In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(41)
“Get the lock,” he said to Carrol. “You remember the combination?”
“I remember.” His brother pushed open the van door and stepped down.
“Don’t you be touching that girl,” Franklin said, eyeing Evan in the rearview mirror.
Evan lowered the tarp covering the women lying on the floor of the van. Before leaving Green Lake, Franklin had Evan remove one of the van’s two backseats to accommodate their cargo.
“I was just looking,” Evan mumbled.
“What did you say?” Franklin turned in his seat.
Evan winced. He still had bruises on his arms and his back from the belt buckle. In his lap he held a couple board games, Monopoly and Risk, and a pack of cards.
“Don’t mouth off to me, boy,” Franklin said. “Or you’ll get another beating. We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you. Seems like I’m always cleaning up your and Carrol’s shit. Seems like I’m always pulling your bacon out of the fire.”
“I just wanted one to play—”
Franklin raised his hand as if he was about to strike. “Don’t you talk back to me.” Evan flinched. “You hear me? I’ll beat you upside your head and leave you right here in the road for the wolves and coyotes. You understand me?”
Evan looked down.
“And put down them damn games. You’re like a twelve-year-old.”
Evan set the games on the floor of the van but slipped the pack of cards into his jacket pocket.
The chain rattled as Carrol pulled it from the metal fence, and the gate squealed when yanked open. The hinges needed oiling. Franklin drove far enough in for Carrol to close the gate and re-secure the chain and the lock. After he got back in the passenger seat, they drove another quarter of a mile. The branches of the thick brush and the trees along the edge of the road scraped the van. They hadn’t been cut back since Franklin found mountain bike tread on the trail. He didn’t want people getting too near the property.
Franklin drove up a small rise to the circular parking area. The place looked the worse for wear. The wood siding of the house needed staining, and the metal roof leaked, which was likely causing dry rot in the rafters. It all took time and cost money, neither of which Franklin had. He’d come up in the spring and work on the roof with Carrol and Evan since that was a priority. Neither brother was worth a shit nor had much of a work ethic. Hell, Evan couldn’t keep focus long enough to pound a damn nail.
Franklin drove the van past the house to the back of the barn. Carrol again got out, unlocked the padlock, and pulled open doors meant for unloading hay. Franklin backed the van inside and climbed out, and Carrol shut the doors.
“Evan, get out here,” Franklin shouted.
When Evan reached the back of the van, Franklin removed the three tarps covering the three women—the runner Evan had grabbed in the park, and the two prostitutes he and Carrol took off Aurora Avenue.
They’d tied and gagged all three, though fear now did more than the ropes and the gags with respect to the prostitutes. If they tried to escape, or yelled to get someone’s attention, a beating would be fast and furious. The young runner wasn’t at that point yet.
“You and Evan bring them to the room,” Franklin said to Carrol. As with the basement that the boys had dug beneath the house for their daddy, Franklin had never entered the room hidden behind a horse stall at the back of the barn until after their daddy died.
“We gonna leave them all here?” Carrol asked, looking and sounding concerned.
Franklin hadn’t told either brother his plan on the drive because he had not yet made up his mind. Only one thing was clear at this point. “We don’t got much choice now, do we? Not with the police looking for the girl Evan snatched damn near in our own backyard. They were searching in the ravine yesterday and this morning. Just a matter of time before they start searching the houses door-to-door.”
“What . . . what . . . what are we gonna do?”
“Leave them here until I can better assess the situation.”
He was trying to be smart about this. The night he’d gone down into the cellar and found the girl, he sent Carrol back to the street to move the car. The girl had the car fob tied to one of her shoes. He gave Carrol a knit hat and gloves and a box of disinfectant wipes, and told him not to leave behind fingerprints or possible DNA. He’d hoped that moving the car would keep the police away from North Park; he hadn’t counted on Bibby seeing the girl in the ravine on his daily walk though. That changed everything. The detectives were now all over the neighbors and the park. Would just be a matter of time before they focused on Franklin—twice convicted of solicitation—and his brothers.
He made sure everything looked normal. He and Evan passed out Halloween candy—and not the tiny pieces neither. He’d bought the big bars, so the neighbor kids would remember them. Remember Evan. And he’d been sure to have Evan mow the lawns, as was his usual routine. He came up with Evan being sick on the spot when the detectives showed up. He needed time to prepare the idiot, Carrol for that matter, too, before they were interviewed. And he needed time for Evan’s bruises to heal.
“I brought enough food and water to last them awhile. That should give me time to figure out what kind of shit Evan stirred. Evan, go put down them damn games and help Carrol carry the three of them to the room in back. And make sure you chain them to the posts.”