Climbing behind the wheel, Lewis said, “Where we going, Junebug?”
She was back on her laptop. “I don’t know yet. Head south.”
With no luck tracking down Garrison Bevel, she turned her efforts to the Tacoma storefront, which Peter said was still being used as some kind of base of operations. Because he said it didn’t appear to have been rented since Resilient Systems had been there, she wondered if Bevel might actually own the building. Plugging the address into her databases, she found the taxpayer’s name, 507 Puyallup Ave LLC, with a mailing address in Spokane. Exactly the kind of purpose-made corporation that landlords used to legally and financially separate one property from another. She knew Lewis had done the same thing, back when he was still acquiring apartment buildings.
She also knew that, for every registered corporation, the state of Washington required the name of a so-called registered agent, along with both a mailing address and a physical address. So she went to Washington’s secretary of state’s website and ran a search for 507 Puyallup Ave LLC.
When the company came up on her screen, she saw both its physical and mailing address in Spokane, the same as the taxpayer’saddress. She scrolled down to the registered agent. It was something called PNW Registered Agents, which was a service that business owners used as a proxy, in order to keep their personal information off public records. She went to the PNW Registered Agents website, but there was no way to search for customer names. Which made sense, because privacy was the whole point.
If Bevel had gone the registered agent route with the Tacoma storefront, he’d almost certainly have done the same with the compound, wherever it was. She knew it wasn’t in Bevel’s name, because nothing was in his name. So she was unlikely to find it that way.
Although there was another possible path. She went to the Washington State Department of Revenue and plugged the same LLC into the search bar. Here, instead of a registered agent, there was a section for “Governing People,” because the state wanted a contact person in case of legal issues or nonpayment of corporate taxes.
For 507 Puyallup Ave LLC, the governing person was someone named Ann-Marie Wildman.
That was a possibility, June thought. She went back to the DOR site and plugged the name into the search under “Governing People,” hoping to find Ann-Marie Wildman on another corporation with, hopefully, a real address.
But the name turned up on several hundred companies, which meant Wildman, like PNW registered agents, likely ran a service for people setting up companies who didn’t want their name visible to the public.
June searched for Wildman on her subscription database. She found only two people with that name. One was affiliated with a wildlife refuge nonprofit in Florida. The other ran a business called Wildman Legal Services LLC from an address in Renton, a sprawling suburb southeast of Seattle.
June thought again about Peter, who was by now almost certainlya captive of the Messenger’s people. She had to find out where they were taking him.
Wildman Legal was the only lead she had.
She was about to break any number of laws.
“Lewis? I think I just found the Messenger’s lawyer. I have an address.”
49
Peter
The Bronco’s engine labored in low gear as the struts fought the steep and rutted road. In the cargo bay, wrapped in the tarp and dealing with the static, Peter barely noticed it. He kept his focus on his breathing, and the mental picture of Ellie.
Finally the Bronco leveled out and came to a stop. He heard both doors close, then felt a blast of cold air as hands grabbed the taped ends of the tarp. They dragged him out of the cargo bay and let him fall to the ground with a hard thump.
“Hold on, hold on,” a man’s voice said. Someone pulled at the ends and the tarp loosened slightly. Then someone took hold of the loose edge of the canvas and gave a great yank, unrolling the burrito until Peter sprawled out cold, naked, and handcuffed in the freezing mud.
He was in an open gravelly area where pickups and SUVs were parked at haphazard angles, lit by the yellow glow of two sodium pole lights. A wet snow fell softly, just beginning to stick to the evergreensringing the space. Through the trees, he saw the faint silver mesh of a chain link fence topped with razor wire.
Nickels and another man, bearded and very large, stared down at him. The large man was holding the muddy tarp bunched in his fist. “He don’t look like much to me, Nickels.”
“He killed my brother, Vance. He stole our shit. So I’m gonna do him some damage.” Nickels wound up and kicked Peter hard in the stomach.
Peter saw it coming and managed to tense his abdominals, but it still hurt like hell, especially after the full-body clench caused by the Taser. Better than getting kicked in the head, though that was likely on the menu. He might have made it to his feet and taken Nickels down, even with his hands taped behind his back. But the large man, Vance, was another story. For him, Peter would need both hands and a baseball bat. Or an elephant gun. Plus, fighting back right now wouldn’t help anyone.
So he simply looked at Nickels and said, “Where’s Ellie? Where’s Carlotta?”
Boxall, the Bronco’s driver, still wearing full camo, looked eagerly over Nickels’s shoulder. “Can I get in on this?”
Durant walked up in his cowboy hat and black slicker. “Fuck off, all of you. Except you, Vance. Get him up. The Messenger’s coming.”
Vance bent and grabbed Peter’s arm roughly and jerked him upright. “You better behave.”
Peter’s bare feet were ice cubes in the mud. The Bronco’s cargo area hadn’t been heated, and now he was fully exposed and trembling with the cold. “Durant, where are Ellie and Carlotta? We had a deal. Let them go.”
Durant nodded at Vance, who casually backhanded Peter in the face, almost knocking him to his knees. “No talking,” the big man growled.
