The Missing (26 page)

An Aston Martin Lagonda, the front hood and sides marred with pockets of rust, was parked in the garage. Banville had radioed the news over her earpiece. Darby was rigged with the same surveillance kit used by the Secret Service – an earpiece and lapel mike attached to a small black box clipped to her belt.

Darby wanted to call for backup, but Banville didn’t want to wait. Boxes were stacked next to the car; Boyle was about to move. Mobilizing the New Hampshire SWAT unit would take too long, and he had to consider the possibility that Carol and the
other women might be somewhere in the house, alive. They needed to take Boyle down
now.

Someone was home. A single light was on downstairs, coming from the foyer, and Darby was sure she had spotted movement in the upstairs bedroom before the light turned off.

Glen Washington, the detective dressed in the brown coat and pants, rang the doorbell.

A phone was ringing. Not one of the wall phones. It was Coop’s cell. She answered it.

‘We’ve found Traveler,’ Evan Manning said. ‘He was living in New Hampshire. Hostage Rescue had to take him down. That’s all I can tell you.’

‘You’re sure it’s him?’

‘I’m positive. The man HRT took down is the man who attacked me at the garage. He’s got the same tattoo on his forearm as John Smith. Do you remember what I told you about the mailer? The one with Carol Cranmore’s clothes?’

Darby went back to watching the house. ‘You said they didn’t make those mailers anymore. The company went bankrupt.’

‘I’m looking at a whole shelf-f of those mailers right now. They’re a match. This person also has an old IBM electric typewriter, a computer, a photo printer and paper. I won’t know for sure about the paper and the printer until I get them back to the lab. We also found several different types of listening devices.’

‘Where’s Carol?’

Washington rang the doorbell again.

‘We’re searching for her right now,’ Evan said. ‘I’m sorry about what happened earlier. I didn’t want it to go down that way, but it wasn’t my decision.’

The door to the front house opened.

Washington’s voice came over her earpiece: ‘Good evening, sir. I’m with the telephone –’

A shotgun blast blew him off the front steps.

Chapter 62

Darby dropped the phone and watched as Banville brought up his handgun and fired two shots inside the doorway –
BOOM
and the shotgun blast splintered apart the door frame, chunks of wood raining down on Banville’s back.

Darby scooped the cell phone from the floor. Evan was saying ‘Darby? What’s going on? You there?’ She hung up and dialed 911 to request medical assistance and backup.

Looking back through the periscope, she caught a fast glimpse of Banville heading inside the front door. Washington lay on his back, his hand scrabbling at his chest.

Darby opened the van’s back doors and ran to the driver’s side door, legs rubbery as she got behind the wheel, relieved to find the keys dangling in the ignition. She started the van and hit the gas hard, bouncing in her seat as she drove across the front lawn –
BOOM
over the earpiece. Banville fired back in a tight pattern, two shots each.

Darby stopped the van between Washington and the front door of the house and, using the van as a shield, got out and ran for the downed officer.

The fabric of his jacket was torn open from the shotgun blast. No blood. Darby unzipped his jacket. Through the torn fabric she saw body armor with a trauma plate.

Washington’s eyes, wild and glassy, looked up at her, his throat working, making wet, gurgling sounds.

Darby gripped him under the armpits. ‘Hold on, you’re going to be fine,’ she said, repeating the words over and over as she dragged him across the lawn, the fierce wind blowing leaves everywhere.

Over the earpiece, new sounds between the gunfire: shouting and glass shattering.

Darby managed to hoist the upper half of the man’s torso into the back of the van. Jumping back outside, she lifted the man’s legs and pushed him back across the carpet.

Kneeling beside him, Darby removed the SIG Sauer pistol from his shoulder holster. She ripped open his shirt, buttons popping off, and undid the Velcro straps from the vest to relieve the pressure.

Glass breaking – not coming from the earpiece but from outside.

SIG gripped in her hand, she slammed the van doors shut.

Boyle was standing on the garage roof with a shotgun.

Darby dove to the ground –
BOOM,
the blast hit the back doors. Rolling to her side, she scrambled to her feet and ran to the driver’s side door –
BOOM,
the blast ricocheting off the van’s bulletproof plating.

Ears ringing, she brought the gun up over the front hood and aimed at the roof –

Boyle jumped onto the driveway.

He’s going for the car,
she thought and fired two shots.

Too wide. Both shots hit the side of the garage. Boyle stumbled and fired again – inside the garage.
Banville must be in there.

Boyle turned and headed into the woods.

Darby followed, catching a glimpse of Banville inside the garage. She ran into the woods, chasing the sound of branches snapping ahead of her, running hard and fast like she did in her nightmares, branches and leaves whisking past her face and arms and hands.

A shotgun blast hit a tree close by. Her legs froze and she tripped and fell, tumbling hard against the ground full of rocks and downed branches. Darby got back up and heard Boyle running her way, coming closer, coming fast.

More footsteps crashing through the woods behind her – Banville. No sounds in front of her.

Where was Boyle?

Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could see the ground in front of her, how it dipped and fell and leveled off. Darby headed up a hill, pushing her way through a thick brush of trees, the handgun big and awkward inside her clenched fist.

The ground leveled off. Left or right, make a decision, hurry.

She turned left and came face-to-face with Daniel Boyle.

Darby brought the handgun up. Boyle swung the butt of the shotgun hard against the side of her head. Bright sparks of pain danced in front of her eyes as she fell backward and hit the ground. Boyle stepped on her hand, crushing her fingers against the pistol, and pressed the hot muzzle of the shotgun against her throat.

BOOM
and Boyle staggered backward against a tree. Banville came around and shot Boyle in the chest and still the shotgun came up and Banville shot him again and again, Boyle’s face collapsing, deflating like a balloon as he slid down the tree in a wet, red trail.

Chapter 63

Darby’s legs were shaky. She couldn’t stand. Banville put his arm around her waist and escorted her away from the body. She kept turning around to make sure Boyle wasn’t chasing her.

‘He’s dead, he can’t hurt you,’ Banville said to her, more than once. ‘It’s over.’

By the time they exited the woods, the road wasn’t dark anymore. Police cruisers were parked everywhere, their revolving blue and whites bouncing off the trees and windows of Boyle’s home.

A red-faced cop stood in the driveway. Sheriff Dickey Holloway didn’t mince words. He was good and pissed about having a shootout in his backyard.

Darby left them and headed into the house. Chunks of plaster had been blown out of the walls. The smell of cordite was strong. She stumbled through the rooms until she found the basement door.

The steps led to a nightmarish maze of corridors with very little light. Darby called out Carol’s name as she wandered into dim and dusty rooms packed with old furniture and boxes. At the far end of the
basement was a small wine cellar thick with cobwebs and reeking of mold.

Carol Cranmore wasn’t here. Nobody was.

Banville was standing in the foyer when she came up the stairs.

‘There’s no prison cell downstairs,’ Darby said. ‘Boyle must have kept Carol and the other women somewhere else.’

Holloway was in the bedroom, examining the suitcase on the floor. One of the windows had been blown apart.

‘He barricaded himself in here and then escaped through the window,’ Banville said. ‘He shot at you from the roof.’

The suitcase held a good amount of clothes and a laptop computer. The envelopes held lots of cash and several false IDs.

‘Looks like he was getting ready to do some traveling,’ Holloway said. ‘You got here just in time.’

‘I’d like to take a look at the laptop,’ Darby said. There might be something on there that can help us find Carol.’

‘Right now, you need to get that cut treated. All due respect, ma’am, you’re bleeding all over my crime scene.’

The EMT used a butterfly stitch on the split skin above her cheekbone and then gave her an ice pack to help keep the swelling down. She could
barely see out of her left eye, but she refused to go to the hospital.

Darby sat alone on the back bumper of the surveillance van with the ice pack pressed against the growing lump on the side of her face and watched Holloway’s men moving through the woods.

Seeing the flashlight beams crisscrossing through the woods brought back the piercing memory of watching the police search for Melanie. She had convinced herself Mel going to be okay. Mel never came home.

Please God, please let Carol be alive. I don’t think I can live through this again.

Banville came out the front door. He sat down next to Darby.

‘One of Holloway’s men is somewhat of a computer expert. He turned on the laptop. Everything on there’s password protected, he said. We’re going to need someone who knows how to bypass the security or the files will be erased.’

‘I can call the Boston Computer Lab – they’re in a different building, so they weren’t affected by the bomb,’ Darby said. ‘They aren’t on call. It will have to wait until morning. I’d rather not wait that long.’

‘You have another idea?’

‘You could call Manning. He might have someone – and he’s close by.’

Darby shared the details of her phone conversation with Evan. Banville didn’t speak after she
finished. He stared at the tops of his shoes, jingling the change in his pockets.

Holloway emerged from the woods.

‘We found a shed less than a quarter mile off the property. It’s locked up pretty tight. I’ll show you the way. It’s bumpy walking back there, so watch your step.’

The shed sat alone in a clearing, painted the same white color of the house. The large bay door was locked down with twin industrial-gauge padlocks to prevent anyone from gaining access – or from escaping. There weren’t any windows or a door.

They had to wait over half an hour for someone from the station to deliver a pair of bolt cutters.

Inside the garage area was a John Deere Gator holding dirt and a shovel. Darby borrowed a flashlight and found dried spots ofwhat could be blood on the plastic seat.

Banville poked his head around a corridor. ‘Darby.’

The narrow corridor was made of Peg-Board walls holding lawn equipment. Banville stood at the far end. He took down a bag of lime from a shelf and placed it on the floor. Cut inside the Peg-Board wall was a square with enough room to reach inside and turn a door handle.

First they had to take care of the padlock.

The secret room held two prison cells. Both were unlocked and empty.

Banville stood inside a room of gray concrete and stainless steel. No mirror or windows, just a small vent high in the ceiling. A surplus army cot was bolted to the floor. A floor drain was in the center of the room. Darby recalled the pictures of Carol she had seen at the lab.

‘This must be where he kept her,’ Banville said.

Darby thought of the Gator with its shovel and bed full of dirt and felt the last dangling thread of hope slide away.

Chapter 64

Darby pulled Banville aside so they could talk privately.

‘Hostage Rescue might have access to a chopper,’ Darby said. ‘If they do, and if it’s equipped with infrared heat sensors, we can use it to search the woods, see if it can lock on to what’s left of Carol’s heat signature, depending on how deep she’s buried and how long ago Boyle killed her.’

‘Holloway’s already put out the call to the state police for assistance. By morning, the dogs will be here. We’re going to cover every inch of these woods.’

‘A chopper can do a sweep of these woods in about a couple of hours.’

Banville let out a long sigh.

‘I don’t like asking the feds for help any more than you do, believe me,’ Darby said. ‘But I’m thinking about Dianne Cranmore. You and I both know what happened here is going to be all over the news first thing tomorrow morning. I think we should tell the mother before she finds out on the news.’

Banville handed over his cell phone. ‘You can make the call to Manning.’

Darby stood alone on a dark trail, dialing Evan’s number, Holloway’s men busy behind her.

‘It’s Darby.’

‘I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour,’ Evan said. ‘What’s going on? The call was dropped. I kept calling and you didn’t pick up.’

‘Did you find Carol?’

‘No, not yet. What I did find, though, was more evidence – a pair of men’s boots, size eleven, manufactured by Ryzer Gear. There’s also a navy blue carpet in the bedroom. I think it will match the fibers you found.’

‘Did you find a prison cell? Like the one we saw in the pictures?’

‘No.’

‘Carol’s not there.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘First, I want to ask you a question about Hostage Rescue. Do they have access to a chopper?’

‘A Black Hawk,’ Evan said. ‘Why?’

‘Is it equipped with infrared heat sensors?’

‘What’s going on, Darby?’

‘Find out and call me back on Banville’s cell phone. Do you need the number?’

‘I already have it. Now tell me what’s –’

Darby hung up. Holloway’s men were getting ready to search the woods for recently dug graves.

Half an hour later, Evan called back.

The Black Hawk is equipped with infrared heat sensors.’