Dead Too Soon: A Thriller (Val Ryker series Book 3) Page 9

  “F List?” Lund glanced to Val. “Do I want to ask?”

  Val shook her head, but that didn’t stop McGlade.

  “It rhymes with bucket list, but starts with an F. I’ve done it in planes, boats, cars, trucks, a helicopter, a hovercraft, and the Batmobile.” He winked at Val. “The Adam West one. She kinda looked like you, but was attractive. I never did it in a duck.”

  “What I need you to do is talk to people, neighbors, friends, classmates,” Val said, ignoring his babble. “I’m looking for a list of people she knew beyond any official records, people who might be helping her now.”

  “So do the ducks have some sort of schedule? Can you rent a whole duck yourself? If it’s full, I guess I can bring a blanket. That’s called doing it undercover.” He grinned and nudged Lund.

  Lund didn’t react, but silently wondered if McGlade had an off button.

  “Also, assuming the widow has taste, what’s the sex worker situation like in Baraboo? I’m guessing high-class escorts are out, but to check a duck off my list, I’m willing to lower my expectations. Can you recommend anyone, Lump? Assume, correctly, I pay better than you do.”

  He grinned and nudged Lund again.

  Lund was not sure how this guy made it as a private eye in Chicago, but Val seemed to think he could come up with something of value. And why not? Any help was better than none.

  And that gave Lund an idea.

  “You have no sense of fun, Lump. Only guy I know who was worse was this shrimp named Tequila. But he had a reason, being only two feet tall.”

  “Tequila?” Lund knew a guy named Tequila. A dangerous man with dangerous friends. He felt Val’s eyes on him. “Where did you meet this Teq—”

  But McGlade was already off on another thought.

  “How about you, Nikki?” McGlade turned to the bartender. “Want to scale Mt. McGlade on a duck?”

  “Sorry, lover. I’ve already checked that off my F list. Plus, you know I’ve got that problem.”

  “Herpes?”

  “Standards.”

  McGlade raised an eyebrow. “So how was it? The duck?”

  “Not as good as the Batmobile.”

  Lund and Val left the tavern with McGlade Googling escort services on his cell phone. Back in the car, Val spoke first.

  “Tequila… Is that the gymnast, the one who was with—”

  “Yes.” Lund wished he hadn’t said anything. They had enough to worry about without reliving the past.

  “That woman was bad news.”

  “You won’t get an argument from me. But listen, McGlade gave me an idea.”

  “About Tequila?”

  “About sources of information.”

  “Explain.”

  “What if Oneida couldn’t find any reports of stolen ambulances because Hess and Carla didn’t exactly steal it?”

  “Go on.”

  “There has to be some sort of market for vehicles like that. Used ambulances. Used police cars. Used ducks, for crying out loud. Even Harlan drives an old hearse.”

  “Lake Loyal bought new squad cars right before I arrived, but I think they sold the old ones in some kind of surplus sale.”

  “I know someone who has her finger on that type of thing. She might be able to narrow the search. And she’s right on our way. We have time to stop?”

  Val checked her watch. “If it could help us find the ambulance, by all means.”

  They continued into Lake Loyal, the driving easier now. Rain had turned slushy roads to wet, rivers quickly building in the ditches of the countryside and the gutters of town.

  Lund turned into the parking lot of Lake Loyal’s only car dealership, and he and Val got out.

  “We don’t have to buy a car or anything in exchange for the help, do we?”

  Lund knew Val was joking, but dealing with Nancy, his fire dispatcher who moonlighted as a car saleswoman, and avoiding falling prey to her fast-talking spell could be a challenge. Not because she was skillful but because she didn’t like to take no for an answer.

  “Just practice saying no.”

  “She’s sold you a car, hasn’t she?”

  “My truck.”

  “And the rest of the fire department?”

  “She’s gotten pretty much all of them. Some several times.”

  Val stopped. “Maybe we should just give her a call…”

  “So glad you could stop by, Chief,” Nancy said, scurrying out into the weather, an umbrella over her head proclaiming her saleswoman of the year. She directed her gaze to Val. “And you too, Chief.”

  Nancy was slim and fit, and her fire department personnel file stated she was in her early fifties. But with a voice like sandpaper scraping across broken glass and a face that had been subjected to heavy doses of tanning spa and cigarette smoke, she reminded Lund of a talking version of one of those faces some people carved into old apple cores.

  The last time Lund and Val had seen her, the three of them managed to escape the fire station explosion and subsequent raging fire. “How are you doing?”

  “Great. Gotta keep busy. Tim offered me all the hours I want. So far, I’m tops in sales for the month, and I’ve been working full time for less than a week.”

  Val shot Lund a worried look.

  “That’s terrific, Nancy,” he said.

  “They call me Fancy Nancy.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “It’s memorable, you know? Makes people think of me when they need a new car.”

  “Or a used car.”

  “New to them, Lund. Always new to them.” She gave him a playful wink. “Now what can I interest you in?”

  “An ambulance.”

  She quirked a penciled brow. “Not feeling well?”

  “No, to buy.”

  “You want to buy an ambulance?”

  “I’m wondering where someone could find one if they wanted to buy. Surplus sales? Something like that?”

  “That’s a good bet.” Nancy motioned for them to follow her inside. “I hear the two of you are spending a lot of time together. Kind of funny. Police chief and fire chief. How did you meet again?”

  Lund crooked a wrist and eyed his watch. “We have some time constraints…”

  “Sure, sure.” Nancy resumed walking. “You know, once a man settles into a relationship, his taste in vehicles changes.”

  “Is that so?”

  “That truck of yours is nice, but it might not always be what you need. I hope you think of me when the time comes to sell it and get something new for the next chapter in your life. Say, this minivan, for example.” Pausing at a 2003 Honda Odyssey, Nancy tapped the window bearing the sticker. “This one is a steal. Was in an accident, but it’s been fully repaired. Even comes with a warranty.”

  “Ambulance, Nancy.”

  “Right. But we get a lot of wrecks in here. Car was barely damaged, yet the insurance company totals it. Then they fix it up, and voilà. You need a car, I need to make a living.”

  “Never mind the poor sucker whose vehicle was totaled.”

  “Oh, that poor sucker buys another car. And hopefully he remembers Fancy Nancy in his time of need.”

  “Could we focus on the ambulance, Nancy? We’re kind of in a hurry.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  While the dealership was dry and about thirty degrees warmer than the lot, the smell of exhaust and dirty oil from the garage in the building’s rear made Lund wish he could stay out in the bone-chilling rain. Nancy led them through an obstacle course of vehicles on the showroom floor. She stopped at a desk cluttered with framed photos of her at every single one of the firefighter vs. police softball games.

  Lund avoided looking at the smiling faces of police officers Christopher Edgar and Jimmy Weiss, and Lund’s predecessor Jerry Fruehauf and old friend Bix Johnson. So much had happened. He wouldn’t be able to wrap his mind around all of it for a very long time.

  “Here we are.” She motioned to a pair of chairs on the other
side of the desk. “Have a seat. Coffee?”

  Val gave her an apologetic yet firm press of the lips. “Nancy, we really have to—”

  “All righty.” Nancy plopped into her chair and flicked her mouse back and forth between her nicotine-stained fingers until the computer monitor came to life. “Let me just see what I can find.”

  After several hums and pausing to pop a piece of nicotine gum into her mouth, Nancy finally looked up from her computer and grinned. “Got it.”

  “An ambulance?” Lund craned his neck, trying to get a look at the monitor.

  She angled the screen toward him, and he stared at a white, bare-bones website titled Wisconsin Surplus Online Auction. Below the headline stretched a list of city, school, county, school district, and many other logos. Next to each was an ending date for the auction, and general lists of what was being offered.

  “An ambulance, an old school bus, a cop car, a room full of old athletic lockers… You want it, I got it.”

  Lund crowded closer to the monitor. The scent of cigarette smoke mixed with roses assaulted him, almost as strong as the car exhaust from the garage. Swallowing hard, he opted to breathe through his mouth.

  Nancy cracked her gum. “The fire department sold the old pumper truck on this site after we got the new one, remember?”

  “Chief Fruehauf… handled stuff like that,” he said. “I’m just getting used to the administrative end.”

  “Going to the chief’s memorial service?”

  A heaviness bore down on Lund’s chest. With all that had happened, he wasn’t even sure when it was.

  “It’s next Wednesday,” Nancy said, her expression softer and kinder than he ever remembered it being.

  “Is there a record of items purchased in the past?” Val asked.

  “Sure. Completed auctions. There’s a tab right here.” Nancy clicked, and a list of auctions marked CLOSED filled the screen.

  “And people who purchased them?”

  “They have to register in order to bid.”

  Val stepped away from the desk. “Thanks, Nancy.”

  At least it was something. Hess couldn’t have done all this on his own. Learning Carla’s connections, finding out where he got the ambulance, any of it could lead to where he was now. Where he’d taken Grace. “Thanks, Nance,” Lund said. “We appreciate the help.”

  “Oh, I could help more. I have this great little SUV, fully loaded, four-wheel drive…” Nancy popped up from her desk and started waving at them with her hands, as if the breeze generated would push them out the door and across the parking lot to used-car nirvana.

  Val glanced at Lund, a just-shoot-me-now look on her face.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Should have given Harry this job.”

  “Harry?” Nancy asked. “This Harry, he looking for a car?”

  Lund paused. “Tell you what, Nance, why don’t I give you his cell phone number and you can ask him yourself?”

  Grace

  Carla’s muffled pleading filtered through the thin wall of Grace’s prison, pulsing in the air like a physical force.

  Grace focused on the stress management techniques Aunt Val had taught her back when she was twelve. After Grace had gone to live with her. After Grace’s mother had died.

  Breathe out for four counts.

  Hold it for four counts.

  Breathe in for four counts.

  Aunt Val had taught her other things, too. How to set boundaries. How to recognize a predator. How to safely get away. None of those things would work now. Prisoners had no boundaries. Hess was in control, and there would be no getting away.

  An engine revved to life somewhere outside Grace’s locked room. One of the vehicles leaving. Shortly after that, the place grew quiet.

  Grace wondered what had happened.

  She wondered if Carla was dead.

  She shifted on the mattress, feeling every inch of the cold concrete underneath, the hardness aching through her bones. The room was cold, dank, the cast iron radiator obviously too old to work.

  Grace closed her eyes. She’d heard of abuse victims retreating into their minds to escape impossible situations, and for a moment, she envied them. Except for the time Dixon Hess had cut her, Grace had no experience with this sort of thing. She didn’t know what to do, how to be. The only things she was sure of were that she was more afraid than she’d ever been in her life and that Aunt Val must be going out of her mind with worry.

  Grace dozed off for a while; at least she thought she did. The closet was dark, no way to tell what time it was. Day or night. Afternoon or evening.

  A loud bang jolted her awake.

  The door to the room was open, someone standing inside, backlit by feeble light.

  Carla.

  Grace struggled into a sitting position and pressed back against the hard ridges of the radiator fins.

  “You try anything, and I’ll beat you to death. Hear?”

  Grace did her best to nod.

  Carla moved close. She held a bucket in one hand, a greasy-smelling rag in the other. “Stupid little bitch. I should stuff this rag down your throat, give you a reason to puke.”

  She started mopping up the spot where Grace had vomited. Grace could see red bruises around her eyes, rapidly turning purple, and a trickle of red dripped from her swollen nose.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Did Hess do that? Did he hurt you?”

  Carla shook her head. “He loves me.”

  “Seems like a funny way to show it.”

  “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Then don’t,” Grace said. “I just figured you might need someone to talk to.”

  “I don’t. And if you don’t quit talking, I won’t take you for a pee break.”

  Grace couldn’t see how having her wet herself would help Carla, since Hess might make her clean that up, too. But she decided not to say anything. Just the thought of lying here in her own pee and vomit made her squirm.

  Normally, Grace was pretty good at getting people to open up. But how could she relate to a person like Carla? Grace wasn’t even sure she wanted to know how a woman like that ticked.

  Carla finished with the mattress and tossed the rag into her bucket. “It’s all going to work out.”

  For a second, Grace wanted to think that meant Carla would let her go, that Hess would leave Aunt Val alone. But that would never happen. “What’s going to work out?”

  “Dixon and me.”

  “Why?”

  Carla scowled at her. “Because I’ve done so much for him. He’ll recognize it.”

  “You sure?”

  Carla’s palm smacked Grace’s cheek, hard.

  The blow stung, and tears filled Grace’s eyes.

  “Soon we’ll be a family. Then you’ll see. He loves me.”

  A family?

  Of course, they were going after Ethan. Hess wanted two things. Revenge and to get his son back.

  “Do you know where Ethan is?”

  “We will soon.”

  “How?”

  A smile spread over Carla’s lips. “We’ve made plans, Dixon and me. We’ve been planning things for a long time. So you see? You were only the beginning. When he gets back, he needs me to be ready. Things are going to start happening.”

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  Val

  The car dealership was only a few blocks from the former brewery that had been converted to house the Lake Loyal PD. The roads were fine in town, and Lund was no slow driver, yet the minute trip to the station still didn’t feel fast enough for Val.

  Logically, Val knew that reaching the station wasn’t the same as finding Grace, that she likely faced hours of tracking down leads—Carla’s background, the ambulance, whatever else they could dream up—but she was impatient all the same.

  Every minute Hess had Grace was too long.

&nb
sp; Val had been trailing every step of the way, and she had the horrible feeling that as fast as they drove, as hard as they worked, as many people as they recruited to help, they wouldn’t be able to catch up. As if dark clouds were gathering on the horizon and it was impossible to get those she loved to shelter in time.

  As they had been for a week now, three news vans parked along the curb in front of the old brewery that had been converted to a police station. Val guessed the media hadn’t heard about Grace yet. If they had, there would have been reporters at her house. When they did hear the news, she wouldn’t know a second’s peace.

  Not that she did now.

  When she and Lund made their way through the no-comment gauntlet and entered the station, Val was not surprised to see Oneida had already recruited three volunteers to help her answer and log calls from the tip line. But she was very surprised when she saw Oneida.

  Normally controlled and professional, Oneida’s face was bright pink and her hair looked as if she’d spent the morning touching the electric fences of nearby farms. She left the dispatch patch, her favorite blue-flowered skirt swirling around her legs as if caught in a hurricane, and intercepted Val and Lund in the twelve feet of space between the front door and Val’s office. “Chief, am I glad to see you.”

  Oneida was out of breath and so visibly shaken a shudder gripped Val’s chest. “Grace?”

  “Nothing yet. Sheriff’s department is still searching for her phone.”

  And they would be for a long while. Val searched for the next potential catastrophe on the list. “Brad Haselow?”

  “He’s in good condition.”

  “Did you reach his parents?”

  “Cheyenne did,” Oneida said, referring to her sister.

  Val was glad. At least she could cross telling Haselow about his son off her list. There wasn’t much love lost between Val and the Lake Loyal Village president, but she was sure it would be horrible to be in his and his wife’s shoes. It was certainly horrible to be in her own.

  “How about the kids from the bus?” Lund asked.

  “Four are hospitalized, all in good condition, and the driver is critical but still hanging in there.”

  Oneida rattled off item after item she’d handled. All ambulances in the area were accounted for and a lineup of various designs were waiting for Kasdorf’s arrival. The horses were safely in Oneida’s friend’s care. Olson’s wife and four kids had arrived at his sister’s house in Minneapolis. Oneida had even talked to contractors about fire damage restoration for Val’s home.