Finally, Gabriel traced his hand down the lead and rested it on Whiskey’s back. “I still don’t believe that Daniel gave you to me to haunt my ass. I think it’s just that Cath is busy with the kids, and I was the most likely to take you out on a search so you'd be happy.”
Even knowing the truth behind the howling, there were pieces of the whole setup that still seemed too convenient to wholly discount.
“Well, Whiskey, this isn’t going quite the way I’d imagined today starting off.”
Whiskey looked up.
“I’m afraid you’re on your own until Loquisha gets home from school. Then she’ll come play with you for a bit, and you’ll get some belly rubs and dinner. No begging for seconds with your droopy mug. It upsets her. I’ve got a long day at work. There are some things I need to figure out. And so far, I’m coming up empty.”
Gabriel stopped across from the corner where Daniel was buried. “And if you’re there, Daniel, I want you to stop the stupidity. Go up and be with the family, relax a little. I promise I’m following behind. I can’t escape death.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gabe
Thursday
Yesterday, leaving the Joint Task Force, Gabriel had put his other cases aside to focus on this video the Joint Task Force handed him.
When his eyes grew fuzzy, he went home. But he had an itchy, unsettled feeling that had him tossing and turning all night.
Today, girded with an extra-large coffee and a fat cinnamon roll for encouragement, he was back in his rat hole of an office, with the door shut and the lights off.
He was hoping that today he’d develop his own third eye, his own psychic vision, and have some piece of evidence to hand to Joint Task Force so they could get on that search.
The thing that kept looping through Gabriel’s mind was what it was like out on Sweet Gum. The tangles of rhododendron and sweet briar, the glades with buckets for meth production, random shacks that had no rhyme or reason.
Hiding four special agents in the mountains wouldn’t be hard.
It didn’t even need to be uncomfortable for the criminals.
There were houses so far back from society, down dirt roads, hidden by the trees, that it would be easy enough to rent. They could have a clean bathroom, bed, cook up their dinner on the stove while the beer chilled in the fridge—all while their victims suffered.
Little Bird. She had been so heavily on his mind. She was so obviously in some urban house. She was probably too weak to call out. And she would probably die there, inch by inch.
There was nothing Gabriel knew how to do that could help her.
Gabriel adjusted in his seat and brought his mind back to the video. Here, at least, he had images. “Come on, tell me your secrets. Show me how to get to this place in the world.”
The video was bravely long.
There was no happenstance in this video.
It was a young man—a kid, young enough to be working on his first weak mustache. Silky thin strands tried to hide a chin dotted with zits.
The reflection of the young man’s face, partially covered by his camera, was hazily reflected in the van’s dusty back windows.
The goal of this video was to show the insides of the van and four men who had been packed in the back. They were laid out long, arranged like Gabriel stacked his glasses in the cupboard so that they fit perfectly: one glass up, the next one down—head, foot, head, foot.
The men weren’t the same height or weight, but they were all face down with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
All of them wore the same pants and shoes. All of them wore a jacket emblazoned with the bright yellow FBI lettering.
Why did the driver feel comfortable walking away from the van?
The victims seemed unattended, at least by anyone in the frame. And if they saw the kid with his phone in hand, they would have made a move on him.
Obviously, the driver parked the van off to the side of a building but not so far off that someone couldn’t wander by and see.
