Gone(39)

She set the gun on the porch and came down the steps, dusting off her hands. They met by the corner of the house. Up close, he could see the grey in her hair, the lines around her eyes and mouth. She was around sixty.

“Sorry,” she said, giving his hand a firm pump. “Don’t get a lot of visitors. And when I do, it’s not usually the kind I like to entertain. I’m Tamika Levitt.”

“You called the state troopers?”

“Yes, I did.”

She instantly struck Rondeau as someone who’d spent much of her life contending with people who didn’t like what she had to say — or didn’t believe it. Rondeau thought Millard could relate. So could he.

“I just read about the missing family in the paper this morning,” she said.

“What about them made you think that their disappearance had something to do with . . . ?”

“With the CIA torturing people with experimental drugs?”

A wind eddied up the slope towards the house, rustling the trees, making a hushing, hissing sound as more leaves fell. She gave Rondeau a long look, defiance shining in her grey eyes. “It’s better if I just show you,” she said.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE / The Box

He left Millard in the sitting room of Tamika’s house, browsing stacks of periodicals. The house was crammed with piles of magazines, newspapers, and books. He wondered if she had internet out here, or she got all of her information from print. She was moving quickly, leading him towards the back of the house.

He glimpsed another room, that looked like a den, with packed floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. They hurried through a huge, ranch-style kitchen in the back. They exited via a small rear porch, and then were crunching through the leaves, headed into the woods.

Tamika was talking the whole time. “My family built this place in 1898. That’s four generations back; I’m fifth generation. We have eighty acres of property, abutting state land on three sides. That forever-wild land goes on for miles. So you can understand it took decades before my brother ever found the box.”

He had to hustle to keep up with her. At least it was keeping him warm — it was cold out, the day waning.

He didn’t mind the woods, but he would never say he was exactly at home in them. He wasn’t a hunter.

Tamika looked over her shoulder. “You’re not from around here, are you? Not an Adirondacker?”

“No, I’m not,” he panted. “My father was military.” He saw his breath puffing from his lips. This is fucking nuts. “After Fort Bragg, he worked for the Pentagon.”

“Really? Then you’re not a stranger to state secrets.”

I could write a book on them, he thought. What he said was, “Depends on which ones.”

“Well, this one is legit. Trust me.”

Rondeau glanced back — he couldn’t see the house anymore. Even the path seemed to disappear as they moved deeper into the woods. They were in the middle of nowhere, Tamika plowing onwards. The further they went, the more doubt he felt. Everything was wrong about this. He was lead detective on a missing family case, and he was a hundred miles and three counties away from the Kemp home, trailing a mad old woman through the woods. He was about to tell Tamika he needed to turn around, urgent business, sorry, when she finally stopped. She pointed to a hole in the ground slightly smaller than would fit a coffin.

“This is where my brother found it. Documents, photos, all related to the ILP.”

“The Indian Lake Project.” He peered down into the darkness. “How did he find it?”

“Hunted a lot out here. Followed deer trails. His favorite ridge is just over there.” She nodded at a thicket. The doubt continued to beat an alarm in the back of his mind. Wasting valuable time like this when the clock was ticking. Still, there had to be something. He’d trusted his instincts this far.

“He just started digging one day?”

Tamika gave him that persecuted look.

“Ma’am,” he said, “I’m under a lot of pressure to find a family who’s missing. I don’t want to leave any stone unturned, even . . .”

“Even a ridiculous conspiracy theory?” She cocked an eyebrow. “My brother sat for hours when he hunted. He came to know every rock, every tree. He would tell me he would sit so still, so silent, that the animals would forget he was there. The birds would begin to sing, the squirrels would resume their business. He became part of it.” She gestured to the spot. “And this is where he was sitting when he noticed something out of the ordinary. The bare earth here, where this hole is. Something that looked out of place. Partially buried, sticking out of the ground.”

“Then why the big hole?”

“He excavated all around the box to see what else might be there. But it was just the box. Dropped, maybe. Or placed there in the hopes someone would find it someday.”

“Where is it now?”

Tamika turned to Rondeau again. “It’s safe.”

“It’s not here? Is it at your house?”

“Mr. Rondeau. My brother tried to bring this to the public in the best way he knew how. He was cautious, but he wanted people to know. Can you imagine the response he got? Either people thought he was nuts, or they thought he just wanted attention.”

Rondeau felt the sting of guilt. He knew the feeling of being shunned for speaking what you believed was the truth.