still working on coordinates, but we caught him roaming strongest on a tower near Tate’s Hell.”

He turned to Grace.

“A state forest with primitive campsites,” she said. “More than 200,000 acres.”

Hatch ran a hand along his face. That was some serious acreage. He cranked the motor. In the backseat of the SUV, Blue’s tail thumped. Dogs, like bees, could sense things, and old Blue knew he was going on a hunt.

“A kid?” Agent MacGregor slammed a fisted hand onto the hood of Hatch’s SUV, the bang echoing through the pre-dawn darkness. “I can’t believe she got a kid.”

“A thirteen-year-old boy named Lincoln Henderson,” Grace said. For the past fifteen minutes searchers, including Special Agent Jon MacGregor, had been pouring into the south parking lot at Tate’s Hell State Park.

“How’d the kid sound?” Agent MacGregor asked.

“I only had about five minutes with him before the call dropped, but he was in good shape. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how long that’ll last.” Hatch gave his teammate and the group of deputies and searchers a detailed description of his phone conversation with Linc ending with, “Water’s rising. So on this level, the victim could suffocate or drown.”

Level Three. Less time and more obstacles. The bitch. The sick, twisted, sadistic bitch. Allegheny Blue licked her hand, and she dug her fingers into the soft folds of skin at his neck.

Within thirty minutes, Agent MacGregor had a massive search underway. Dogs, a helicopter, searchers in boats and on wheels. The sun had broken the horizon, and deep plum with streaks of peach stretched across the sky.

“I want you and Hatch on the Cypress Bend River.” Jon tapped a map spread out on the hood of the SUV. “Go ahead and start here.”

Grace reached for Hatch’s hand, but he no longer stood at her side. She found him standing at the river’s edge, a tall, dark silhouette with rumpled hair, a man who couldn’t resist the siren’s song of moving water. Even now when minutes were crucial, Hatch needed a moment to find the strength that enabled him to do what he did so well.

Behind her, cars continued to roll in. Boats roared down the river. In front of her, Hatch watched the water, but as she got closer, she noticed he was far from still. His hands fisted and unfisted. She placed her hand on his arm. “What is it?”

He slipped away from her touch and paced along the riverbank.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she insisted.

“You want to know?” The question was raw and sharp. “You
really
want to know what’s wrong?” He spun toward her, his face twisted. “I’m feeling relief, Grace, a feeling so strong, it’s wrong.”

“Alex,” she said on a soft breath.

“Yeah. That could have been
my son
buried alive in a plastic tote.
My son
battling for breath.
My son
trying to keep his head above water.” Hatch jammed both hands through his hair. “But it’s not my son who’s in danger, and that makes me so damned relieved and so damned happy I can’t stand myself.” He kicked at the bank, and a chunk of mud flew. An osprey shot from a nearby tree.

Grace settled a hand on his shoulder. “Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop being an FBI agent, and for a moment allow yourself to just be a dad. Do what you need to do here,” she tapped his chest, not surprised at the thundering beat against her fingertips. “And when you get all the parenting stuff taken care of, then you can go here,” she tapped his forehead.

Hatch closed his eyes and brought his fist to his chest. He tapped. Was he beating back feelings? Assuring himself his heart wasn’t about to leap from his chest?

At last he grabbed her hand. “How do you know so much about kids?”

“I don’t.” She placed her hands on each cheek. “I know you.” She brought his face down to hers and pressed her lips against his, just long enough to share a slow, steady breath.

“Okay,” he said. “Time to find a pissed off and frightened thirteen-year-old boy.” Half running, he pulled her to the parking lot, where the number of cars had tripled. Dozens, maybe a hundred, gathered around the picnic tables where Jon had set up the command post, and cars continued to trickle in.

Her feet dug into the earth, and she pulled her hand from Hatch’s.

“What are you doing?” Hatch asked.

Winners do and doers win.

Shut up, Daddy
. She held out her hand to Hatch and wiggled her fingers. “Keys, please.”

“Jon wants us on the river.”

“I’m not going.”

“This is Level Three, Grace, more challenging than the other two, and we both know how those levels played out.”

“Linc is in grave danger, so you and everyone else need to get moving.” The sun peeked over the horizon, and soon the town would be wide awake and getting on about their days. Oyster boats would head into the bay. Her coworkers would head to the courthouse. And a thirteen-year-old boy would ride his bike to the cemetery to do community service hours.

“Someone needs to be with Alex,” she said. “Linc and Gabe may not be the best choice for friends, but they are your son’s friends.” She waved at the parking lot, which now included two television news crews. “Very soon Alex is going to find out about his friend, and when he does, someone needs to be there for him, someone besides a silent cemetery caretaker, his frazzled granny, and the twin terrors. This is your world, Hatch, your expertise. Linc needs you here. That leaves me to be with Alex.”

Hatch slid a finger along her cheek, as if not quite sure what he was touching. Then he settled his forehead against hers. “You, Grace Courtemanche, are beyond amazing.”

“So I’ve been told.” She stuck her hand in his shorts pocket and grabbed the keys. “Keep me posted, and you—” She waved a hand at Allegheny Blue, who’d been nervously pacing between the riverbank and busy parking lot. “Come on, you big lug. You’re just going to get in everyone’s way here.”

G
race pulled up in front of Alex’s house just as he was taking his bike out of the garage.

“Hey there, Grace.” He pedaled to the passenger side of the SUV and scrubbed Allegheny Blue’s floppy ears.

The muscle in the center of her chest lurched. He looked so happy, so normal, and she was going to crush it. “Hey, Alex.”

“Guess what Black Jack’s gonna have me do today? I’m going to build a bridge. A real bridge. There’s this creek that runs across the southern part of the cemetery, and there’s this old lady named Mrs. Rubidoux who’s been visiting her husband’s grave every week for the past twenty years. I guess she busted a hip or something and is having a hard time with the long walk through the cemetery, so Black Jack got this idea about building a bridge over the creek near her husband’s grave so she doesn’t have to walk so far. And he’s going to let me do it. Nothing fancy. Just some boards and blocks, but I think I can do it.”

“I’m sure you can, Alex,” she assured him because the boy was like his father. Hatch was a master bridge builder, and she prayed he got enough information so someone could reach Linc before the water rose or the boy ran out of air and fight.

“Mrs. Rubidoux isn’t due to visit until Monday, so I have five days to work on it. I should be able to do it in five days.” A rosy pink that made him look even younger flushed the boy’s cheeks. “Don’t you think?”

Five days to build one bridge. Five minutes to build another. “I’m sure you can make it work.”

“Hey, is something wrong? You don’t look too good this morning. It’s not Blue, is it?”

At the sound of his name, an extra long line of drool slid from the old dog’s mouth.

“Blue’s fine,” she said, struggling to find the words.

“Is something wrong with Hatch?” Alex stopped scrubbing Blue’s neck. “He bailed, didn’t he?”

For someone called the Blond Bulldozer, she was stalling and sputtering. She straightened the pearls at her neck. “Hatch is fine, and he’s still in town. Alex, late last night Linc and Gabe were downtown after midnight behind the grocery store and—”

“I wasn’t there. I swear.”

“I know.”

“Idiots. I told them the locks on that grocery store couldn’t be picked. The sheriff’s guys busted ’em. Serves ’em right.”

“No, Alex, the sheriff didn’t find them. Someone else did. The person who buried those girls in the swamp took Linc.”

Every bit of pink slid from Alex’s cheeks.

“Don’t worry. Linc is fine. Your dad talked to him just an hour ago, and he’s alive and mouthing off about Gabe. And more important, hundreds of people are in the swamp looking for him.”

Alex’s chin quivered. “Linc’s in one of them boxes? He’s underground?”

She reached across the SUV and put her hand on his. “But he’s going to be fine. He’s a smart kid. He was able to give Hatch some useful information.”

Alex fidgeted with the hand brake on his bike. “And Hatch, he’s out there looking for Linc?”

A knot formed in Grace’s throat. “Yes, Alex, Hatch is searching for your friend.”

“Good. Hatch is a hot-shot FBI agent. He knows how to take care of stuff like this.” Alex dug his hands into Blue’s sagging neck and scrubbed. “Okay. Linc’s going to be okay.”

Alex was trying so hard to man-up, to keep it together. “I’m sure Black Jack and your granny will understand if you don’t want to go in to work today.”

Alex continued to stroke the underside of Blue’s chin. “No. I need to go in to work. I uh…I need to build the bridge for Mrs. Rubidoux, make it easier for her to visit her husband. I promised Black Jack.”

Grace understood. The boy needed to keep busy. “Put your bike in the garage and get in. I’ll drive you to the cemetery.” She tugged at Blue’s collar and guided him into the backseat. “And believe it or not, I’m actually pretty good with a hammer. Kind of have to be when you have a car like mine. How about some help building that bridge?”

Tucker Holt liked this little town. Cypress Bend would be a great place to vacation with kids. Plenty of boat rentals, white sand beaches, bike trails, cheap places to eat, and even some nice-looking campgrounds. The one outside of town called Tate’s Hell was hopping. Jackson and Hannah would love this place. He and Jackson could cast their lines on one of the rivers while Hannah built fairy houses out of daisies, bark, and grass. Maybe once Tucker got this double homicide in the bag, he’d bring the kids here for a little R&R. They hadn’t vacationed much the past few years, not since he’d made detective.

Too many bodies, too much death.

He rolled down the window of his rental car as he continued along the highway. Even away from the holler, the stink of asswipes and the poison they left behind clogged his nostrils.

When Tucker pulled his rental car into the Franklin County Sheriff’s station, he had his pick of parking spaces. Not a single car in the lot. Inside he discovered the lobby equally empty. And that’s when he caught the first stench of asswipe.

He pushed the buzzer at the front desk. A door at the far right swung open, and a woman with lots of red lipstick poked her head through the doorway. “Be with you in a minute, sir,” she said.

“No hurry.” His flight to Kentucky didn’t leave until three this afternoon. He had plenty of time to check out Oliver and Emmaline Lassen’s new winter home and get home well before Hannah’s ballet recital tonight.

When the woman came back, she gave him a frazzled smile, and he gave her his card.

“Sorry ’bout the wait, Detective Holt. We have a missing thirteen-year-old boy. Horrible situation. The Gravedigger’s third victim.” She showed him a photo of a boy with a cheesy smile, chipped front tooth, cowlick, and freckles. Looked like a little hell raiser. He frowned. Who was now in hell.

Tucker had heard about the Gravedigger on the news. He shuddered. That was one fucked-up asswipe.

“I’m investigating the deaths of a retired couple who have a winter home here,” Tucker said. “Oliver and Emmaline Lassen of”—he checked his notepad—“Gator Slide.”

“Names don’t ring a bell, but I can have someone give you a call as soon as we get a deputy freed up, because unless your homicides have any connection to the Gravedigger and this missing boy, I’m afraid you’re on your own for a while.”

“Related to the Gravedigger? I seriously doubt that.” The Lassens hadn’t been buried alive, but dumped after being shot dead. The only reason he’d taken this detour was that nagging at his gut. “I’m going to head on over to the couple’s new place and poke around a bit.”

Once outside he thought about that missing boy’s face, about his freckles so much like Jackson’s and his chipped front tooth like little Hannah’s. Tucker couldn’t imagine what that boy’s parents must be going through, but he had a damned good idea what the lead enforcement officer and the search team were going through—the toxic fires of hell.

Mara had often called his work toxic.
“It’s poisoning you and our marriage,” she had said the day she moved out. “No more, Tuck. I’m not going to let the poison destroy me and the kids.”

And so Mara had moved out and moved on because of the poison, poison he felt in his nostrils, his throat, and his cottony mouth. It stung and burned his eyeballs. He ran the back of his hand over his eyes. Liquid glistened on his skin.

His knees buckled, and for a moment the earth shifted. He sunk to the top step, his ass hitting the pavement.

Mara was right. This job was toxic, killing him from the inside out because he lived it, breathed it. The poison ran through his blood, filled every inch of his skull. Sometimes he couldn’t see anything but the job.

Again he pictured that missing thirteen-year-old with the freckles. In a few years, that could be Jackson, trapped, struggling to breathe, dying. His gut jackknifed. And where would Tuck be? On a case. Catching killers. Breathing poison.

He’d missed so much of Jackson and Hannah’s short lives. An asswipe or accident or illness could take them away today. No more bumblebee ballet recitals. No more fishing trips.

He should have gotten out long ago, about the time he started to reach every night for a pint of Wild Turkey. Alcohol disinfected. It killed. Every night for the past two years he’d been trying to kill the poison taking over his body.

Made sense. He smacked his open palms against the sides of his head. So. Much. Fucking. Sense.
Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.
Anyone passing must think him a lunatic or a drunk. But for the first time in years, his brain was crystal clear.

He needed to get rid of the poison. He needed to get out of police work.

Just yesterday that would have been unthinkable, but today and for every day and month and year ahead, it was the right thing. He hopped up from the steps.

This wasn’t the end for him. Sure, it was an end to this chapter, but there were a whole lot more chapters ahead, chapters filled with Jackson and little Hannah and fishing. Lots of fishing.

As for work, there was plenty he could do. Private security work. A desk job with the state. Or maybe he’d teach. He spent a lot of time with the greenhorns. He loved teaching kids like Carl at the station, helping them ease from the classroom to the real world. Tuck had a BA in history. He could teach history, maybe even coach baseball. Teachers made shit for money, less than cops, but he didn’t need much, just enough to pay rent on his trailer space and maybe buy a boat, something big enough for him and the kids. And if he took on a few side security jobs, once in a while he and Jackson and Hannah could vacation in a place like this.

Tucker Holt needed to get out of police work, but before did, he was going to find one final asswipe.

Jon MacGregor had a name for creatures who abducted children.

Worms. Mud-sucking lowlifes that didn’t know their heads from their assholes.

And he had a place where he envisioned this most heinous of all criminals.

Hell. A place of fire and molten rock. A place where slimy, wormy bodies would curl and crisp. Of course that was after he crushed them with the heel of his boot.

Jon stopped the boat and killed the engine. “Liiiiinc!”

He checked the radio at his waist. Also silent. More than one hundred searchers had been canvassing the area for more than three hours.

Every minute, the same thing.

Nothing.

Hatch had called him Agent Optimist. Yeah, Jon had hope because worms who abducted children always left trails, and Jon wouldn’t stop until he found the slime.

Hayden Reed crossed his arms and leveled a razor-sharp stare at Glenna Wheeler. He’d spent all night tracking down the real estate agent who’d brokered the land deal for the Giroux property. Turned out she had spent the night at Alligator Point visiting a “gentleman friend.” He found her this morning when she arrived at her office. When he asked for information on the bidder who’d lost out to Grace, she refused to tell him, claiming she’d signed a confidentiality agreement.

She wrapped the cord of her office phone around her finger. “Please stop looking at me like that, Agent Reed.”

“Like what?”

“Like you can see right through me.” The phone cord was so tight, Glenna’s finger turned a bright red.

“I see a woman who desperately wants to help Linc Henderson.”

Glenna repositioned the picture frames on the credenza behind her and rearranged the bouquet of irises on the corner of her desk. “I can’t give you the name. I’m bound by law to not disclose any information. You understand, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t understand, Glenna, nor does the thirteen-year-old boy who’s been buried alive.”

“Stop saying that!” She stared at the phone. “When is that damned judge going to get back with us on the court order?”

“Hopefully before the boy who’s been buried alive runs out of air.”

Glenna drummed her fingers on the desk, her gaze glued to the multi-line phone on her desk, every light dark. “I could lose my job over something like this.”

Hayden laced his fingers, settling them on his tie.

She turned to him. “She got a kid this time?”

“His name is Linc. He plays shortstop for his summer ball team. Has a chocolate lab named Maurie.” He could see it. She was close.

Her hands slapped the desk. “Ring, dammit!”

Hayden continued to stare at her.

With a growl she finally booted up her computer. “I’m getting you the name.” Her fingers flew over the computer keys. “I’d rather go to jail than hell.”

Once upon a time Hatch had loved water. He’d loved sailing across the ocean, fishing in the bay, and swimming naked in a secluded cove with Grace. But now, as he pictured water seeping into the plastic tote that held a thirteen-year-old boy, he despised it.

He despised most of mankind, including himself. When he’d learned Alex, Linc, and Gabe had broken into the shrimp shack, he should have dragged all three of them into the sheriff’s office and demanded they be locked up until they passed puberty.

Then Linc would be safe.

And Grace…

He pictured the drawing of the stick figure in pearls with the crossed out eyes. Grace was a few breaths from being the Gravedigger’s next target.

“Liiiiinc!” Hatch continued to boat along the Cypress Bend River, and he got the same response as every other shout in the past three hours. Silence.