“You’re too scared, son. Scared of everything. Scared of getting close to someone…and that’s why I’ll die with no grandkids. Life…it can’t just all be columns and numbers, order and structure. I love you, but…”

  But.

  She’d died before she finished the sentence, meaning that her dying words to him were “I love you…but…”

  And then he’d sat on the corner of her hospital bed while doctors and nurses tried fruitlessly to bring her back. It had been two strokes and a heart attack, just too much for her eighty-year-old body which had already been in poor health.

  He was still clinging tightly to the shovel when the glare of headlights faded and then disappeared. He waited another few minutes before getting to his feet and finishing the hole. His hands were callused and rough from the work he’d been doing for months now so he didn’t need to rest them at all as he walked back over to where his truck was parked. He’d positioned it behind a large crane so that anyone snooping around wouldn’t see his truck, out of place at the construction site. He cranked the engine to life without using the headlights to bring the truck around to the hole, backing carefully up to it.

  He killed the engine and instantly went to work in the back. He removed his ramp from the top of the wooden box and, after lowering the tailgate, positioned it as best he could along the mouth of the hole. This was the trickiest part of the entire ordeal, as the ramp sometimes wanted to slide right down into the hole with the coffin. The trick was to stand in the back and ease the coffin down the ramp until gravity just became too much to contend with.

  He did a fair job of it this time as the wooden box containing Emily Draven made it down the ramp, thumping softly into the hole. With the back end still sticking up, he then hopped down from the truck and got back into the hole. He guided the box into the remainder of the hole and when he was done, pulled himself back out.

  He was sweating and his back ached, but he was used to it. He didn’t even take a brief break just to catch his breath as he picked up the shovel and started filling the hole back in.

  He could hear his mother in his head, badgering him, tearing him down even though she was gone. That’s right, you coward. You do the deed and then hide your mess. I know you think you’re proving some sort of a point but deep down you’re nothing more than a scared little boy.

  He may have started crying then…the sweat made it too hard to tell.

  Time seemed to slip by like syrup in the night, slow and sludgy, but before he knew it, he had the hole and the box covered. He took a moment to divvy out the remainder of the dirt, using some of it to cover the tracks he left on the ground on his way back to the truck. He then tossed his shovel into the back of the truck and got behind the wheel.

  He didn’t turn his headlights on for about half a block. And when he did, he realized the street was mostly empty in front of him. Smiling, he continued on his way home. It really was starting to feel a little too easy and he couldn’t help but wonder how many more he’d be able to put into the ground before he was caught.

  He drove through the city, tired but feeling quite satisfied. He couldn’t quite recall when he’d felt the need to set about this work. Maybe it was one day out on the golf courses—not that he’d been to one recently, but he could easily recall the feeling of absolute filth he’d felt when associating with the people there. He had sensed the fakeness, the greed, and the need for power. It had been enticing, sure, but…well, it wasn’t anything he’d ever quite identified with.

  Or had he? Maybe that was why he was doing his work…the work that had become an obsession soon after his mother had died. Drugging them, putting them in the ground in shallow holes. Maybe they’d be discovered, and maybe not. Well, they were being discovered, if the news concerning Madeline Young was any indication.

  These thoughts guided him home. It was 11:09 when he pulled his truck into the driveway and then around to the back, where he parked it next to the woodshed. He took the shovel out, removed the tarp, and removed any dirt that had accumulated during the course of the burial.

  He was already thinking about the cold beer he’d have at the kitchen table. Not just for his thirst but because of the cool sensation on his hands. He fished his keys out of his pocket unlocked the back door and stepped inside.

  He turned on the kitchen light and had taken three hurried steps toward the fridge before he saw the two people standing in the entryway between his kitchen and living room. A man and a woman—the woman was quite pretty but looked tired. The man was handsome, but also with a rugged sort of weariness to him.

  They both wore casual-style outfits that might be considered suits. And they both wore guns on their hips. The man was slowly reaching for his as they eyed him across the kitchen.

  The man spoke, his fingertips now resting on the butt of his holstered gun.

  “Avery Reed?” the man asked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  Rachel had learned quite a bit in the two and a half hours that had passed since concluding that their killer was very likely a former accountant named Avery Reed. First and foremost, she’d learned via his Facebook page that his mother had passed away six months ago. In the two posts he’d made about her passing, she’d read through the comments of his Facebook followers that had left their condolences. Among them was Wayne Dupree and Peter Weston.

  That one Facebook comment was the only real link they’d been able to find between Reed and Weston, but for now, it seemed like more than enough. It had been more than enough for them to enter his home unannounced and, once there and discovering that he was not home, to call Hunt and have him send out a few units to known construction sites.

  That had been forty minutes ago. And while Hunt had no luck on his end, she and Jack were standing in Reed’s kitchen when they heard an engine turn into the driveway and headlights washed through the living room window.

  “No guns drawn,” Rachel said. “We don’t know how he’ll react and the last thing we want is an altercation where we’d have to shoot him. I don’t want to risk him bleeding out and not being able to tell is if there are more bodies.”

  Jack clearly wasn’t a fan of this idea, but he nodded all the same. They waited as the truck rounded the back of the house and came to a stop just beside the workshop—the very same workshop they’d discovered upon arriving. All of the evidence had been there…right down to the ready and waiting wooden boxes propped against the shop wall.

  And now there was a truck parking by that shop. Seconds later, they heard the door of the truck close, and then the tailgate was lowered. Rachel walked to the kitchen window, standing to the side. She was quite certain he’d not seen their car, parked half a block away behind a neighbor’s van on the other side of the street. There was no way Avery Reed knew he was being watched from his kitchen window.

  She watched as he cleaned out the back of the truck, including the removal of a shovel. He entered the shop and came out a few seconds later, heading for the house. Rachel leaned away from the window and joined Jack, standing directly between the small kitchen and the living room that sat behind them.

  They heard him going up the rickety old back porch, heard his key hit the lock, and then the door opened. After that, Avery Reed stepped inside and turned on the kitchen light. It took him about two full seconds before he realized they were there. When he did, he froze but the look on his face was one of amusement, not fear.

  “Avery Reed?” Jack said.

  The man blinked, and that was all. He was absolutely filthy, his arms covered in dirt, but his hands miraculously white, showing the clear lines where the gloves had come to an end just above his wrists. There was dust and grime on his face and in his hair as well. He’d been in copious amounts of dirt very recently.

  “I asked if you’re Avery Reed,” Jack said, louder this time.

  The man nodded and said, “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Where have you just come from, Mr. Reed?”

  “Working.”

  “Working on what?”

  Reed smiled and walked to the refrigerator. Rachel impulsively reached for her gun. Jack, meanwhile, took one large stride in Reed’s direction. He was pissed, and she wasn’t sure if Reed could tell just yet.

  “No, sit down, Mr. Reed.”

  He stopped at the fridge and eyed them for a moment. He wore the expression of a man that thought he might be getting pranked. “You guys cops or something?”

  Rachel wasn’t sure if he was trying to be difficult or if he literally had no idea how much trouble he was in. She stepped in before Jack’s fuse could blow. “We’re Special Agents Gift and Rivers with the FBI. Avery Reed…we’re in Alexandria to investigate three bodies we’ve discovered buried at construction sites. We’d like to talk to you about it.”

  “Can I grab a beer first? I’m dog tired.”

  “No,” Jack said, now going red in the face. “Where have you come from?”

  Reed sighed and then frowned. He looked to the kitchen window and said, “So, did you see the shop? You saw what I’ve been working on?”

  “We have,” Rachel said. “Mr. Reed, you’re not taking this seriously enough. Do you know what we’re here to speak to you about? What we’re here to accuse you of?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I’m covered in dirt, so I guess there’s no use in denying anything, huh?”

  Jack unholstered his gun and raised it, the barrel no more than six feet away from Reed. “Where did you just now come from?”

  Reed only shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you. I worked too hard for you to go in and mess it all up.”

  Rachel was also growing furious, and a bit uneasy. She also wanted to go for her gun but didn’t see the need. Reed looked rather docile…and maybe a bit checked out. “Mr. Reed, please take a step forward and place your hands on the kitchen table.”

  Reed seemed to take a moment to consider the instructions and then did exactly as she asked. When he placed his hands on the table, he groaned a bit, and said, “I’d at least like to get some of this dirt off of me.”

  The comment anger Jack even more. When he pulled Reed’s arms behind his back, he used much more force than was necessary.

  “Avery Reed,” Jack said. “You’re under arrest for the murders of Madeline Young, Peter Weston, and Wayne Dupree.”

  Reed nodded, as if he understood perfectly. But she saw something in his eyes and the leering smile that came to his face—both of which indicated that he knew something they didn’t.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “You know,” Rachel said as Jack sped them away from Reed’s house and back toward the police station, “your silence is only going to make things worse for you in the end.”-

  Reed, sitting in the back of the car and seemingly without a bother in the world (other than wanting his arms and face cleaned), said nothing.

  “You’re filthy and we suspect you of burying people in those coffins you have in your shop. You’ve clearly just come from burying one and we need to know who it is and where it was.”

  Reed simply shook his head. Rachel could see that he was deep in thought, maybe trying to figure out his best play. As she was about to say something else, flashing lights and a blaring siren approached from their right as Jack came to an intersection.

  “Hunt’s escort,” Jack said. He’d called Hunt as they hauled Reed into the car to let him know they were headed back to the station with a very likely suspect in the form of Avery Reed.

  Following the patrol car with its lights slicing through the night, Jack increased his speed. With his eyes still staring straight ahead, he asked: “It was a woman named Emily Draven, wasn’t it? The woman you just buried.”

  Rachel saw the brief spark of surprise in Reed’s eyes at the mention of this name.

  “Yeah, it’s her. And you know what?” she said. “Jack, forget taking him to the station. If he drugged her like the others and she’s in that box…she may still be alive. We need to find her.” Then, wheeling back around to Reed, she said: “Was she dead when you put her in the ground?”

  His only response came in a devious, tilted smile. It wasn’t as defiant and sure as his previous lackluster expressions. That told her that she’d been right again. She was pretty sure Emily Draven was still alive.

  “Where is she?” Rachel asked. “If you let us know and she’s still alive, it will look good on you. It might help somewhere down the road when it comes to judges and juries.”

  However, if he truly was the killer, she doubted this was true…but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Screw him,” Jack said. “We can figure it out on our own. We know there’s no way in hell he buried her at any of the primary sites the cops have been staking out. So let’s take those off the list.”

  “That still leaves more than a dozen sites,” Rachel said. “But he doesn’t do anything small…it would be a bigger site, so there’s more room to bury the box. So probably no small house plots. And nothing right out on the street, in view of anything.”

  “So we need a list of sites where there are security fences up, or where the site itself isn’t directly visible from the road.”

  Not knowing the area well, Rachel knew they’d be at a loss and could be searching for the site all night. She grabbed her phone and placed a call to Hunt, fully expecting him to pick up on the first ring.

  He didn’t disappoint. “This is Hunt.”

  “Quick change of plans,” she said. “We believe there’s a chance the victim is still alive—and we’re pretty sure it’s Emily Draven. Instead of bringing Reed in, we’re going to whatever construction site is closest to us. But we need the help of your force to figure out where. And if at all possible, I need as many brains as you can get on it.”

  “Okay…so what do you need?”

  She walked him through what she and Jack had just discussed, about the sort of construction site they were looking for. She knew there were a few maps in the precinct with some construction sites already marked, a result of the earlier stages of their search.

  “Got it,” Hunt said. She could hear the exhaustion in his voice. “I’ll direct everyone to call you as soon as they think they have it narrowed down.”

  Rachel ended the call and looked back at Reed again. She was starting to hate him, something she’d always managed to avoid in the past. “Are you sure you don’t want to at least try to be cooperative?”

  He was genuinely smiling, perhaps enjoying the chase and guessing of it all. She had to turn back around and make herself look away from him before she started lashing out.

  Jack continued on in the direction of the police station, still without any clear destination in mind. “Do we just start checking them out ourselves, one by one?” he wondered out loud. “I mean, there’s not that many of them.”

  “That would take too much time. We have no idea how much air this woman has left and—”

  “Oh, it’s not much by now,” Reed said from the back.

  Rachel couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so much anger toward a suspect. She’d felt it for Lynch when he’d dared to come into her father’s house and when he’d taken Peter’s life…but she’d rarely felt such unbridled rage for a suspect.

  She was about to turn around and tear him down, but she was thankfully saved by the ringing of her phone. It was from a number she’d seen quite often over the course of the last two days: Hunt.

  “That was fast,” Rachel said as she answered the phone. “Please tell me you’ve got something.”

  “My team quickly came up with two possible locations that fit your description. One is just off of Evergreen Avenue, tucked away behind an old car wash. The other is on Paisley Road, near the intersection of Paisley and West. Where are you right now?”

  Rachel looked out of the window to look for signs, but Jack already had the answer. “Farmington Street.”

  “Well damn, you’re just a few miles away Evergreen Avenue. You head over there, and I’ll send a team to the Paisley location.”

  “Sounds good. Where is that radar equipment currently?”

  “Right here at the station.”

  Rachel did her best to think quickly, trying to best use their resources. After a few seconds, she said: “Send a team over to Paisley with the radar equipment. You go with them and head that up. But send as many as you can to the Evergreen site to join us.”

  “Got it.”

  They ended the call and Rachel instantly opened up the map on her phone. She typed in Evergreen Avenue and when it came up, she saw that they were now just a mile and a half away.

  She looked back and tried to get a read on Avery Reed’s face. He seemed to be more stone-faced than she’d seen him since his arrest. He had nothing to say and his eyes were cast forward. It was almost as if he’d been caught in a lie or was trying to maintain a fragile poker face.

  It was nearly enough for her to feel confident that they were headed to the right place.

  She then turned back to Jack and said, “Two lights up, take a right.”

  Jack nodded, still trailing the speeding police escort. She assumed Hunt would contact them to tell them the plan. And as the swirling lights led them on, Reed remained quiet in the backseat…and his silence unnerved Rachel more than she cared to admit.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  The old car wash looked like a derelict ruin from some other time, nothing more than a dusty square of a building surrounded by cracked concrete. It seemed to give a good snapshot of what the rest of Evergreen Avenue looked like, and Rachel couldn’t imagine what someone might be building on this faded stretch of street. Another car wash, perhaps? It seemed the only thing that would fit in the forgotten little space.

  But, small as it might be, the construction area behind the car wash lot did indeed fit the description she’d given Chief Hunt. One side of it was mostly hidden by the old car wash, and the rest of it was blocked off by thin stretches of security fence. The fence was about eight feet tall, so they weren’t able to look over it. They weren’t able to get a good look at the site until they came around the car wash side. Jack pulled the car into the bumpy dirt entrance, the headlights washing across the area.

 

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