Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(88)

“I suppose they loaded the hopper cars here?” Bree asked.

“Good guess,” I said. “I’m not exactly an expert on aging silica plants.”

She turned on a flashlight and shone it on the trash-strewn ground and toward the back of the space, where there was a steep, narrow steel staircase next to a big industrial lift with stout steel cables descending out of a gaping open shaft in the ceiling. Somewhere above us, we could hear birds rustling around.

“Doesn’t look like there has been anyone in here in years,” Bree said.

“Let’s call it, go find some shade, and wait for Cafaro to come back.”

She nodded. We closed the double doors, locked them, and walked around the back of the tower closest to the road.

A train was coming from the south. It rumbled into the old silica yard and went right by us, so loud I had to cover my ears. The engineer waved and we saw the hopper cars Deputy Cafaro had described. The train went onto the spur that led to the newer plant and stopped with fifteen hopper cars still on the old plant’s grounds, cutting us off from the gate and the main road.

“Think we can climb over the couplings?” I said.

“What if the train moves?”

“We’ll wait,” I said, looking down at the old spur rails where they left the main tracks and went toward the first tower.

I saw something and squatted down to be sure.

“What?” Bree said, stepping up beside me.

I stood and lowered my voice to a murmur. “Look down at the spur rails. They are nowhere as rusty as the rails going into the far tower. See where the rust has been rubbed off? Almost buffed to a brown versus the orange-red over there?”

Bree looked down for several seconds and then nodded. I scanned the area around the rails, seeing broken weeds and a small chunk of black. I bent down, picked it up, squeezed it.

“Tire tread,” I whispered, feeling my heart beat a little faster. “I think someone’s been driving a car on these tracks.”

We both turned and looked at where the rails disappeared beneath the double doors into the near tower.





CHAPTER 103





THE TRAIN GROANED INTO MOTION as we went to the double doors. I put the key in the lock. It turned easily and popped open with a soft snap, not like the lock on the other tower at all.

Bree understood, bobbed her head at me, and drew her service weapon. I did the same. We each got a free hand on one of the doors and hid behind them, shielding our bodies as we tugged them open. They slid back easily and quietly, as if the tracks the old doors ran on had recently been oiled.

Behind us the train stopped again. We both got out flashlights, held them beneath our pistols, and, on the count of three, eased inside. The base of this tower was set up exactly the same way as the other, with chutes coming down from the ceiling, a narrow metal staircase in the far corner, and an industrial lift beside it. Except the lift itself was not there, nor were there any cables hanging from the large hole in the ceiling.

Bree pointed at the concrete floor to either side of the rails and whispered in my ear, “It’s been swept and then trash thrown on it.”

I saw the brush marks beneath a piece of yellowed newspaper and nodded. We crept across the floor to the staircase and slowly climbed the steep, narrow stairs, trying to stay to the outsides of the risers to keep squeaking to a minimum as we eased up to where the staircase went through the ceiling.

We stopped below the first ceiling, listening and hearing nothing except the train starting to squeal again. Finally, I took a step up, peeked over into the space. Empty.

Like the ground floor, the floor of the upper room was heavy plank wood that looked swept. The third floor was empty and filthy, no signs of sweeping.

The fourth floor was infested with pigeons. So were floors five through seven. Nothing but pigeons.

Deeply discouraged, we went back down the staircase and looked at the broom marks in the dirt on the second floor and the first.

“Dee was here hours ago,” Bree said. “She dialed 911 in here. I can feel it.”

“I’m feeling it too,” I said, hearing the train start up yet again.

By the time we got outside and were chaining and locking the double doors, the train had left the old silica processing yard. The caboose was now well up the track toward the new plant. We sweated as we trudged toward the Tahoe.

Bree sighed, said, “I guess we’re back to square one.”

“On borrowed time,” I said and checked my watch, feeling anxiety and frustration build inside me.

Wanting to punch something, I jerked open the driver’s side of the Tahoe and climbed into the SUV. Bree got in, slammed her door, and threw her head back against the rest in frustration.

“He’s good,” she said.

“I am good, aren’t I?” said a male voice behind us in the back seat. “The best.”

My hand started toward my pistol before I felt the muzzle of a gun against the back of my head.

“Don’t even think about it, Dr. Cross. Or you, Chief Stone,” he said, and I finally glanced in the rearview and saw the homely face of Ronald Peters smirking back at me.





CHAPTER 104





BREE TWISTED HER HEAD AROUND and saw the bodega owner grinning at her, his eyes shiny with excitement as he pressed the muzzle of a nickel-plated Colt revolver to the back of Alex’s head.