Noah looked at Callie. She looked back. Neither of them needed to say what they were both thinking. They'd been here before. Twice. And both times the case had shifted under their feet the moment they thought they had their man. Garrett Finch turned out to be a predator, not a killer. Derek Hollis was still in the wind. Now David Hughes, wearing a dead man's name, running a pipeline that funneled young women through his office and into the dark.
Third time. It had to stick.
"Let's go get him," Noah said.
26
The battering ram hit the door at the top of the stairs and the frame splintered inward on the first strike. Wood fragments sprayed across the floor of the Strutz Agency as officers poured through the opening in a tight column, vests cinched, weapons up, flashlights cutting through the dim interior.
"State Police! Hands where we can see them!"
Noah came through third. The gallery of headshots blurred past him on both sides as he swept his weapon left, then right, covering the angles while the point man cleared the front room. Desks overturned. File drawers pulled open. The makeup station where Marisol had packed her brushes two days ago was empty, the mirror reflecting the tactical lights back at them in sharp white flashes.
"Clear left!"
"Clear right!"
Callie moved through the back office. The bathroom door was open. The storage closet was open. A window at the rear overlooking the alley was shut and locked from the inside. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. And nobody to hide from.
"Clear," Callie said. She lowered her weapon and turned to Noah. "Son of a bitch. Someone alerted him."
Noah keyed his radio. "SWAT Two, this is Sutherland. What's your status at the residence?"
The radio crackled. A pause that lasted two seconds too long. Then, "No sign of him. House is empty. Vehicle is gone. Looks like he left in a hurry. Clothes on the bed, food on the counter."
"Copy." Noah lowered the radio. Through the broken door frame he could hear the second team reporting from the Three Pillar Community. Officers had hit the deli and the farm simultaneously. Those there were cooperating. There was no sign of David Hughes at any of the three locations.
Callie stood in front of the wall of modeling photos. Row after row of young faces. She reached up and tore one of the photos off the wall. A girl, maybe nineteen, smiling in studio lighting, her whole future in front of her.
"This piece of shit gave us that whole speech about modeling himself. Looking to protect these girls." She held the photo up. "All the while he's working under a dead man's name and serving them up on a platter to the Three Pillar Community. Making money off them." Her voice was tight. Controlled. The anger underneath it was not. "And those that argue, those that push back, those that speak out of turn get quieted. Just like Sue Braxton said about members."
She tossed the photo. It fluttered to the floor and landed face up, the girl still smiling at the ceiling.
Officers moved through the space behind them, bagging documents, pulling hard drives, photographing everything. The radio chattered with the BOLO being pushed out across the network. Samuel Bridger. David Hughes. Both names. Both descriptions. Every unit in the county.
Another search began, watering down the first. Derek Hollis was still out there. Now David Hughes had joined him in the wind.
"He'll show up," Noah said. "He ran before. He'll do it again. Only so many places you can go."
Callie was staring at the broken door frame. Her jaw was set.
"I'm heading back to the office to see what Rishi can access through CCTV," Noah said. "Maybe we can get a bead on this guy before he gets too far." He paused. "You might want to check in on Ruby. Make sure she didn't go back to the agency."
Callie glanced at him. The implication landed. If they had seen Ruby enter Strutz that morning, and if her conversation with Bridger had been about Fiona, it was possible she'd said something that spooked him. Maybe it had tipped him off that people were asking questions. That the walls were closing in. And he'd bolted.
Anything was possible. That was the problem.
The afternoon settledover High Peaks Police Department like a weight. Noah came out of the tech room where Rishi had been running license plate recognition through every traffic camera and CCTV feed within a fifty-mile radius. Samuel Bridger's vehicle, registered under his stolen identity, had not been flagged. No toll booths. No gas stations. No intersections. The man had either ditched the vehicle or found roads that didn't have cameras, and in the Adirondacks there were plenty of both.
Noah walked down the corridor and stopped at Ray's office. The door was open. Ray was on the phone, leaning back in his chair with one hand pressing the receiver to his ear and the other pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Yes, we are on top of it, Mayor. I understand. You will be the first to know." He set the phone down and blew out a lungful of air that seemed to carry the last of his patience with it.
Noah took a seat across from him.
"You know," Ray said, "the idea of becoming chief of police is looking less favorable by the day. I honestly don't know how Dad handled being sheriff for so long."
"Benefits and drawbacks," Noah said.
