Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(75)

“You went here?” Gretchen asked.

“Yes,” Josie said. “The field is just on the other side of the building there.” She pointed out the windshield where they could just see a set of goalposts peeking out from behind the school building.

Josie turned the car off and they sat there for a minute. A man in a windbreaker, sweatpants and a ballcap walked a small dog along the grassy area surrounding the lot. “That’s one of Oaks’s guys,” Gretchen said. “I recognize him.”

“This guy has to know we’re going to be here,” Josie said.

“I’m not sure we should be here,” Gretchen said. “If he sees you, he might recognize you from the news.”

“It’s just him and the woman,” Josie responded. “He can’t have eyes everywhere. Come on. I’ll show you a secret entrance that goes under the bleachers.”

They checked their weapons and from the backseat, Josie pulled out a couple of bulletproof vests which they quickly strapped on beneath their jackets. They were bulky, but Josie hoped if the kidnapper was watching all the activity around the school from far away, he wouldn’t notice. Over top of those, they each pulled on a Denton East High School polo shirt. From the trunk, Josie pulled a mesh bag filled with football pads. Someone had secured them from the school earlier. Josie and Gretchen would lug them into the rooms beneath the bleachers. If, by chance, the kidnapper or his accomplice saw them, they would appear to be a couple of staff members bringing football equipment into the sports complex.

Bleachers couched in brick ran the length of the field on either side. Along the backside of one row of bleachers, Josie found the old metal door that led under the bleachers to a locker room and a couple of restrooms. It had been boarded up and painted over since she had attended Denton East. Oaks’s team had gone ahead and sent some men to reopen the door so that both teams could use it without being easily seen. The wood panel where the door handle was had been pried away. Josie curled her fingers around the edge of the door and pulled. It creaked open and she and Gretchen slipped inside a dimly lit concrete hallway, dropping the bag of equipment inside the door.

They followed the hallway to another door which was unlocked and led them out into some type of boiler room. From there, they found Oaks and his team in a small anteroom that held metal benches and vending machines. It had small windows that allowed them to see out onto the field.

Josie rose up on her tiptoes and peered outside. It was a decent view of the field. Directly across from them was the other set of bleachers. On one end of the field beyond the goalpost, the school building could be seen, and the other goalpost sat in front of a wooded area.

Oaks said, “I’ve got snipers on the roof of the school and on the tops of the bleachers.”

Josie looked to the top of the other set of bleachers, but she didn’t see anyone. “They’re well-hidden,” she said. “Where’s Mrs. Ross?”

Oaks said, “She’s at mobile command. She’s going to arrive in her own vehicle and walk onto the field alone. We’ve equipped her with a vest.”

Beside Josie, Gretchen stared outside. “I don’t see how this is going to work,” she said. “Why does this guy want her to leave the ransom in the middle of the field? If he comes out to get it, he’ll be completely exposed.”

“I don’t think he cares about the ransom,” Josie said.

“He’s just going to leave the money out there? He must know the police will be watching. Surely he doesn’t believe we’d all just back off.” Gretchen remarked. “Then he wants the parents to wait twenty-four hours to get Lucy back?”

“That tells me he’s hidden her somewhere. Let’s say he shows himself to us today. We can’t kill him because then Lucy’s location would go to the grave with him.”

“And if we capture him, he uses her location as leverage. But why this? This big open area where everyone is exposed?” Gretchen said.

“Because he could walk right out into the middle of that field, leave with the money, and we wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing. Not without potentially losing Lucy.” Josie looked up and down the field once more, taking a slow pan. “Oaks,” she said.

He stepped up beside her. “Yes.”

“Did you have any of your people clear that end of the field? Where the woods are?”

He nodded. “Of course. Nothing back there but some rocky outcroppings.”

“The Stacks,” Josie said, referring to the slabs of rocks that had fallen from the side of the mountain behind the high school, forming large stacks of flat rocks.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“The local kids call them the Stacks. It’s where the students go to hang out, drink, and smoke.”

“Yes, our guys saw those,” Oaks said.

“The top of the Stacks is an elevated position. Behind that, a half mile back is the old, abandoned textile mill.”

Oaks said, “You think he’ll come from that direction.”

Josie nodded. “That’s what I would do if I were him.”

“I’ll get someone out in the woods, along that ridge, and call the sheriff—they’ve got units to check out the mill.”

“The units in the woods have to be invisible,” Josie said. “If he’s coming from there and he sees them, it’s game over.”