Carsten Stroud - The Shimmer

“Lot of shit going on at the time,” said Marsh.

“Should have seen it anyway. Make sure Forensics goes through all that stuff. Get receipts for everything. Truck has OnStar so get our IT people to contact them for any route info they might have. I want every parking ticket and restaurant receipt and candy wrapper bagged and tagged. We’ve got their iPhones so lean on the carrier to unlock them and get location data and a list of calls. Also get our people to look at all the security film they can get from gas stations and restaurants they went to. That stuff will be on their credit card records, so jump on VISA and AMEX and those guys.”

“They always give us grief, Jack.”

“Give them more. Scare the fuck out of them. Tell them there’s a killer loose, and if she kills again because they fucked us over, we’ll put it on Fox and CNN and make them look worse than United Airlines did last year.”

“Yow. Okay.”

“Yeah. Look, mainly I want to know why a kidnapped girl would try to kill the cop who freed her, and why her sister was helping. I want to know where the rest of the Walker family is, the dad and the mom and the other sister. I want to know where those three broads have been the last few days and nights, why were they in New Orleans and what they were doing there and who they were doing it to.”

“If she’ll talk,” said Halliday. “She could lawyer up, the PD would start up with all that Juvenile Offender bullshit—”

Redding glared at him, a cold steel look.

“We’re not gonna make it look like that. Like I said, we’re just gonna be these Officer Friendly cops, we’re just worried about her—is she traumatized, can she tell us what happened? That’s why no Miranda. If she does lawyer up, we make sure she gets the right PD—”

“Hobie Pruitt is the PD on duty tonight,” said Marsh. Redding took that in.

“Good. That helps. He’s not a complete idiot, and his father was a city detective in Savannah.”

Marsh and Halliday said nothing.

They knew he wasn’t finished.

“One last thing, guys. I think that runner is still around. If she is, I’m gonna try to have her in the back of my squad before the night’s over.”

He paused, smiled at them.

“So. We’re good to go?”

“We are,” said Halliday.

* * *

Dixon finished his call, stepped back to Redding, a troubled look on his face.

“That was Rod Culhane from HQ. Fernandina Beach PD called a while ago. They were doing a search around the island.”

“Yeah? And?”

Dixon’s expression was grim.

“They located the rest of the Walker family.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

Dixon shook his head.

“It isn’t. Couple of their harness guys found them in a storage unit that belonged to the Walkers’ condo. Down in the second-level basement, off in a corner. Padlocked, pretty much airtight to keep out the bugs and rats. But it had one of those roll-down gates. Stuff was leaking out from under it.”

“Oh jeez.”

“Yeah. They were inside, all three of them—mom, dad and the little sister. If it was done by the runner, she must have had a gun on them. Not easy to control two adults without one.”

“Didn’t find one in the truck.”

“So she’s still got it, I figure. They’d been tied up with plastic cable binders, had their mouths duct-taped, left there on the floor. Ten days.”

“Cord cuffs and duct tape sounds like she came prepared. The runner, I mean.”

“Not really. The storage unit was full of that kind of thing. The dad is some sort of collector, had boxes full of bones and shit.”

“All dead?”

“Two of them. The wife and the little girl. Heat stroke and dehydration. But the father, Gerald Walker, he was still alive—”

“After ten days?”

“Yeah. Guy must be half-lizard. He’s in the ICU at Baptist. Got a pulse like a moth in a bottle. Might make it. Might be a vegetable. No way to tell. Who the fuck could do something like that?”

It was a rhetorical question. They’d both been cops long enough to know that the world was packed with people who could do that and much worse.

Dixon shook his head, threw his Old Port into a ditch. He sighed heavily.

“Fuck this. I’m gonna go up to the ER, see how Karras is doing. Then I’m gonna go up to that kid’s room and turn her inside out. You wanna come for that? If your runner is still here, which I doubt, Flagler County will find her.”

Redding thought it over.

“No, I’m gonna stay here, Mace. Whatever the hell happened up at Amelia Island, this runner is at the heart of it. I’m not leaving until we get her.”

Dixon considered him for a while.

“Is this personal with you?”

Redding thought about it.

“I don’t know... Maybe... I sort of felt like...like I had seen her somewhere.”

“Like on a Wanted sheet?”

“No. Something else. Don’t know what. Anyway, now that we got a rookie hurt, that makes it personal.”

“Yes, it does. See you later.”

“Mace, you be careful when you talk to the kid. Now that what we have is two, potentially three dead victims. That kid is sixteen going on sixty. She knows what the hell happened. Don’t Mirandize her. We don’t want her to ask for a lawyer—”

“If she does ask?”

“Try not to make her ask. I told the guys, we’re Officer Friendly. Be nice . Be caring . Get one of the PW’s to bring her milk and cookies. Get her a fucking blankie. She’s not under arrest, she’s a victim in Protective Custody.”

“And if she asks for a lawyer anyway?”

“If you work it right she won’t. If she insists, the duty PD is Hobie Pruitt. He’s a good man. If you have to get her a PD, make sure you get him , and not that stainless-steel bitch—”

“Marylynne Kostic.”

“Yeah. Her. Anybody but her . We can slow-walk that issue for twenty-four hours. Mace, this is too fucking serious now. This is Attempted Murder of a cop. One of ours. I know you’re pissed—”

“I’m pissed, yeah, of course, but this isn’t my first rodeo, Jack.”

“I know that. I just...”

You’re a great cop, Mace, but you have already fucked up two good beefs when you lost your temper.

Redding didn’t say that.

He didn’t have to.

“I know,” said Mace, aware of what was not being said. “We don’t wanna lose her on a...technicality.”

“Yeah.”

A technicality.

Like throwing a handcuffed suspect down a flight of stairs. On camera.

“Well, neither do I,” said Dixon, hardening up. “And I won’t. Any OT you need, I’m authorizing it. Good hunting. See you back at Depot. You bring that woman in, Jack.”

“I will.”

Redding stepped back, watched Dixon pull away, put his Stetson on, squared it up, took a couple of deep breaths and headed back into the trees.

* * *

A squad of Flagler County Deputies was moving through the forest, slowly, working their way down to the shoreline. Night was coming on, the short sharp twilight you got in these latitudes, the sun a dying flame in the far west, low enough to light up the underside of the clouds.

He got to the shoreline and watched as two flatboats marked FHP Marine Unit were slowly paddling their way through the reeds.

Redding pulled out his portable.

“Jax 180 to Marine.”

He saw one of the cops tug out his radio, put it to his lips.

“Roger, Jax 180.”

“That you, Leo?”

“It’s me, Jack.”

“How you doing?”

“Bugs are murder out here. Driving us all nuts. Must be a billion of them.”