Scratchgravel Road (Josie Gray Mysteries #2)(69)

He finally shrugged. “Let’s do it.”

*

Just five minutes outside of town, all other civilization disappeared. The night had cooled down to a comfortable eighty degrees, and the wind from the jeep’s open windows felt like silk on Josie’s skin. A smattering of stars shimmered around clouds that stretched down south into Mexico. By the time she reached the gravel on Plant Road, they hadn’t seen another car for several miles. She stopped the jeep and turned off the engine. The chain-link fence that stretched around the perimeter of the plant appeared like a solid wall in the dark. Josie unclipped her Maglite from underneath her seat and shone it on a large rectangular sign that loomed in front of the gate. The sign read PRIVATE PROPERTY: BEACON PATHWAYS: TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.

Dillon pointed to a darkened gate shack. “They still use that?”

“No, there’s a microphone and gate.” Josie was looking through her night-vision binoculars and spotted a security camera at the top of the gate. She hadn’t noticed the camera when she and Otto checked in. Diego had said the cameras were mounted at the gates but that they weren’t monitored, only checked if a problem arose. She hoped that was true.

Dillon placed a hand on her thigh and whispered, “Listen.”

They could hear the yips and barks of a distant pack of coyotes.

“Sounds like a bunch of drunken kids at a party,” he said.

“The Christo Ranch connects to this side of the plant. I read an article in the Sentinel last week. He’s got coyotes tearing up his calves,” Josie said.

She got out of the jeep and shone her Maglite on the eight-foot-tall gate in front of them and was surprised to see it was unlocked and slightly ajar.

“There’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.” Josie looked at Dillon, who had followed her to the fence. “Either the security guard is really lazy or there’s a reason they leave it unlocked.”

Dillon pushed open one of the sides far enough to allow Josie to drive through. Leaving it open, he got back in on the passenger side. She eased the jeep forward, leaving the headlights off.

“I feel like I have a free pass to break the law when I’m with you,” he said.

“Explain that one?”

“I’m forty-two years old, and I’ve never trespassed. At least not intentionally. And, as far as I can remember, I don’t think I’ve ever driven at night with my headlights off.”

“You’re such a city boy.”

“I grew up living in a house off a busy interstate in Los Angeles. I played at the Boy’s Club, not outside.”

“Why not outside?”

“My mother’s biggest fears were baby-snatchers and smog.” He lifted his hands straight up to the night sky. “It’s why I love it out here. You get a sense of what eternity is.”

Josie grinned. “It’s a rush, isn’t it?”

Leaving her headlights off, she drove slowly down the narrow gravel lane until they reached the second set of gates into the factory. Josie pulled her jeep off the gravel path and drove through rocky sand, around to the right of the fence.

“I noticed when Otto and I were out here, there was a gate the maintenance guys used.”

Three hundred feet down the fence line they came across the gate and found the padlock hanging unfastened on the fence. Josie made a mental note to tell Diego about his lax perimeter security and drove through the opening and down a rutted, muddy path that led to the main area of the plant. She pulled to a stop and killed the engine. They sat and listened to the silence, then slowly picked up the humming of various machinery and engines running throughout the plant.

She pointed to a building to the right of where they were parked. “See the sign in front of the building? That’s the pilot unit. That’s where the experiments are taking place. That’s the last building where Juan Santiago worked before his arms became full of sores, and he ended up dead.”

“You sure you want to go over there?”

“We’ll just poke around.”

“Maybe that’s what got Santiago dumped in the sand,” Dillon said.

Josie ignored the comment and opted to walk instead of starting the engine again. She had counted five cars in the front parking lot when they drove around the fence. She didn’t know if they were security or night-shift workers.

A security light was posted in front of each building, but the muddy courtyard area between the buildings was dark in shadows. There was no rain forecast for the night, but the ground was still a mess. She stopped and pointed at the ground.

“It looks like a stream running through here,” she said. “The rainwater is funneling in and washing out a path through the center of the plant.”

As they approached the crane and dump truck that she and Otto had seen on their visit, she said, “Those haven’t moved. Look at these buildings. Beacon has been here for over ten years. Even if they are working on new technology, you’d think they would have dismantled some of the buildings.”

He pointed upward, toward the skyline, where the exposed beams of one of the larger buildings looked like a giant metal erector set. “They’ve obviously done some work. The outside walls are down.”

“There were ten units when it was in full production. Count them now. Still ten. Actually eleven with the new building. They’ve expanded the plant!” Josie said.