didn’t make sense.
* * *
Jane saw her dad by the bunker. The older man waved at her and Reid as they got out of her SUV. This visit felt like she was grasping at straws. Her dad wouldn’t tell them anything.
He opened the second gate and headed their way. The air was heavy with humidity and smelled of rain and mud left over from last night.
“Just putting my drone away.” He took one glance at Jane’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you know anything about a dirty bomb Moses and Gabriel planned to sell to the highest bidder?”
She launched into what her mother had told her and everything that had happened. His eyes widened when she said she’d had the Michigan state police dig up the location.
His eyes narrowed when she mentioned the dirty bomb. “Why are you just now telling me you remember all that?”
“Wait, what?” Jane eyed him. “You knew about the nuclear material and the explosives?”
He mopped his red, wet face with a handkerchief he pulled from the back pocket of his overalls. “Come inside out of the heat, and I’ll tell you what I know. I’d hoped it would never come to this.”
Frowning, Jane glanced at Reid as they followed Charles into the cool wash of the air-conditioning. She was met by the scent of some kind of Mexican dish from his dinner, maybe enchiladas.
Her dad went straight to the pristine gray kitchen and poured them all a glass of sweet tea. He handed them glasses beaded with moisture, then took a big gulp. “Hot out there today.” He motioned for them to come with him to the living room where he sank into his recliner. “I’ve known about the bomb for years.”
Jane shuddered and closed her eyes. Her dad simply didn’t know how to be open and honest with her. Or anyone.
Beside her on the sofa, Reid set a calming hand on Jane’s shoulder. “How did you know about it? Did Kim tell you?”
Charles glanced at her. “Actually, Jane told me.”
She gasped. “That’s not true! I just remembered it when I saw the picture of it.”
“Remember when you had some sleepwalking bouts when you were about seventeen?”
She nodded. “So you said. I never woke up to realize what I was doing.”
It had been during a period when she was anxious about where to go to college and what she wanted to do with her life.
“I was leading you back to your bedroom, and you said something like, ‘It’s buried but it will explode.’ I asked what you meant, and you said, ‘It’s that dirty bomb, Dad. The one Mom and I buried. When is it going to explode? We need to be far away.’”
Jane shook her head. “I have no recollection of that.”
“You were asleep. I asked where it was, and you said, ‘Under the twisted tree by Mom’s cabin.’ I knew exactly what cabin you meant, and at first I dismissed it as a nightmare. But I was uneasy since I knew your mom was buying and selling all kinds of weapons for Moses. I wanted to go look for it, but I was always so busy here and tried to convince myself it was long gone anyway. I should have checked to be sure.”
Jane sagged against the back of the sofa. “And you never said anything?”
“What was there to say?” He took another gulp of tea. “Did you look at the pictures?”
“We did,” Jane said. “It contained pictures of the murder. But why all the interest now, after all these years? I mean, of course there’s no statute of limitations on murder, but no one was looking into Reid’s mother’s disappearance. No one really knew she had been killed. It seems out of place. I think it was all about getting that bomb.”
Jane’s stomach churned. They were no closer to finding out who had killed Lauren so they could get Will out. And that was the most important thing to her.
Thirty-Six
A distant alarm blared and Charles whipped around to race to his control room. “There’s an intruder!”
Reid and Jane followed, though Reid didn’t think it was likely to be anything serious. Maybe a deer had wandered into the compound and brushed up against sensors. It could even have been Parker nosing around outside.
They followed Charles to the small control room, and he called up screen footage. The bank of computer monitors showed various parts of the land around the compound, and Reid saw nothing amiss until Charles went to the one on the far right