all the pine straw and litter had been disturbed, an uneven circle of bare dirt where a scuffle had ensued; Rottie snapped photos of partial boot and shoe prints; the shoes had been small, and distinctly feminine in shape.
Reese stood and fingered the bloodied leaf after the area had been cleared by the trackers, and a photo had been snapped. “This is his,” he mused, leaning in to sniff it – for a minute, Carter was afraid he’d lick it.
“How can you know?” Carter asked, moving to stand beside him.
“If they’re going to sell the girl, they won’t want her injured. The only wounds we found on the girls in Texas were the places where their bonds had chafed, and where they’d bruised themselves jostling around in the dark. You can’t sell something damaged.” Matter-of-fact, and emotionless – but his frown was harsher than any expression Carter had seen on him before.
“Come along, boys,” Hound called, and they followed. Through a dry creek bed full of last year’s leaves, and up a slope, where it crested at a road. Carter heard the shush of traffic before they reached the shoulder.
Rottie looked both ways. A single truck trundled past, a flatbed loaded down with pallets. It was a two-lane, with badly cracked and faded pavement; not a major thoroughfare to be sure.
Two fresh tire tracks marred the near lane, thick, black rubber laid down as a vehicle had accelerated away from the curb. They were short. Not a great slide, but a quick, hard start, and then gone.
“This was where the van was staged,” Rottie said, grimly, pointing to the tracks. “Our boy wrestled her through the woods, and she was conscious for at least most of it, and then shoved her in the van, and off they went. He turned around and went back to meet with the Connors boy, told him she got away.”
“And the little dipshit didn’t notice he had blood on him?” Hound asked, spitting on the pavement, disgusted.
Rottie shrugged. “It was dark, the kid was drunk. Ricky could have been wearing dark clothes.”
“Okay, so they took her,” Carter said, pulse giving an uptick. “Where did he take her? Straight out of town? Or are they holding her somewhere?”
Rottie sighed. “That’s the million-dollar question. But if the friend got snatched, I’m thinking there’s a staging area of some kind. Maybe.” He shook his head. “Who knows.”
“Hey!” A voice called from down the hill. Carter turned and saw a CSI in a county windbreaker standing below, waving two blue-gloved hands to get their attention. “What the hell are you doing?”
“And that’s our cue to leave.”
~*~
Ghost called Vince Fielding about the traffic cams, but going through the proper channels, even with the wheels of justice heavily greased, took too long. Ratchet hacked into the city’s system and looked up the footage. A van had been parked one door down from the boutique where Nicole worked; her assailant, the self-appointed “Fred,” had taken her in his arms, and made wrestling her look like a young, passionate couple embracing right there on the sidewalk. One passing woman even gave them an ugly look and hurried past, never realizing what was really happening. Their faces close together like they were kissing, Fred bundled her into the sliding side door of the van, and tumbled in after her. The van pulled away before the door had finished closing.
Ratchet was able to zoom in on the license plate, and then find out who owned the vehicle: a Mr. Jorge Ortega.
He owned a matting and framing shop, one at the end of a strip mall, and that was where Fox and his four Stateside brothers stood, now, in the parking lot, surveying it.
“The van in the video didn’t have any lettering on it,” Albie said, “but I’m guessing it used to.” He pointed to the SUV parked out front, the one with decals advertising Ortega Frame on the rear windows.
“Easy enough to paint over it,” Fox said. “But they didn’t bother changing the plate.”
“How else could they waste our time on this wild good chase?” Walsh asked, tone dry, but Fox could read the tension in him, the lines of it pressed as grooves into his forehead. “Let me do the talking.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Fox said, as they headed for the door. “Shane, why don’t you ever challenge him?”
Shane cast a glance back over his shoulder, mildly amused. “I think you do enough of that for the whole family, Charlie.”
“Heh,” Albie deadpanned. “Got you there.”
Tenny