The Damp, Gray Gone Ch. 03

"With eternal shame and everlasting love,

"Whitney"

I'll admit it: My eyes were wet by the time I finished reading Whitney's confession. My mind was filled with what ifs. What if she'd have come clean that day? Would I have taken her back and tried to overcome her betrayal? What if I'd have paid more attention months before when she'd begun withdrawing? Could I have prevented the whole thing?

If. The saddest goddamned word in the English language.

Yet, now my suspicions had been confirmed. All I could wonder was whether Whitney had ever put the pieces together on Dunlop's nefarious scheme before she disappeared. And if so, how had she reacted upon learning that she'd destroyed her marriage to be with a man who didn't give two shits for her or her problems, but only wanted to gain the advantage in a criminal case?

My sadness turned to a simmering rage as I deleted the message and wiped all traces of it from my hard drive.

* * * * *

Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in hiding my emotions when Kristin and Ben showed up. She took one look at me and turned to Ben and told him to go outside and play, her eyes on me the whole time.

"You know who it is, don't you?" she said when Ben was outside. "You know where she is."

I didn't move.

"What're you going to do?" she pressed.

"I need you to watch Kyle tonight," was all I managed.

"Luke," she pleaded, "you have to call the police. You can't do this on your own. Jesus, you'll get killed. Then where will Kyle be?"

I shook my head. "I can't really say anything, Kristin."

"Bullshit," she hissed, her eyes darting outside to make sure the boys were out of range before turning back to me. "You're gonna go out and act like some kind of friggin' cowboy--maybe get killed or at least shot or stabbed--without thinking even for a second about what'll happen to Kyle if that happens. What the fuck--"

"Bullshit," I hissed right back at her. "You think I haven't thought about that? But what happens if I call the cops, huh? I'll tell you. She gets killed so they can't get caught. That's what happens. If they haven't killed her already. Then what do I tell Kyle?"

"But Luke," she said, her eyes pleading with me to reconsider, "there's got to be another way."

I shook my head. "I've been thinking about it all day. Since this morning when I figured it all out. There's no other way, believe me. You think I want to do this?"

She stayed silent, her eyes pleading with me to not leave but the reality of my words sinking in.

"Trust me," I said, "I've thought about nothing but Kyle. And bottom line is this: I can never again look at Kyle if Whitney's killed--if he has to go to his mother's funeral--and I knew all along that maybe I could've stopped it. Or, if she dies, if I can at least catch the rotten fuckers who did this."

She was shaking now, the fear and enormity of the situation running through her face and limbs.

"Promise me you won't get hurt," she said. "Please, Luke. Promise me you'll be careful."

I tried to smile. "You just keep an eye on the boys tonight and I'll be back by midnight or so, okay?"

Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and I brushed them off with my fingertips.

"Get yourself together," I said. "Keep an eye on the boys. It'll work out, okay?"

She nodded. "Okay."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I left at eight, just before the sun would set. This plan had to be carried out at night. I had no idea how many of them there were, where I was going, or what I would do when I got there.

Darkness and surprise would be my only allies.

As I pulled out of the driveway, though, I saw the car parked down the block slowly start rolling with its headlights turned off.

I had company.

I drove slowly, giving no one cause to pull me over and discover my cache of weapons. Getting caught would get Whitney disappeared for good.

Twenty minutes later, I drove slowly past Charles Dunlop's law office. There were no lights on and no cars in the parking lot. I kept my fingers crossed that he was home, and that he actually lived at the address listed in the phone book. My plan was risky, but it seemed the only way to lure him out and get him to lead me to Whitney or, in the alternative, her killers.

I was still being followed, and I finally made the identity of the driver when I cruised through a well-lit intersection. Sergeant Adams. I was right: They knew I was hiding the identity, and they had guessed I intended to do something about it.

Great, I thought, now I've got to avoid them while trying to save Whitney. I started running through scenarios in my mind, all of which depended on whether back-up would be joining the pretty detective.

It had been like this during my military career. Make a great plan, set the plan in motion, and something comes along to fuck it all up. Throughout history, the great tacticians had all been able to deal with the changes and improvise solutions on the fly. Unfortunately, I wasn't a great tactician. I was a West Point-trained infantry leader who had been permanently knocked out in my first combat engagement. I hadn't thought like an infantry soldier in nearly twenty years, and none of it was coming back as quickly as I'd hoped.

I pushed the newest developments from my mind when I pulled in front of Dunlop's house. The living room was lit up, and I saw a figure through the gauzy drapes moving around inside.

It was now or never. I mulled over the plan again, knowing that if I followed through and did not succeed I was signing Whitney's death warrant. There was no chance they'd keep her alive if they thought the cops were onto them. Likewise, there was no way to get them to tip their hands unless they thought the cops were onto them.

Deciding they'd probably kill Whitney either way, if they hadn't done so already, I pulled the disposable cell phone from my pocket and dialed the pre-programmed number. Dunlop answered on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"This is gonna be short and sweet," I said into the phone.

"Who is this?"

"Be quiet. This is a friend. That's all you need to know for now."

He paused, then asked, "What do you want?"

"You're being bugged," I said. "Office phones, cell phone, home phone."

He said nothing, and I plowed on.

"The wiretap warrants were signed this afternoon. Your name's all over one of 'em. You shouldn't have to guess whose names are on the other two."

"And you're sharing this with me--"

"Because I'll make myself known to you down the road," I said. "When I do, I'll expect you to show your appreciation. And your friends, too."

"And how can I believe you?"

"How can you afford not to?" I shot back. "Either way, this conversation's over with. I'm not saying anymore in case the bugs are already in place."

With that, I snapped the cell phone shut, pulled into the far end of the cul-de-sac, and waited to see if Dunlop took the bait. I didn't see where Sergeant Adams had parked, but I assumed she was outside the cul-de-sac where she'd see us both as we left.

Ten minutes later, Dunlop strode out of his front door, looked left and right, then slid into his Cadillac and pulled out. I smiled, pleased with myself. I started my own car and followed the Cadillac, staying well behind him. And like a scene from Keystone Kops, Sergeant Adams followed behind me.

* * * * *

Within minutes, we were cruising down country roads at speeds nearing seventy. My worst nightmare, I realized as I threw the cell phone out the window and into a creek. If I try to keep up with Dunlop, Adams has a reason to pull me over and Whitney is never seen again. If I don't try to keep up with Dunlop, I lose him and Whitney gets killed.

That's when I made my first improvisation. I decided to keep up with Dunlop and hope Adams--and probably Gavers, too--would realize I was following the kidnapper. If they knew I was holding back on them, then they had to know who I was now following. I trusted them to let me keep following Dunlop rather than stop me and let Dunlop go.

I pressed my foot on the accelerator to catch up with the disappearing taillights in front of me. Two miles later, Adams had still not pulled me over. Instead, she was keeping pace with me about a quarter mile back.

I smiled, knowing none of us could lose each other on this long, lonely country road. Yet, just as I congratulated myself on nerves of steel, the Cadillac's taillights turned and disappeared.

I slowed down to fifty, not wanting to risk going past him too slowly if he was waiting in a turnoff ahead. Even at fifty, I damned near missed the half-overgrown dirt trail leading into the woods. A few hundred yards into the woods, I saw a brief flicker of bouncing red taillights, and I eased the car to a stop in the ditch ahead, pulling well off the road.

Adams had slowed down behind me. I pulled my mask down, grabbed the duffle bag, and was out of the car and into the woods before Adams saw where I'd gone.

I watched from the edge of the woods while Adams slowed down, then came to a complete stop in the roadway parallel with my car. She flashed a light into my car, spoke briefly into a cell phone, then pulled over in front of my car. I was well into the woods, walking a course parallel with the overgrown trail, before I heard her car door slam in the distance behind me.

It was a moonless night, and the undergrowth was still damp from the morning's rain. I was soaking wet from the waist down before I'd gone fifty yards, but my mind was charged with the adrenalin coursing through my veins. It had always been like this in the Army: The tense planning sessions followed by calm followed by tension times ten once the plan was set in motion.

This one was a lot more like that morning all those years before, though. The morning I went into combat across the Iraqi frontier. The morning I knew they'd be shooting back with real bullets and people were going to die. Then it was tension combined with a cold, numbing fear, senses so attuned and twitchy a mosquito fart at a hundred yards had me ducking and searching the darkness. Now, it was worse. Now, I was out of practice and out of shape and I'd lost the bravado of youth.

Three hundred yards in, the trail meandered to the left and reached a break in the woods. I stopped there, looking at the open space in front of me. Down a gentle slope no more than seventy-five yards in front of me was a rusty, dilapidated metal shed. The red Cadillac was parked in front, next to an old Ford pickup truck.

Without conscious thought, my eyes surveyed the terrain for tactical features and ideas. As I said, the shed sat in the middle of a small punchbowl in the earth, the ground sloping down to the shed from where I stood. Good for me; bad for them. I would have the high ground with the added bonus of forest concealment while they would be pinned down and unable to pass me without exposing themselves.

The vehicles, while not hiding the door into the shed, were parked close enough that they could make a run for the vehicles and, if they got there, have half a chance of getting past me. I couldn't fire at them if Whitney was with them--too much chance of hitting her. Thus, the vehicles needed to be disabled.

There was a propane tank sixty feet or so to the left of the shed. This had to be avoided at all costs. There could be no chance of a stray shot hitting the tank and possibly killing us all.

On the right side of the shed, I saw soft light coming from windows. There was nothing else there except bare grass up the gentle slope to the edge of the forest. Picturing the angles in my mind, I made my decision. If I was situated at the edge of the woods to my right, I'd have clear angles to see inside the shed and clear shots at anyone coming out the door toward the vehicles. The only downside was that a missed shot could hit the propane tank, but that didn't faze me. Seventy-five yards from a prone position down a hill with an AR-15? No matter how out of practice I was, there was no way I'd miss what I was aiming at from that distance.

My basic plan formed, I crept along the wood line to my left to commence my reconnaissance. Crouching low and staying on the edge, I circled around the punchbowl, keeping an eye out for sound and movement as I went. When I was opposite where I'd started, I took a deep breath, counted silently to ten, and scurried down the slope toward the shed.

"--say a fucking thing about offing her, man," I heard a whiney voice say from inside the shed.

The voice was clear--and slurring the words--and I assumed the windows were open. I smelled a strange odor coming from inside the shed--metallic and medicinal and off-putting.

"Don't worry," another voice said, yelling at the first voice. "You won't have to do it. Me, neither. They're coming themselves to take care of it. We just need to wait for them here."

"It's still a murder rap if we get caught, though," voice one whined. "I didn't sign up for no murder rap."

"And kidnapping seems okay to you? Murder's out, but you'll face twenty or thirty years for kidnapping? You're okay with that? Because I'm sure the fuck not okay with it."

"Ssshhh," voice one said. "You hear that?"

"There's nothing out there," voice two said, his voice still going low. "You've been smoking too much of your own shit."

"Fuck you."

I heard footsteps, then a shuffling and a muffled voice. A woman's voice, I realized, with her mouth probably taped shut.

It was Whitney, of that I was sure. She was still alive, and they were now doing what my phone call had spurred them to do. They were waiting for someone else to show up so they could kill her.

"Might as well take the blindfold off her," voice two said. "She won't be able to identify anyone after tonight."

"Let them do it," voice one pouted.

I'd heard enough, though, and didn't hear the response. I made my way back up to the edge of the woods and moved clockwise along the wood line. My eyes roamed the ground in front of me, checking firing lines to my right as I moved along. Seeing the open view of the doorway, I stopped, dropped the duffle bag, and retrieved my weapons.

The Glock went into my waistband in the small of my back. Then I laid flat, my body molding into the damp grass, my arms cradling the butt of the rifle into my chest. I sighted along the barrel, then flicked the safety switch to semi-automatic.

"This is where I'd have planted myself, too," Gavers said to my rear.

I froze, staying glued to the ground.

I heard his pistol cock behind me. "Drop the rifle. Now."

My body sagged as I flipped the rifle back to safe.

"When we came out of the woods," he said, his voice low and matter of fact, "you were already circling around. Pretty good, by the way, but you should've stayed lower and watched something other than the shed."

I heard the rustle through the undergrowth, then felt his feet on the ground behind me.

"Then I looked at it all and knew what you were doing," he continued. "Line of fire to keep them penned in. Good plan."

"She's alive," I said. "She's in there, and she's alive."

Off to my left, I heard someone suck in their breath. Gavers was silent for a moment.

"Did you hear her?" Adams said.

"Yes."

"Sure it was her?"

"It was a woman. Her mouth was taped or something. I didn't see anyone, but I could hear them."

"How many?" Gavers said.

"Two for sure. I don't think there's anyone else, but two for sure. One of them's Dunlop. The other's high on something."

"Meth," Adams said. "You can smell it. This place is a meth lab, sure as shit."

"Any more surprises before we cuff your ass to the tree over there?" Gavers asked.

"There are more on the way," I said. "They're waiting for someone else to show up. That someone's going to kill her and get rid of the body."

I heard a snort from Adams. "You're--"

But her voice was cut off when a pair of headlights broke from the edge of the woods and started slowly down the gentle slope to the shed.

"You don't have any rifles," I said, flipping the rifle back to semi-automatic fire.

"Don't do it," Adams said.

"You need me," I insisted. "It's just the two of you, and now you're outnumbered big time. And you don't have a rifle. They'll fucking kill her. You know they will. And without me, there's not a goddamned thing you can do about it."

I heard Gavers move, quickly and not so silently.

"You keep them pinned down," he whispered back at me before breaking from the edge of the woods. "And don't let whoever it is out of that fucking car."

Adams started to protest, then thought better of it. Instead, she crouched down next to me.

"You could've fucking told us," she said.

"And you wouldn't have been able to do shit," I said, my eyes focusing on the car slowing down near the shed.

I shot my eyes to the right and saw that Gavers was still exposed, less than twenty feet down the slope. Back on the car, though, I decided I couldn't wait.

I took a breath and squeezed the trigger. The car lurched simultaneously with the crack of the rifle, and I turned the barrel to the left. It took two shots to take out the left tire, but it left the car twenty feet from the other vehicles.

"What the fuck," someone shouted down below, and I saw the front door swing open. A tall, cadaverous figure stepped into the light cast by the open door, and I put a shot high up the door frame.

"Don't fucking hit him," Adams warned as the figure dropped to the ground and looked around wildly before scrambling back inside.

"Shut the fuck up," I hissed, turning back to the car and putting two shots into the grille. Steam started hissing from under the hood almost immediately. They were well and truly fucked now, and I knew it.

"He's there," Adams whispered, her voice losing all excitement and turning flat.

I glanced to the shed and saw Gavers, his back against the shed next to the window, pistol held high.

I sighted back to the vehicles in front of the shed and, in four shots, took out the front tires on the Cadillac and the pickup truck. For good measure, I put two rounds each into the grilles, and the Cadillac also started spouting steam.

I saw the passenger door open on the new vehicle--the one I knew contained at least one, if not both, of the LaBruzzis. I put a round into the door, and it slammed shut.

"He's pointing," Adams intoned.

I looked back, grabbing a clip as I did so, and saw Gavers holding up his hand and making a shooting sign toward the end of the shed nearest the vehicles. I slammed the clip home, aimed high on the far side of the shed, and pumped five rounds into the building. As I did so, Gavers extended his arms and pistol through the open window.

I saw only one shot, then Gavers was climbing through the window. The front door burst open at the same time, and Dunlop started careening around the vehicles and through the woods.

"He's getting away," Adams said. "By the propane tank."

I ignored both Adams and the fleeing figure of Charles Lawton Dunlop. My eyes stayed locked on the LaBruzzis. They were both still alive, and there wasn't a doubt in my mind they had weapons.

"You," I said, my eyes staying down the line of the barrel, "get your ass around behind them, then come in low. Stay in the tree line."

"But--"

"But they've got fucking guns, and Gavers is alone in that shed. If only one of them gets out of that car and to that shed, we've got problems."

Without another word, she sprinted off.

A minute later, I saw someone coming back out through the window. She was being shoved out the window from behind and falling with a sluggish thud to the ground four feet below.

I recognized the hair and the frail figure and, for the briefest of moments, allowed myself to breathe a sigh of relief. Whitney was safe. For now. She started stumbling up the slope toward the woods opposite the cars, keeping the shed between her and the LaBruzzis. Good.