Riddles that Kill Page 14

  “Chief Branson? You there?”

  Maria picked up the radio and pushed the talk button. “I’m here, Pete. What’s going on? It’s late. Are you still at the office?”

  “Do you remember Karl Fossum, the man we apprehended at the creek?”

  “Of course.”

  “He’s just been spotted out by the reservoir. The FBI is going there now.”

  “On my way.”

  Maria turned both her siren and lights off before pulling onto the dirt road that led to the reservoir. She didn’t want to spook Fossum. The makeshift construction parking lot had several parked trailers in it. Maria pulled her car up to one of them. Quietly getting out, she looked around, unsure of who and when the tip had been called in. There was no sign of the FBI yet. Either they were hiding or she’d managed to beat them here, which she probably had considering how fast she’d been going.

  Several workers were gathering picket signs that had been left leaning against dirt piles and cement blocks from the week’s earlier protests. They didn’t see Maria get out of her car.

  Maria looked over the portion of the reservoir that had been filled and was now drained. It resembled the Sahara. Not a drop of water in sight. Nor Fossum.

  Was it the cleanup crew who had called in the tip? Hopefully it wasn’t pretend. There was no time for practical jokes. Or maybe she was too late. It was after eight in the evening. The sun would be setting soon.

  Maria pulled out her cell phone to make a quick call to Pete when from down the road she heard sirens. Apparently stealth wasn’t top priority for the FBI. A gray Tahoe pulled into the parking lot headed straight for Maria. She stopped and waved, assuming this wasn’t an attack on her life.

  Agent Carter pulled up next to her and the driver window lowered. “Have you seen anyone?” he asked.

  “Not much going on here,” said Maria. “Who called in the tip? You don’t suppose it was a fake—”

  A motorcycle engine roared to life.

  Maria spun around to see where the noise was coming from. A figure on a dirt bike appeared from around a temporary utility shed used to hold the contractor’s equipment.

  “That might be him.” Maria reached for the car handle of the Tahoe. “Let me in!”

  There was a click to unlock the doors, and Maria flung herself into the back seat of the SUV. “Go, go, go!”

  “You don’t have to tell me.” The car lunged forward as Agent Carter pushed on the accelerator.

  Maria grabbed her seatbelt and snapped it into place as she watched the figure on the motorbike make a one eighty and drive onto a dirt access road with two strips of visible earth separated and surrounded by green, pokey weeds. This was going to be a bumpy ride.

  Agent Carter didn’t hesitate as he drove his Tahoe up the bank and onto the road. He gunned the Tahoe’s motor and followed a dust cloud of red dirt the bike left in its wake.

  “Any idea where this road heads?” asked Agent Carter.

  “No idea.” Maria inched her way forward on the seat, making the seatbelt tight over her shoulder. “There are so many of these roads around the county. Sometimes they can go on for miles.”

  “Get on my radio. Let your station know our present location.”

  As Maria spoke to dispatch, Agent Carter continued his hot pursuit of the bike. The further they went up the access road, the sandier it became until there was hardly any vegetation on it at all. Just a thick trail of fine-grained sand. The tires slid sideways on the slick surface. Agent Carter tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

  A coyote came out of nowhere and dashed in front of the car.

  “Watch out—” Maria began.

  Agent Carter attempted to swerve, but his control of the car was spotty.

  A dense thud on the right side of the front bumper elicited a wince from both Maria and the FBI agent.

  “It’s okay. Keep going. We can’t let him get away.” Maria was desperate.

  Agent Carter pushed forward. The car vacillated between an uncontrolled gliding on top of the shallow sand to periodic stalling when its wheels sank into deeper sections of the soft road.

  “Come on! Come on!” Maria was sure she was bothering the agent, but she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

  Agent Carter grimaced, eyes glued to the path ahead. He growled his frustration at the Tahoe. “What’s wrong with this thing? It’s all wheel drive and has great tires.”

  “It’s been so dry the last couple of weeks. It’s not your car’s fault. Whatever you do, don’t stop. You have to keep your momentum going on this kind of road.” Maria tried to calm him. They needed to keep going. They had to catch Fossum at all costs.

  The trail of dust was getting lighter and lighter.

  “Don’t worry,” Agent Carter said. “Nothing can make me stop.”

  Floovb, floovb, vwomp, vwomp, vrrrrnnnnn.

  The car had sunk into the sand.

  Agent Carter hit the steering with both palms open. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “Give me your tire pressure gauge, now!” Maria barked the order.

  “My what?”

  “Tire pressure gauge.” Maria had unbuckled her seatbelt and had the car door open.

  “Hold on.”

  A moment later Agent Carter shoved the metal tool into Maria’s hand. She jumped out of the back seat, her feet sinking into the sand when she landed. Her shoes filled with the fine grains, making walking feel like roller skating barefoot on sandpaper.

  Kneeling down by the back tire, she unscrewed the top plastic lid of the tire’s valve stem and immediately pushed in the pin in the center of the metal tip of the valve.

  Hisssssssssss.

  “One, two, three, four, five,” Maria counted aloud. She released the pin and pushed the pressure gauge onto the tip. “Now only twenty pounds of pressure—that should help.”

  By this time, Agent Carter was out of the car as well.

  “We need to release the air in the all the tires to increase the amount of surface contact on the road. It will give us a bigger footprint,” said Maria.

  “Got it,” called back Agent Carter.

  Maria repeated the process on all four tires with the FBI agent’s help. With the tires deflated, they both got back into the car and the motor roared again. The tires churned in the sand.

  Maria held her breath.

  The tires found purchase at last and the car moved forward, slowly at first and then picking up speed.

  There was no dust trail to be seen.

  Adrenaline spiraled through Maria’s body. They couldn’t lose Fossum. He was their number one lead to finding Justin.

  Agent Carter made his way down the sandy road, but not at a fast enough speed. There was no way for the Tahoe to catch up to a motorcycle in these conditions. Maria knew it and she knew Agent Carter knew it as well.

  An upcoming fork in the road loomed before them. Tracks in the sand, from ATVs and the like, shot in every which direction.

  “There.” Maria pointed to the road on the left. “Those tracks look the most fresh.”

  Agent Carter did as she suggested, but with little hope showing on his face.

  They traveled the road five more minutes until he sighed. “We’ve lost him. Completely.”

  “I know.” Discouragement flooded into Maria’s veins. They’d been so close—but they’d been outrun and outsmarted by the idiot Fossum. He’d brought the better sand vehicle. That was that.

  “Let’s head back,” said Agent Carter.

  Evening had settled, casting dull gray shadows around each bend of the road. Maria listened as Agent Carter called in an another APB on Fossum. Once off the radio, he turned to face Maria, who still sat in the back seat of his car, and said, “We’ll get him, Branson. Don’t think we won’t.”

  “Agent Carter, I just got a lead from a very reliable source that the riddle points to a place somewhere in Jarbidge, Nevada.”

  “What kind of lead?”

  “I can’t go int
o detail, but I think it would be wise if the FBI took a serious look at the area.”

  Agent Carter shook his head. “I think the riddle is just a distraction. But maybe we can bring that up with Steve Veil at our meeting with him tomorrow.”

  “Okay, I just wanted to pass along anything that might be of value.”

  The pair rode back the rest of the way to the reservoir in silence. The nose of the Tahoe dipped as the car left the access road and went down the embankment, back to the graveled clearing.

  “You can drop me off here. I’ll walk back to my car. You can head out to the highway that way.” Maria pointed in the direction of the road. “ I’ll see you at the station tomorrow at nine a.m.”

  Agent Carter nodded.

  Maria watched as the tail lights of the Tahoe skirted around the drained reservoir, through the parking lot, and out onto the highway. Their absence left her alone in the darkening evening. Maria pulled her flashlight from her backpack and switched it to low beam for walking. She needed some night air to get her sense of steadiness back after being jerked back and forth in the backseat of the Tahoe.

  Instead of skirting around the now-drained reservoir, Maria walked through the shallow area of it, making a bee line to her car. As she picked her way around rocks and sticks left on what was once the reservoir’s floor, insects of all sizes scurried out of her way. The light spread out well in front of her, giving her a sense of security. Beads of perspiration ran down her forehead. The chase had been intense and the evening air hadn’t yet cooled.

  An odd-shaped rock off to the left, just within the reach of the light caught her eye. She moved closer to it, sensing something different about it. Shining the flashlight directly toward it, she saw it wasn’t a rock at all, but a skull that was attached to the rest of its skeletal frame. Only the ribs and spine were visible. The rest was still buried in the earth … or gone.

  The front of the skull had been split right down the center, leaving an open space in the bone as wide as an inch. Whatever had happened to this person had not been good. A wave of prickles ran up her arms and neck. She was about to turn and keep making her way back to her car when she noticed the odd way in which the skeleton’s arm jutted out and was wrapped around a boulder. It looked as if the skeleton was hanging onto the rock, trying to stop itself from going somewhere.

  Behind her an owl screeched and Maria jumped. She had way too much to do to be wandering around at night freaking herself out. The skeleton must be one of those that had been disturbed when the reservoir was put in. She’d call the contractor and let him know he needed to gather this one up and put it with the others that were being kept safe until the government knew what to do with them.

  Maria turned back in the direction of the car and kept walking. A lot had happened in the last few hours. To begin, Ms. Tuttle had identified Jarbidge as the secret location in the Veil Riddle. Even though Agent Carter still thought the riddle was only a distraction, Maria felt she had to follow every lead, making a trip to Jarbidge likely. Also in the last few hours Karl Fossum had been found—and lost again. The lowlife had run like the cockroach that he was.

  Where would a man like Fossum hide in a place like Kanab? Maria needed to talk to someone who knew the Kanab area like the back of his hand. She dialed Rod’s number.

  Rod waited for Maria on her porch. He sat under the outdoor light that was being attacked by a small, black insect that came out in swarms in the evening. He couldn’t have looked more handsome or rugged in his shorts and t-shirt. To think they had once been so close made Maria’s heart ache. If she hadn’t gone with him to the Superstition Mountains maybe the relationship wouldn’t have deteriorated. She shook her head. That wouldn’t have helped anything. If she hadn’t been in Arizona, the man would be rotting in an Arizona prison by now, convicted of killing his ex-wife. No, Rod had chosen to split, and now that he had, Maria saw the wisdom in it. Close relationships were not a good thing for her. They were weapons others could use against her.

  Like poor Justin.

  Rod stood up when he saw Maria’s car pull in. He waited for her to get out of the driver’s side before walking over to her. Normally this is where he would have hugged her. Or kissed her. Or at least taken her hand. Instead, he put his hands in his pockets and said, “Hey.”

  “Rod, I didn’t mean for you to come all the way over. We could have talked on the phone. I just wanted to pick your brain for a minute.” Maria walked up the stairs to her front porch. Rod followed.

  “It’s all good. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. I do better with these things face to face.”

  Maria’s stomach flipped. “Oh.” In the excitement of the motorcycle chase, her Vegas nuptials to Rod had slipped her mind. Of course he would be anxious to talk about getting the annulment. It was probably eating at him from the inside out. “What do you need?”

  “No, you go first. You’re the one who called.” There was no hint that Rod wanted to enter the house.

  So, a porch conversation this would be. No problem. The sooner she asked Rod what she wanted to know, the sooner she could go in the house and research about Jarbidge, Nevada. “Karl Fossum. Do you remember him?”

  Rod blinked once. “Name rings a bell, but I can’t place where I’ve heard it.”

  “Karl is the man you and Pete helped me apprehend out at the creek. His face has been on flyers around town the last day or two.”

  Rod snapped his fingers. “Of course. The FBI thinks he might be the kidnapper?”

  “Well, he’s the only one I know with a criminal record who has a grudge against me and who knows I am good friends with Justin Hill.”

  “Has he been seen around town?”

  “Not in town, but around town? Yes. He was spotted by the reservoir again tonight. That’s the second time he’s been there. Agent Carter and I just followed up on a lead but came away empty-handed.”

  “He seemed like such an idiot. I’m surprised he’s being so elusive.”

  “He was high on who-knows-what the last time. He may be keeping himself sober to think more clearly. Whatever it is, he just ran circles around us in the hills by the reservoir.”

  “Really? What was he driving?”

  “A dirt bike.”

  “And what you were in?”

  “Agent Carter’s Tahoe.”

  Rod made a condescending tsk. “Of course he’d outrun you in that. You guys probably got into trouble on the sand.”

  “Yeah. Had to let the air out of the tires. Couldn’t find Fossum again after that, but I’m sure he must be hiding out somewhere outside of Kanab.”

  “Makes sense,” said Rod. “There’s a ton of nooks and crannies around those parts.”

  Maria sighed. “That’s not what I wanted to hear. I want you to tell me there is only one logical place he could be hiding and you know exactly where that is.”

  The corner of Rod’s mouth lifted. “Well …”

  “You and your brother Grant know these hills better than anyone. Where would you hide?”

  Rod scratched the back of his head. “That’s exactly the question I just asked myself. I’d want to be by water, to wash off with. The weather has been a scorcher, so I’d need some shade. And I’d need something to use to hide my dirt bike.”

  “All good points. Any place in mind?” Maria took a breath and let Rod think.

  Rod looked above Maria’s head, focusing on something that wasn’t there. His blue eyes reflected the porch light and Maria caught herself thinking just how enticing those eyes were.

  Used to be.

  But no longer were. At least not to her.

  Not one tiny bit.

  Right?

  “Crocodile Cave in Angel Canyon is where I’d hide,” Rod said at last. “It’s not too far from town, has an underwater spring, and plenty of foliage to hide a bike. It seems like the perfect place to me. But there is also Johnson Canyon where a person could hide, but not as comfortably.”

  A wide smile
broke out on Maria’s face. “I knew you were the right person to ask.”

  It seemed Rod blushed, for just a second. “There’s no use sending anyone out there right now. It’s too dark. But I’ll have one of our search parties that have been combing the city head out to the area by Crocodile Cave tomorrow morning. I’ll have them hit Johnson canyon as well. Sound okay?”

  “Sounds awesome.” Maria couldn’t help herself from reaching out and squeezing his forearm. “It’s not that I don’t trust the FBI, but I feel like they’re not doing enough. This has dragged on way too long. We have to find him, Rod. We have to.”

  “Agreed.” Rod glanced down at her hand on his arm, and Maria quickly released it, pulling her hand back to her side.

  “Maria, we’ll find this guy, Fossum. If he’s around here Search and Rescue will get him.”

  “Thanks, Rod.” Maria pulled her shoulders back, trying to match Rod’s confidence in the matter. “So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?” She braced herself for whatever it was he had to say. She figured it wouldn’t be anything warm and fuzzy, but honestly, at this point nothing really mattered to her except getting Justin back.

  With the side of his shoe, Rod scooted over a beetle that had found its way onto Maria’s front mat. “Well, this may be a moot point now, if you’re sure Fossum is your man.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. John Walden, the developer for the reservoir and my client, has been acting so strange lately. I wanted to talk to you about it. He says he’s leaving town tomorrow, for good. He’s pulling out of the project completely. I find that suspicious. Why would he do that in the middle of this kidnapping? I worry he knows something, or maybe that he’s even the kidnapper. I don’t know.” Rod ran his hand over his short hair. “Do I sound crazy?”

  Maria had not been expecting that from Rod. She’d been waiting for him to tell her she needed to sign on the dotted line to fix the embarrassing indiscretion the two of them shared on their ride home from Phoenix. “No,” Maria tried to regain her presence, “you don’t sound crazy at all. I agree with you. That is weird and sudden. I mean, he’s sunk how much time and money into the reservoir?”