Gone(41)

Rondeau returned his eyes to the road. He swerved to avoid a sizeable rock. The trees brushed against the vehicle, branches screeched, like nails on a chalkboard. “We have just so much in the way of resources,” he told Tamika.

She was silent for a moment, then said, “With all due respect, Mr. Rondeau . . .”

“Detective.”

“Detective Rondeau, I saw in the paper you’ve got five hundred people searching for this missing family.”

“Mostly volunteers,” he said. “Civilians. I can’t take law enforcement for every whim of the investigation.”

“Whim? I’m sorry, but, I’m pegging you as the guy in charge. You wouldn’t have come all the way down here yourself, you wouldn’t be pounding up this road like you’re going to bust an axle if you didn’t think this had something to do with it.”

Of course it was on his mind, constantly, he should call in every law enforcement aid in the state available to him . . . but then have it all turn out to be bunk? He’d be “Ricochet Rondeau” all over again, disgraced for leading a wild goose chase.

“Ms. Levitt, maybe we want to keep it to ourselves until we get confirmation.”

She turned and looked out the windshield, gripping the dashboard to keep herself steady. “Your father raised you right,” she said, surprising him.

“We’re only a lingering illusion of what we once were,” Millard blurted out. It was the first time he’d spoken since leaving Tamika Levitt’s home. “Endless national debt, devalued dollar, oil-backed currency in a geopolitical and military fight we’re losing.”

Rondeau didn’t look over, didn’t shush his brother-in-law, even though he didn’t want to hear it.

Tamika did. She chimed right in and gave a knowing nod. “That’s right. This, this right here, this is the deep state,” she said. “Where big business and national security meet. And people go missing, and people die.”

Millard, pleased to have a like mind around, eagerly agreed, “Any other thinking is delusional.”

Ironic, for Millard to call anyone delusional, Rondeau thought.

Rondeau asked Tamika, “You said you only saw the film team here once?”

“That’s right. But they could’ve been here more.”

“How did you see them? I mean, you and Addison Kemp are each pretty fucking secluded.” The profanity slipped out as he cranked the wheel to take another bend. This bad road was grinding on him. But, thank God — he thought he saw a clearing up ahead.

“I hunt,” she said, “just like my brother. First time, I heard the little film crew from half a mile away. Second time, I saw their drone flying around.”

It wasn’t the first time it occurred to him that Paul Palmirotto’s drone had been flying over his property just a couple days before, when the Kemps had already been missing. What was Palmirotto doing if Hutchinson Kemp wasn’t even around? Maybe Palmirotto wasn’t only working for Kemp.

Millard rambled on, “NSA spying, covert wars to destabilize Russia, CIA black ops; it’s what the Cold War was about, what the Iraq War was about — resources and power. This is what happens when you challenge the deep state. They blackmail farmers into using their seeds, poison that organic restaurant chain with E.coli. They send in a special team, get the job done.”

Shadow men, Rondeau thought, despite himself.

The house came into view. The road leveled off and was lined with slender birch trees. Rondeau eased the truck along, admiring what he saw. A three-story Adirondack-style mansion. Coffee brown siding, dark green roofs, a huge porch pillared with cedar logs, a stone chimney scraping the sky. He rolled to a stop and put the truck in Park.

He killed the engine. Everything fell silent, and was still.

*

“We’ve got to go in right up here,” Tamika said. Rondeau stood beside her at the edge of the woods.

He stared into the impenetrable wall of short blue spruce. “You’re kidding. There’s no trail, nothing?”

“Well, not for a few miles.”

“And you’ve seen this place? You’ve been there?”

She looked at him with her stony grey eyes. “You kidding? Think I want to die like my brother?”

He blinked at her, struck one final time by the absurdity of the whole thing. Was he really going to go charging through the woods again with this woman he’d just met? If this was such a heavily guarded secret, the site would be protected. He was so far out of his element, he found it hard to think straight. What was he running on? What was driving him? Instead of thinking it through, he was just reacting. Maybe the woman standing there in front of him with her doughy face and half-lidded expression wasn’t what she seemed. If she was so worried, why take the risk now? Maybe this was all a trap, to lure him in.

Rondeau walked past Tamika Levitt, and started back towards Addison Kemp’s giant summer home.

“Detective . . . ?”

He left her behind. His father had taught him all about subterfuge and misdirection. His father had liaised with CIA officials, top FBI people; he’d understood the confidence game. After he’d died, Rondeau picked up where he’d left off. Once you knew the patterns and signs, they were all around you. He’d seen the corruption in the FBI first-hand. When they couldn’t get the real perp, or had someone to protect, they’d fabricate another. Public image depended on it. Pensions depended on it. The machine had to keep chugging along. Even if you had to get dirty — real dirty — in order to get there.