Conard County Justice (Conard County: The Next Generation Book 42) Read online

  “Possibly. There’s always some uncertainty in a combat situation. I’m used to it. But this feels like nothing except uncertainty.”

  “That’s where it’s at right now,” she agreed. “Sometimes murders never get solved. I won’t lie to you. But something different was going on with Larry. I’m convinced he was a target, not an accident.”

  He agreed. “Why hasn’t his house been released? There has to be a reason.”

  He watched her chew her lower lip. Then she said, “The murder was brutal. We’re preventing curiosity seekers from sneaking in there as long as we can.”

  That probably told him more than he wanted to know. He yanked himself away from images that immediately popped to mind. If anyone knew brutal, he did. Her choice of modifier certainly spoke volumes. Given what she did for a living, she’d probably seen multiple murder scenes.

  He felt sick, facing a suspicion he’d avoided but now couldn’t. What the hell had been done to Larry, and how much did he really want to know?

  But Cat’s consideration of the possibility that someone had tracked Larry from elsewhere also spoke volumes to him. She felt something much bigger than a burglary had occurred.

  But she wouldn’t talk in detail without evidence. She’d made that clear at the outset, and he had to respect her position. She might speculate about motives, but that kind of spitballing was part of her job. Turning things around and around until she saw her way to a solution.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” she said.

  He wasn’t opposed, but he studied her. “Am I giving you cabin fever?”

  “Right now this job is giving me cabin fever. The research must be done.”

  “But at the office, you’d have a lot more people to talk to than just me.”

  “That’s true, but I’d still spend almost all the time reading. Plus, this new idea...well, I want to talk it over with Gage, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure.”

  Ten minutes later they stepped outside into the night wearing jackets. The temperatures were falling again, and Duke wondered if he smelled snow on the air.

  It was easy, though, to bend into the night breeze, strolling alongside Cat.

  He didn’t need another run. What he needed was company.

  * * *

  TWO MEN, DRESSED completely in black, with ski masks over their faces and black camouflage cream around their eyes, came around the rear of Matt Keller’s tiny little house. Concealed by the night and their clothing, they looked like darker shadows in the pale starlight. The moon was gone, concealing them even more.

  They had scoped the house a couple of hours earlier after darkness had arrived, peeking into windows until they had a mental image of the interior. Mostly they knew which room they needed to get to.

  Unfortunately, that room was a tiny ell, barely a jog in the hallway beside the bathroom and just in front of Matt’s bedroom. Behind the ell, however, was a mud porch that might be useful. But they agreed they’d prefer their entry point to be as far as possible from the bedroom, which meant the front of the house, in case they made any noise while getting past the door.

  They were prepared for creaking floors in such an old house. They had night-vision goggles to keep them from stumbling into things. They figured there wouldn’t be any hidden obstacles on the floor, because this was a single guy—no dogs, no kids to spread toys around.

  They didn’t talk; they didn’t need to. From here out hand signals would suffice.

  They were also prepared to deal with Matt should he discover them. Not the way they had dealt with Larry Duke, but differently, so there’d be no resemblance.

  Because spring was just beginning, despite the calendar, most plants offered little concealment. Aiding them, however, Keller had some evergreen shrubs along the front, back and sides of his house. They’d tested them earlier and found they weren’t brittle.

  The bushes provided a perfect hiding spot as they crouched down in the back, waiting for the entire world to go to sleep.

  Except for one damn cop car that drove by every so often. A lot of protection in such a sleepy town. That cop also changed their plan. After a few hours, they realized he was random in his appearances. Back door it would be.

  They waited, shifting position just often enough to keep from getting stiff.

  Around two thirty, they began to move stealthily, freezing often in case some random person happened to glance out into the night and see some moving shadows. It made for a slower trip from the side of the house to the back door.

  Several windows on nearby houses looked straight into Keller’s yard, but the first man figured those windows didn’t create as much of a threat as a sharp-eyed cop who was probably hoping for any kind of distraction, even investigating shadows.

  The back door proved to be an easy open. A lousy screen-door type of lock, easily broken with little noise.

  The floors creaked more than anticipated, slowing them down as they paused frequently to let the noise slip away. No other sounds disturbed the house.

  At last they opened the interior door, which let into the hallway. It seemed odd to the first man that the mudroom didn’t open to the kitchen, but it didn’t really matter. It was close to the office in the ell.

  Another few steps and they were inside their target room, through a door that had been left open. Searching everything took a while, too, because they were looking for tiny stuff, like a disc or flash drive, and even into files in a cabinet, hoping to spy a label that might come from a different source. And they were trying to be silent.

  They found a bunch of those flash drives and were getting ready to leave with the laptop computer when a voice startled them.

  “What the hell?”

  They’d been ready for this. Man Three grabbed Matt Keller from behind, wrapping one arm around his chest and clamping a gloved hand over his mouth.

  Man One stepped in to finish it.

  * * *

  AS THEY WALKED, Cat was surprised to feel Duke touch her arm. She looked at him and saw him make the sign with two fingers to his eyes, then point toward one house.

  Matt Keller’s house. Oh damn. She peered into the night, trying to see what had alerted Duke. Then she noticed a couple of shadows that appeared out of place. Wrong size for a tree and shaped all wrong.

  They weren’t moving, however, so she was ready to dismiss them as a trick of light. But then she saw movement, and it wasn’t the movement of a tree or large bush swaying.

  Two people? Crouched down? She hadn’t worn her gun, but now she wished she had.

  She glanced at the house and thought she saw a light inside. Matt. Without hesitation, she ran toward the front door.

  “Want me to chase them?” Duke’s voice drew her up short.

  He was off before she could say a word, although at that point she had a bigger concern: Matt Keller.

  Without any more discussion, Duke took off into the night toward the alley.

  Cat’s attention centered fully on Matt. If someone had broken into Matt’s house, was he still alive? Or had he been tortured like Larry Duke?

  She couldn’t waste time wondering about the perps until she made sure Matt was reasonably okay.

  The front door was locked. She sped around to the back, running because Matt’s life might depend on speed. They’d had to break in somehow, and a back door was concealed from the street.

  Assuming those guys had gotten in at all.

  Inside, she moved with reasonable caution while her heart hammered, aware that someone might be there other than Matt. After she’d checked the front rooms, she looked down the hallway. There was only one closed door, and light spilled from a little ell.

  She checked that and the bathroom as quickly as she could, barely noting the mess in the ell, then called out, “Matt? Matt?”

  No sound answered her. Ca
t’s heart nearly stopped. Oh my God.

  “Matt? Are you here?”

  She thought she heard something from behind the closed door. Muffled. She couldn’t wait any longer. She turned the knob and opened the door, prepared for just about anything.

  When she flipped the light switch just inside, she found Matt lying on his bed, ankles and wrists wrapped in zip ties. His arms were above his head, his cuffed wrists tied to the headboard by rope. Duct tape covered his mouth.

  Without another moment’s hesitation, she hurried over to rip the tape from his mouth. “Are you hurt?”

  “Mostly bruised, I think.” His voice shook. “It was like being tackled by two linebackers. Damn, what happened?”

  “I think you might have been robbed. And since I don’t have my radio on me, can I use your phone?”

  “Yes. Then get these damn ties off me. They’re too tight.”

  She grabbed the phone beside the bed and called the emergency number.

  Then she went on a hunt to find a tool to cut those ties. She already heard the sirens.

  * * *

  DUKE RETURNED TO a swirl of cops and EMTs. Matt Keller was being carried out on a gurney over his protests that he was just a little bruised. Some injuries might not be immediately apparent, one of the EMTs told Keller. Better safe than sorry.

  Immense relief filled him, knowing that Matt was still able to argue.

  He could tell that, inside, Cat had taken charge of the scene. He heard her telling two cops to tape off the ell. From what little he could see from the front, it looked as if a tornado had come through, but it was obvious even to his eyes that a computer had been stolen. And what else?

  They’d probably have to wait on Matt’s return to find out.

  He stayed out of the way by the front door after his one attempt to get inside, hardly surprised when a cop informed him of the dangers in contaminating a crime scene.

  Another twenty minutes passed until Cat was satisfied and had explained to at least two cops what she had found upon her entry. So the guy had been tackled, tied and gagged.

  For Duke it was like a cherry on the cake. It confirmed his worst suspicions. What he’d seen—or failed to see—when he chased those men had been the first confirmation. He needed to tell Cat.

  When she joined him, she said, “Let them work. We’ll go to the sidewalk.”

  He nodded and followed. He figured she’d hardly notice the cold now. With doors open, the house was probably reaching the outside temperature, the change negligible.

  “Did you get any identifying information?” she said the minute they reached the sidewalk.

  “Not exactly. Tell me how Matt was bound.”

  She gave him an impatient look, probably resenting the way he tossed the question back to her instead of just telling her. She sketched what she had found. “Now you.”

  He nodded. “This was professional.”

  He watched her face stiffen, an instant of resistance followed by huge dismay. “Seriously? How can you know that?”

  “By the way they melted into the night. No kids did this. It was someone who knew how to handle an op like this, how to get away.”

  “But why?” Then she paused. “Of course. We’ve been talking about it.” She cussed, a word he’d never before heard her use. He felt the same way.

  “Tomorrow,” he told her, “we need to go see Ben, warn him.”

  “But Larry was keeping that relationship a secret!”

  “He probably was, but that doesn’t mean no one knows about it. Secrets have a way of getting out somehow.”

  She lowered her head. “Damn it, Duke.”

  “Yeah.”

  Cat visibly shook herself. “You might as well go home. Nothing you can do here. I’ll follow as soon as I can.”

  He nodded, then walked off into the night.

  Chapter Ten

  When the sun rose in the morning, the three men sat in a different gully, one chosen because it was even more concealed, this one surrounded by whispering pines, buried in shadows. Yesterday had involved too much exposure around town for them not to be concerned.

  The night’s chill had lingered, possibly grown deeper, and the clouds overhead didn’t help any.

  “Yesterday was a screwup,” said the second man. He’d drunk four cups of coffee already, and the two laptops sat beside him on rocks.

  The first man’s response was an indirect rebuke. “You get anywhere with Duke’s computer?”

  “Actually, I might have. I need to look a little more. But these batteries only last ten to twelve hours. I’m gonna need more juice before long.”

  “The other computer?”

  “I haven’t had it long enough,” the second man replied sourly. “Hell, you just brought it in.”

  The third man agreed. “There’s still no point getting in a fight. We’re all nervous. Uneasy.”

  Man Two persisted. “I think we got a problem. He,” he said, pointing at the first man, “went into public yesterday. Doesn’t matter it was a truck stop. Someone still could have noticed him.”

  Man One shook his head. “The only time I opened my mouth was to order. Amazing what you can learn simply by listening.”

  “Then there’s last night. You nearly got caught during that stupid, stupid burglary. You even got chased from the scene.”

  “We weren’t caught,” Man Three argued defensively.

  “I bet someone had an idea that you two were something more than juveniles.”

  “Who was that guy who chased us?” Man Three asked. “Do you have any idea?”

  The first man remained silent, but the other two could tell he had a suspicion. Why didn’t he tell them?

  For a brief spell, it appeared that the second man was about to erupt. Unusual sounds emerged from the back of his throat. Finally he said, “I bet you didn’t find anything, either.”

  Man One spoke sarcastically. “We won’t know that until you look at those flash drives.”

  “I need some time. Larry Duke’s laptop is getting low on power. That’ll leave me with just the new one. Hell, I was on Larry’s most of the night.”

  “You said you might have found something.”

  “Maybe. I need to look a little more, but there’s this guy who turns up in some old emails. Repeatedly. And he seems to live out here. Ben Williams.”

  Man One leaned forward, his eyes still bruised by the long night. “How do you know he’s around here?”

  “I ran a search.”

  * * *

  CAT DIDN’T GO home until after nine in the morning. She’d not only had to make sure the investigation teams were doing everything they needed to, but she had to fill out a report, detailing her entire involvement, from when she saw the two figures running away to finding Matt tied in his bed.

  After that, she caught up with Gage and informed him about her and Duke’s theory.

  Gage sat forward so suddenly that she heard his chair thud. He must have been tipped backward far enough to lift some of the wheels off the floor. Dangerous, but she didn’t think Gage was a man who worried about danger. If he had been, he’d never have gone undercover for the DEA.

  “Someone from Duke’s past?” he asked. “Not Larry’s but his?”

  “Both, actually. We’d begun to arrive there partly because of Larry’s horrific murder—and by the way, I didn’t give him details, but I probably said enough—and the fallout from Larry’s investigation that involved the Army. Duke thinks someone who is still in danger from that investigation might be worried about whether Larry was writing a book about it.”

  “Was he?”

  “I don’t know, Gage. The man was a clam about his work. If his editor knew anything about what he was working on, she didn’t say. And since he wasn’t on the paper’s time, she probably didn’t know. Larry neve
r shared anything until he put it in print.”

  “Great help.” Gage leaned back, rubbing his chin. “What else?”

  “Duke said the guys who ran away from Matt Keller’s house last night were trained. Not some kids, but people who knew how to be covert. He went after them, but they slipped away like ghosts.”

  Gage’s eyes narrowed. “I’d go with Duke’s opinion on that. He’s got enough experience to know. Hell.”

  “There’s still nothing linking the burglaries,” Cat pointed out scrupulously.

  “There wouldn’t be if they know what they’re doing. Inexperienced juveniles might not be smart enough to conceal it. Why didn’t Larry get tied up, too? And why was Matt tied up but not killed? Serious questions here.”

  “When was the last time there was a string of burglaries around here?”

  Gage shook his head, then gave a mirthless half smile. “We’ve had a few. Kids. I remember one when they gave themselves up by their choices in clothing.” His humorless smile turned back into a frown. “I don’t like this.”

  “Me neither. And to frost the cake, Duke is wondering if he might be a target, too.”

  “Oh, for the love of—Why?”

  “Because a person or several persons in the Army might think Duke was a source for his brother. Even though he wasn’t and didn’t know about the murder-for-hire thing until it broke in the paper. From what Duke has said, his career has gone by the wayside.”

  Gage just shook his head. This was a lot to take in, she thought, watching him absorb it. “Which story was this again?”

  Cat started. “Oh man, I didn’t tell you. Larry did an exposé about two years ago that uncovered three soldiers involved in a murder-for-hire operation. Duke thinks some officers had to have been involved some way. He could explain his thinking to you better than I can.” She spread her hands. “I don’t know the Army the way he does.”

  “Few of us do,” Gage said absently. Then he snapped back again. “This settles better in my gut than our original random theories about Larry’s murder. What are you planning to do next?”