The @USMarshalsHQ are on the case! They’re gonna do a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse. Bimbo don’t stand a chance!
—@BackTheBlue911
Jordan felt a tug on his shin and looked down. A thin strand of wire creased the leg of his olive-green duty pants. He clenched and froze, instinctively expecting the flatcrumpof an explosion. If it was a booby trap, he was already dead.
Nothing blew up. Somewhere in the middle of Fisk’s ramshackle compound, a brass bell clanged.
He should have guessed the antisocial man would have secured the perimeter of his “property” with a DIY alarm system. In the past, Jordan had always driven right up the overgrown track.
Would Cara Campbell know what the bell meant—if she was in there?
Jordan reached down and grabbed the wire before he pulled his leg back, then released the tension slowly. He couldn’t keep it from clanging a second time. It was possible, if unlikely, that the sounds had been masked by the heavy chop of the helicopter’s grid search above.
He stepped over the wire, jogged twenty yards, and took cover behind a washing machine so rusted it would probably dissolve if he sneezed on it.
Taking a small spotting scope out of a pouch on his belt, he raised his head and scanned the ragged cluster of outbuildings. Fisk had added on another trailer, but it was so old and battered it looked like it had been there since the beginning.
Jordan had never had any problems with the guy and thought there was nothing wrong with wanting to live off the grid. Not everyone agreed. Madera County dispatchers had received complaints about the unsightliness of Fisk’s property and even his livestock’s living conditions. Jordan suspected the callers were from the Bay Area. When he followed up, he found the animals well fed and healthy—if not recently shampooed.
Fisk’s right to be on the land was a gray area. He was almost certainly squatting, but no one could find the man whose name was on the deed, and a trust administered by a law firm in San Jose kept up the tax payments. Unless someone made a legal request, Jordan had no reason to evict the guy. Sometimes he wondered how many people in the Golden State were living in a similarly precarious state of grace.
Jordan worked the scope carefully from side to side. If Fisk was on his property, he probably knew Jordan was, too. The question was whether Cara Campbell had stopped or kept right on going.
He couldn’t imagine a pampered Los Angeleno—or anyone—banging on that dented trailer door and asking for help. Thenagain, when someone’s whole world changed, who knew how they would react?
Nothing moved at the windows of the trailers as Jordan stared for a long minute. The sheep and the goat milled aimlessly outside the Quonset barn. A red chicken hopped down from its coop, which appeared to have been made from a repurposed baby crib.
Jordan decided he might as well just ask Fisk if she’d been there.
Before he went in, he radioed Beto. “Campbell’s trail leads to Fisk’s place. I’m going to go up and say hello.”
TWENTY
CARA
People always ask me how they can become successful social media influencers, too. For me, the answer was to find a niche and then commit.
—Cara Campbell, interviewed for LifestyleInfluencer.com
Not counting the souls of the others Fisk had coaxed down here before her, Cara was utterly alone in the loamy darkness.
Cara’s feet touched ground, and she took three steps forward. As she turned and reached at shoulder height as instructed, she prayed she wouldn’t grasp the tail of something scurrying past. Things were bad as they could be. Worse—and much like becoming an influencer in the first place, a decision that led her to where she was now—she’d put herself directly into harm’s way.
#Consequences.
Her knuckle hit something metal. She fumbled around a shelf until she touched the familiar plastic cylinder of aflashlight. Locating the switch on its side, she pushed it upward with her thumb.
Thank God, the beam of light illuminated no bodies and no row of shallow graves. Instead, it showed a kitchenette, complete with a mini-fridge, a two-burner hot plate, and a sink with a water spigot on the far wall.
Shining the light around, Cara saw she was standing in the middle of a low-ceilinged, concrete-walled, fully stocked survival bunker. Next to the kitchen area was a fully made cot with an extra blanket folded neatly at its foot. Behind the ladder was a toilet with an unopened roll of toilet paper. Floor-to-ceiling shelves covered all usable wall space, and every shelf held clearly marked and itemized plastic crates:FIRST AID,TOOLS,CLOTHING,DISINFECTANTS, and more.
Fisk had warned her not to turn on the generator, but there was no need to conserve the flashlight battery, not given the crate filled with batteries in seemingly every size. There was also a container labeledLIGHT SOURCESwith a list of its contents:
Flashlights (8)
Candles (124)
Gas lanterns (4)
