Into the Fire (26 page)

Her hand smelled like Murphy’s hair, she realized. At some point last night, she must’ve had her fingers in it.

The cabin’s living area contained a kitchen that was tucked into one corner. Back behind that was a single bedroom, a tiny bathroom, and a door leading out into the backyard.

Not that there was a backyard, per se. Several wooden steps led down and out into more of the same dense forest, with far less of a clearing than was out front.

“No lock on the back door, either,” she announced.

Keeping Murphy in her peripheral vision, Hannah went into the kitchen area, trying to focus on the task at hand, rather than the fact that the smell had been significantly less strong back by the bedroom. Where there was a bed with what looked from the doorway to be a clean, new spread atop it.

If, like Hannah, Murphy hadn’t had sex since that terrible night six months ago, they could probably do the deed in ninety seconds—which, although quick, would be a two hundred percent increase in time spent getting it on. Add another ten seconds for her to kick off her boots and peel off her jeans…

The refrigerator had been cleaned out, the door left ajar. Several of the cabinets held canned and dry goods—in fact there looked to be enough here to feed one person for at least six months. So maybe that was why no one noticed Ebersole hadn’t picked up his groceries. He may not have had a grocery delivery.

Another cabinet held glasses and mugs. Another held a sturdy-looking collection of glass plates and bowls, all neatly stacked and…Huh.

Hannah had been using her bandanna to keep her prints off the cabinet door pulls, and now she kept it over her hand as she lifted the top plate off the stack. She turned it over and…sure enough.

The plate’s price tag was still on the bottom. It was crisp and easy to read—it had cost a dollar ninety-nine from the local Wal-Mart. It was hard to get those stupid little tags off. Most people just washed the dishes with them on, which took care of the ink and most of the paper, but left behind an annoyingly sticky little spot of glue.

Hannah carefully went through the plates, and the bowls, the salad plates, too. They all had price tags that she would’ve sworn had never been touched by water.

And sure, okay, maybe someone from the Freedom Network had replaced all the dishes in this kitchen. Maybe they were intending to sell the old ones on eBay.
Own a plate that Tim Ebersole used right before he shit the bed.
Or the floor, in this case.

But maybe…

Hannah looked at the empty bookshelves, the department store display room feel to the furniture that had been pushed against one wall, no doubt by the floor scrubber. “Murph,” she said as she got her digital camera out of her pack.

He turned from his post at the door, moving so he could both keep an eye on the road that led into the cabin, and let Hannah see his face.

“What exactly are you looking for?” he asked her.

“I’m not sure. Do you know how long Ebersole was here?” she asked as she took photos of the tags on the plates, of the rest of the room. “Before he died? Did that article mention when his retreat started?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m getting a major model-home vibe,” she told him. “All of the plates still have their price tags.”

She could see he didn’t get it.

“As if no one ever really lived here,” she tried to explain. She used her bandanna to open all of the kitchen drawers. Silverware, large utensils and knives, potholders…“Like, okay, there’s no junk drawer.”

Murphy scratched his head, waiting until she looked back up at him. “Isn’t that the purpose of a retreat? To get away from all the junk? To simplify?” He spelled out the word.

She had to give him that. “But why are the tags still on the plates?”

“Because Ebersole was a guy and didn’t give a shit?” he suggested.

“So…you’re saying he just never used his dishes?”

“Maybe he only ate microwavable meals,” he said. “The ones that come in little trays.”

And that was another explanation that she hadn’t considered. Except…“Didn’t he have some kind of weird thing against microwaves?” They were part of Ebersole’s long list of things that were “unnatural,” including women who worked or thought for themselves. “There isn’t one here.”

“Someone probably took it away before the FBI made the scene,” he said. “Along with all of his kiddie porn and Madonna CDs.”

Hannah laughed. For years, Ebersole had waged a public war against Madonna, calling her the anti-Christ. She took a moment to visualize him here in this kitchen, dancing to “Like a Virgin” while his Lean Cuisine dinner cooked in his satanic microwave, as the generator that powered this place hummed.

“Or maybe he liked using paper plates,” Murph said. “God knows there was a time in my life when I would’ve eaten out of my hand to not have to wash a dish.”

“I’m going all the way into the bedroom,” Hannah announced.

“I’m right here,” Murphy reassured her. “Someone comes, I grab you and we’re out the back door in zero point five seconds.”

Bandanna around her right hand, her left holding onto her camera as a reminder not to touch anything, Hannah went in.

The room was small, and filled almost entirely by that king-sized bed. And the smell of death and decay was indeed significantly less strong. Which allowed her to catch a whiff both of new carpet and sawdust.

There was a dresser in the corner, but it was as empty as the closet. There weren’t even any hangers on the clothes pole. Which didn’t mean anything. Hannah knew that. She took a picture of it anyway.

The bathroom was more of the same. Nothing in the medicine cabinet. A lonely roll of toilet paper under the sink.

Towels neatly folded in the closet.
New
towels. Their tags had been torn off, but there was a little trim of paper—card stock—trapped by the edging stitches. That paper definitely would’ve melted away in a washing machine.

Hannah brought one out to show Murphy. “They’re all like this,” she said.

“Which proves…what?” he asked.

“That the Freedom Network is lying about…something,” she said. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized how stupid she sounded. These were people who published hateful lies about gays and immigrants on their website. These were people who insisted reports of the numbers of Jews killed in the Holocaust were grossly exaggerated.

“Great,” Murphy said. “With that in our arsenal, along with my
I couldn’t have been the killer because I never would have picked that spot to shoot from
defense, I’ve got that
not guilty
verdict completely in the bag.”

“Sorry,” Hannah said. She stuck her camera into the front pocket of her jeans as she rolled the towel up, as tightly as she could.

“You’re taking that?” Murphy tapped her arm and asked.

“It means something,” she said, as she squeezed it into her pack. “I just have to figure out what.”

“It means,” Murphy said, “that it was there for show. That there were other towels that Ebersole used while he was here.”

“Or it means that he wasn’t here before he was killed,” she said. “This cabin is new. You can smell it back there. You want to go into the bedroom and take a whiff?”

And grab a quickie while we’re at it? Hannah didn’t say it, but she knew
he
knew she was thinking about sex. She could see it reflected back at her, in his eyes.

“Han,” he started.

“Forget it,” she said. “Look, the Freedom Network built this place—recently—all the way out here on the edge of their property for a reason. They went to a lot of trouble to get water out here and—”

“Yeah,” Murph said. “So that Ebersole could use it for his personal retreat.” His frustration showed on his face.

“Or so that they could use the remote location to cover up the fact that he was never going to use it at all,” Hannah argued as she followed him out the door and down the porch stairs. “We’re about as far as possible from the compound’s main living area—”

“What if I wasn’t drunk?” he interrupted her. “What if I don’t remember killing Ebersole not because I was drunk, but because I’ve blocked it out? What if I didn’t even bother to hide in a blind, what if I just walked up to this window and blew him away?”

He was serious. And as he spoke, Hannah could see Murphy doing it, like the hero of some Western movie coming to avenge Angelina’s death.

Appearing out of the misty forest, all six feet five inches of him, moving precisely, intently, his powerful stride accentuating his determination as he approached the cabin in classic Hollywood slow motion, rifle held loosely in one enormous hand. His face would be hard and his eyes would glitter as he climbed the porch steps, as he looked in the window, as he shouldered that weapon and…

Hannah could remember—clearly—what a gunshot sounded like, but this movie playing in her head took place in her new, silent world. She could see the recoil, though, and the hot shell casing being ejected from the rifle, spinning through the air and bouncing on the rough boards of this very porch.

She could picture Murphy, his expression unchanging as he looked through the window at Ebersole’s lifeless body, as he turned to scoop up the shell casing, unmindful of its heat, and head back down those stairs. In that same slow motion, she could imagine him striding effortlessly back into the forest, not even bothering to turn his head as he tossed the casing into that clump of trees as he went past…

“This was a waste of time,” he said now. “I’m sorry I dragged you here. And I’m twice as sorry about—”

“Nobody dragged anyone,” she said, purposely looking away from him so as not to hear the rest of his apology, “so just…settle down. Maybe we should try an entirely new approach.”

“Such as?”

“Hypnosis,” she said, adding, “What?” at his disbelieving look. “You’ve got some missing
months,
bwee. You were somewhere, doing something all that time. Let’s see what you say when you’re hypnotized. What’s the worst that could happen? You’ll quack like a duck, and tell us nothing. It’s worth a try.”

Murphy took her arm and squeezed.

“I’m glad—”
you agree,
she was about to say, but then she realized Murphy wasn’t letting go.

Someone was coming.

His mouth moved, but her brain had seized.

“Truck?” she repeated. Was that what he’d told her? That a
truck
was coming along the road? Or had he merely sworn?
Fuck.

He didn’t answer, or maybe he did, but she couldn’t see his face as he dragged her back, back, back with him into the brush. He pushed her down into the soft, loamy earth then stretched out beside her, covering them both with a layer of leaves.

Hannah felt his arm around her, and he squeezed her three times. Not truck—trucks. Plural.

As in three of them.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

D
ALTON
, C
ALIFORNIA

“D
id you know Danny Gillman was going to be here?” Sophia asked Dave sotto voce, as they got themselves coffee at the breakfast buffet in the restaurant attached to the Dalton motel.

Dave shook his head as Sophia checked out the quivering mass of scrambled eggs and the small mountain of bacon with an expression of semi-horror. “I didn’t.” It made sense, though. Gillman was a friend of Troubleshooter Lindsey Jenkins’s husband.

Mark Jenkins generally traveled in a pack with three other SEAL enlisted men. Gillman, Lopez and—oh, joy—Izzy Zanella. SEALs tended to take up a lot of space—both physically and cosmically—and Zanella, in particular, was extremely emotionally large.

As for Gillman, he not only had been persistent to the point of obnoxiousness in his pursuit of Sophia, he’d once nearly gotten her killed, which had pissed off Dave royally. And okay, yeah. Threatening to kick the shit out of a Navy SEAL—probably not the smartest thing Dave had ever done.

Particularly since Gillman obviously carried a grudge about that, in addition to his ten-ton torch for Sophia.

Thank God for Jay Lopez, who, compared to his wild and woolly friends, was like a Buddhist Zen master.

Lindsey, Jenk, Lopez, and Gillman were together at a table, finishing up their breakfast. Izzy and a very pretty, very young girl that Dave didn’t recognize were sitting clear across the room.

As Lindsey saw that Dave and Sophia had come into the restaurant, she got up and approached them.

“You guys just get in?” she asked.

“Last night,” Sophia said. “Late.”

Lindsey nodded. “Same here. Sorry about Gillman. I didn’t know you would be coming out here and—”

“I’m fine with it,” Sophia told her friend. “Danny and I are friends.”

“If only someone would tell Danny that,” Dave muttered. “Oh, wait. Someone did.”

Sophia ignored him, gesturing to the food in the warming trays. “Is that edible?”

“A total cholesterol deathtrap,” Lindsey said. “But surprisingly tasty. If you dig to the bottom, the eggs are nice and hot.”

Sophia looked around, searching for any sign of the serving staff. “Do you think if I ask nicely, someone will make me a veggie egg-white omelet?”

“The cook’s name is Billy,” Lindsey said. “He’s maybe nineteen. Don’t ask too nicely or he’ll put himself on the plate as a garnish.”

“Talking about youngsters, who’s Zanella’s flavor of the week?” Dave asked. Maybe that was where he’d gone wrong in his nonexistent sex life. He would never have considered bringing a date on a search operation.

“Easy on the disrespect,” Lindsey said. “If you’re not careful, you’ll walk into a double whammy. She’s Eden Gillman. Danny’s little sister. And Izzy’s fiancée.”

“Seriously?” Sophia was amused. “Izzy’s marrying Danny’s…” And then she was stunned into silence, as the young woman in question pushed herself out of her chair.

“Whoa,” Dave said.

The girl was pregnant.

“Yeah,” Lindsey said. “Eden just got back from an extended trip to Germany, and kinda…took everyone by surprise.”

“And the baby’s…Izzy’s?” Sophia asked.

“Apparently so,” Lindsey said. “Their plan is to get married in Vegas, some time this week.”

“Wow,” Sophia said. “Is Danny…?”

“Head-exploding angry?” Lindsey finished for her. “Pretty much.” She looked at Dave. “Speaking of plans, kimosabe, you got one for today’s game of Where’s Murphy?”

He laughed. “I’m not team leader.”

“But you knew Murph best,” Lindsey pointed out.

“Yeah, right,” Dave scoffed. “You just don’t want to have to be in charge, so you can sneak off with your husband and—”

“Absolutely,” Lindsey said. “Considering this is one of his rare days off.” She lowered her voice. “We’re stockpiling alone-time because we’re pretty sure he’s going back to Iraq in five days—” she looked at her watch “—twelve hours and forty-three minutes.”

Dave glanced at Sophia, who was unable to hide her smile. “You walked right into that one,” she told him. “Excuse me.”

She’d spotted the cook. Dave turned slightly, so that he could watch Sophia as she spoke to the young man.

“The good news,” Lindsey said, “is that Tess called. She and Nash are on their way. Tess’ll be team leader—she’s always up for that. You’ll just be in charge in the interim.”

“What’s their ETA?”

“They’ll be here soon,” she reassured him.

Dave could tell from the way Lindsey was smiling that she was bullshitting him. “How soon?”

She shrugged. “A few hours?”

“Be more specific.”

“Maybe…five?”

“That’s not
soon
!”

“Five hours,” Lindsey told him sternly, “is a very short amount of time, compared to the hundreds—possibly thousands—of hours that Mark’ll spend in Iraq.”

“Oh, enough,” Dave said. “I’ll be the interim team leader, already. Just…spare me the guilt trip.”

“So what’s your plan?” Lindsey said again, cheerful once more.

“We get our butts out there,” he told her crossly, “and we start asking people if they know Hannah, and if they’ve seen Murphy around lately. A town like this, he’s going to stand out.” Over near the kitchen, Sophia laughed and threw her arms around the cook, and Dave paused, distracted. Apparently, she really loved veggie egg-white omelets. She kissed the boy on the cheek, then headed back toward Dave and Lindsey, still laughing. “Everyone’ll take a street. We’ll work in pairs. You and Mark, Izzy and his child bride, Lopez and Gillman. Sophia and I will head over to the town library. We know Hannah sent e-mail from—”

“I found her,” Sophia announced.

“No way,” Lindsey said.

“Billy’s friend Beau recently helped his father install a satellite dish for Hannah Whitfield, up at her uncle’s cabin on Warson’s Gate Road,” Sophia told them, her obvious pleasure practically spilling off of her. She was so happy, it was hard not to smile, too. “Billy says it’s the only cabin on the left after the turnoff from Calico Ridge.”

“Well, shoot, that was easy.” Lindsey turned to Dave. “What now, boss?”

Dave gritted his teeth. Waiting five hours for Tess to arrive was clearly not an option. “We go pay Hannah a call.”

T
HE MOUNTAINS EAST OF
S
ACRAMENTO

Murphy put his hand on the back of Hannah’s head and pushed her down, so that she was facing him, nose to nose, looking directly into his eyes.

He put his finger on his lips. Shhh.

“Good thing you didn’t let me talk you into going into the bedroom,” she said silently but very clearly.

No shit. Although, as he lost himself for a fraction of a second in Hannah’s eyes, he saw a definite echo there of his own errant thoughts. In the space of a heartbeat, he’d imagined her pushing him back onto that bed, straddling him, her fingers strong and sure as she unfastened his jeans…

He’d imagined it, and he knew Hannah had, too.

“They don’t know we’re here,” he told her, trying to pretend that, in the fertile corners of his imagination he wasn’t buried, deep and hard, inside of her. Jesus, what was wrong with him?

Hannah was not convinced that they were safely hidden—he could see doubt mixed with the heat in her eyes. “I’m not going to let them hurt you,” she told him, slipping her handgun from its holster.

Typical Hannah—now that the threat had moved from maybe to definitely, she’d pushed past her fear and was ready to kick ass.

“Seriously.” He spoke silently, really just moving his lips. “If they were coming to intercept intruders—us—the approach would’ve been high speed.”

The three SUVs that were pulling up in front of the cabin had been moving at a purposeful but not frantic pace.

Murphy risked a peek through the brush. In front of the cabin, men were getting out of the SUVs. Jesus. A lot of men. Four per vehicle, twelve total.

All twelve were guards, heavily armed, but only four were operators, with serious paramilitary training. The others were all flash and no substance—brandishing their automatic weapons as if extras in a low-budget TV show.

It was particularly comical to watch them unhook some sort of trailer-tank from the back of one of the SUVs—it was possibly a water tank—as they juggled their weapons. They unloaded cargo, too—canisters of what looked like kerosene.

The four who were true operators didn’t fetch and carry. They stood and scanned the surrounding forest.

One of them, a height-challenged individual with a swastika tattooed on his neck, seemed to look directly at Murphy and Hannah.

Beside him, Han froze—which was exactly the right thing to do. It was instinctive to duck for cover, but someone who was trained would spot the sudden furtive movement.

Nazi Neck looked through them or past them—it didn’t matter which—then turned away.

And Murphy let himself start to breathe again.

Hannah looked at him and silently mouthed a word that he didn’t understand.

She leaned closer and spoke directly into his ear, her breath warm against him.
Bonfire.

Indeed. He nodded. He, too, believed that this cabin where Tim Ebersole had died was about to be torched. Funny, he’d’ve thought the Freedom Network would try to make this place into a pilgrimage destination. The white supremacist Graceland.

Unless maybe Hannah had been right and there was something in that cabin—evidence of some kind—that the FBI had missed.

As Murph watched, two more men came out of one of the SUVs, bringing the total to fourteen. Neither of these newcomers were carrying weapons, and one was clearly some kind of prisoner. The dead giveaway being the bag over the dude’s head.

And he
was
most likely a man, judging from his height and build. He was dressed in a black robe with a rope-like belt tied simply around his waist, his feet bare. The morning sun caught and glistened off the metal of the cuffs that secured his hands behind his back.

Cah-chick. Cah-chicka-chick.

Hannah was taking pictures. She’d put her weapon on the ground in front of her, and had taken out her camera.

The sound seemed thunderously loud to Murphy, and he caught Hannah’s eyes even as he grabbed her arm and squeezed twice.
No.

“The man with the beard is Craig Reed,” she told him silently, touching her chin so he’d understand
beard.

Hannah had told him that Reed was the Freedom Network’s head of security—and the man she believed would take over Ebersole’s now-vacant leadership position.

As Murphy watched, Reed—who was leading the prisoner toward the cabin—pulled the bag off the man’s head.

Whoever he was, he was completely bald—but his hairlessness wasn’t a gift from mother nature. He’d recently had his head shaved. He had that extremely pale, never-seen-the-light-of-day semi-glow to his dome.

Whoever he was, he was shoved down into the dirt, onto his knees, and he bowed his head in submission.

Reed gave orders to the worker-guards, but Murphy was too far away to hear more than the murmur of his voice. As several of the men carried the kerosene into the cabin, and one unfastened the prisoner’s handcuffs, Murph nudged Hannah, looking at her camera and nodding. “Get more photos,” he told her and she nodded.

Cah-chick. Cah-chicka-chicka-chicka-chick. Cah-chick.

If he couldn’t hear them talking, they couldn’t hear the camera.

He hoped.

Hannah nudged him back. “Are they gonna kill this guy?” she asked, as she continued to snap pictures. “Like, burn him alive?”

The guard who’d taken off the handcuffs helped the black-robed man to his feet. Dude wasn’t fighting, despite the fact that his hands were now free. Head still bowed, he submissively went up the wooden steps of the porch, and into the house.

“What,” Hannah said, putting her camera down, “the hell? Is he drugged?”

Murphy shook his head. He had no clue.

Hannah nudged him and as he looked into her eyes, he knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling.

The idea of hiding here and watching a man die didn’t sit well with him either. But God knows they were outmanned and outgunned.

The guard who had brought the prisoner into the cabin came back out, joining his comrades.

He hadn’t been in there long enough to tie up or gag the black-robed man.

Murphy did a quick head count of the guards. Ten, eleven, twelve. Plus the man Hannah had identified as Craig Reed…

They were all standing out front expectantly.

No one was guarding the back door. Which, like the one in the front, didn’t have a lock.

Hannah looked ready to elbow crawl back behind the cabin, ready to go in there to get that prisoner out. “Maybe the guard knocked him unconscious,” she breathed, and yeah, that was a possibility. It didn’t take much time at all to shut out someone’s lights with a swift blow to the head.

Still, there was something extra-funky happening here, with two of the guards uncoiling a hose that was attached to that water tank, with another powering up the cabin’s generator with a roar.

Craig gave a command, and a quick burst of water shot out of the hose and into the trees, as if they were testing their fire-safety equipment.

It was then Murphy realized that the cabin was already burning, flames licking up around the window that wasn’t boarded up, smoke starting to pour out the slightly open front door.

And still Reed and the guards waited and watched.

“We can’t just sit here,” Hannah said, as in the clearing in front of the cabin, Nazi Neck shifted impatiently, too, saying something to Reed.

As Murphy put his hand on Hannah’s arm—“Wait…”—Reed no doubt said something similar to his subordinate.

It was then the bald-headed man burst out of the cabin—as naked as the day he was born. His head wasn’t the only thing he’d shaved. Dude was completely hairless and cavefish pale.

“Holy God.”
Cah-chicka-chicka-chick.

The men with the hose sprayed him down—maybe as a precaution, maybe to cool any burns he’d received, maybe as part of whatever freaky ritual this was.