Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni, #2)(21)

No sign of any vehicles in front of the diner. As Gina had said, the old building was boarded up. He drove to the left side, away from the blinking GPS target, as he didn’t want to get too close too fast. Mostly, he wanted to peek behind the building.

Still no sign of any vehicles. Or an open door. Or cracked window.

He looped an easy circle, as if just turning around and now preparing to head back on the road.

Gina had the handheld tracker on her lap. She was looking down at it. “Due north, fifty feet,” she murmured.

Wyatt looked due north. He spotted trees, lined by dense vegetation. He also spotted twin tire tracks, fresh, more deeply rutted, approaching the edge of the woods. A second set of tracks, slightly parallel to the first, showed where the vehicle had backed up, then headed back to the road.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Gina glanced at him.

“Vehicle was here. Looks like it pulled up to the woods, then left again.” He didn’t say the rest. As if to dump something. Perhaps just a jacket, but, more likely, a body wearing said jacket.

Gina reached around for her hat. Wordlessly, she shoved it down on her head, while he got on the radio and relayed their status to their backup car. He heard back from Kevin; ETA on foot in five minutes.

Close enough, Wyatt figured. Action here was over and done. Not even a matter of what he could see, the tracks and all, but what he could feel. The property was abandoned. Plain and simple.

He and Gina got out together, taking a moment to pause with their doors open for cover, just in case. When nothing moved, no shots were fired, no suspects magically bolted from a boarded-up building, they continued on.

Wyatt had out a digital camera. Gina still worked the handheld.

“Watch the ground,” he instructed her. “Avoid tread marks, footprints, any other signs of disturbance. Feds are gonna work this later, and I’ll be damned if they chew our asses.”

She nodded in agreement.

She was keeping a cool face, expression neutral, but he could see a slight tremor in her hand as she held the GPS tracker in front of her. Not fear, he’d guess, though maybe. But either way, adrenaline. He had it crashing through his bloodstream as well, heart rate slightly accelerated as he faced a known unknown. Something and/or someone loomed before them.

They approached together, him in the lead, Gina two steps back, tucked slightly behind him because presenting one target was bad enough; two targets would be just plain stupid.

Wind blew, rippling the low bushes, swaying the trees. Broad daylight, sun shining. A bird, here and there. The sound of a car, rushing by at forty-five miles per hour on the rural road, passing them by.

“Fifteen feet,” Gina murmured.

He placed his right hand on his holstered weapon, as prepared as one could be.

“Ten feet.”

And then, Wyatt didn’t need her anymore. He saw it, plain as day. A darker lump tangled in a sea of sparse green. Not a body, thank heavens, but a large swath of fabric, wadded up, tossed in a twiggy bush.

His hand came down. He approached more briskly, brow already furrowing. Gina had seen the blue material as well. She lowered the handheld tracker and got on the radio to let the others know.

Then they both came to a halt, regarding the lump of fabric, thrown waist high in the bush.

“Doesn’t look like much,” Gina said. “Not even a whole coat.”

Wyatt pulled on gloves, then gingerly untangled the lightweight material, holding the long strip up in front of them. Nice fabric, he thought. Some of that high-tech stuff meant to keep you warm and dry and still look good in pictures at the summit. Cost some dough, he’d bet, as befitting some rich Bostonian.

He felt around with his gloves, until he came across a flat, thin shape in the lower part of the strip, the GPS device. He fingered the edges, where the material was jagged and frayed.

“Kidnappers figured it out,” he said after another minute, glancing around the scene. Kevin, Jeff and the other deputy had arrived, walking the length of the dirt parking lot to meet them. “Maybe Justin Denbe confessed, or the kidnappers discovered it upon closer inspection, but they figured out the jacket contained a GPS device, so they cut it out, looks like with a serrated blade, and tossed it.”

“Why cut it out?” Gina asked with a frown. “Why not just toss the whole coat?”

Wyatt had to think about it. Then it came to him. “Denbe’s tied up. Hands most likely bound. Meaning, to get the coat off him, they’d first have to remove his restraints. He’s a big guy, I was told. Strong. Probably, the kidnappers didn’t want to risk it. Easier, quicker, to remove the device itself and toss it aside.”

He couldn’t help himself. He flipped the fabric back over, inspecting for droplets of blood. Hunting knife. No good reason, maybe because he was a New Hampshirite, but he pictured a hunting blade. Plunging into the blue material, ripping down. Fast, that would be the way to do it. Two tears down, one across. Slash, slash, slash.

But not a trace of blood on the surviving strip. Fast and controlled. Disciplined.

The kidnappers had discovered their mistake, but they hadn’t panicked. They’d simply taken evasive action. Fast, disciplined and smart.

It gave him a bad feeling. He turned his attention to the tread marks. Not wide, such as the kind on some of the souped-up SUVs guys drove around here, or the deeper grooves of the snow tires many would soon be sticking on their trucks to prepare for winter, but average Joe tracks. Like car tires, except given they suspected three to four kidnappers plus a family of three…cargo van. Had to be to hold a party of seven.