Return to Red Creek Nathan Hystad (e books free to read .txt) 📖

making sure there was no one nearby, and he slipped the gun in its holster before making the fist. The impact was fast and solid with the man’s solar plexus, and Carl doubled over, gasping for air.

“Detective Bartlett,” Tyler said, hauling Carl back up. “He said he doesn’t know.”

“You believe him?” Tom asked.

“I believe in the due process,” Tyler said, and Tom turned away.

“Then take him. We’ll find something.” Carl was trying to find his breath as the sheriff hauled him away.

Tom had to remember this wasn’t Chicago. There were no big forensics teams coming to find hair follicles for the missing girl. He’d have to ship the one piece of evidence off to the nearest lab, and for the time being, he couldn’t let it out of his sight. He pushed it into a pocket and kept looking around the suite.

Two hours later, the entire regiment was standing there, looking to Tom. They’d found no further evidence of foul play at the condo.

“What’s down here?” he asked Buzz. The man had proven helpful, showing him where to find the key for the outdoor shed and touring him around the property.

Buzz scratched his stubble-covered chin. “That’s our storage facility. Have to pay extra, but that’s where some of the residents store their bikes and what not.”

“You have a key?” Tom asked, staring at the lock. He’d thought it was a closet when he walked by it a dozen times throughout the day. Buzz shook his head.

“I knew he was bad news. Didn’t I tell you about all the coming and going at all hours of the night?” It was Emma, the woman who lived directly below Carl.

“You were right. Do you have a key?” Tom asked, and the woman gave him a knowing smile. He felt sorry for her. Her file said she came from Florida two years ago, and he hated that someone on a limited budget had to rent with such seedy neighbors. Maybe this would be enough of a wakeup call for her to move away from Red Creek. This was no safe place for someone like her.

“I do, but it’s upstairs. Bear with me.” She stalked off with purpose, and Tom waited five minutes, growing more impatient with each beat of his heart. By the time she arrived, he wished he was at the station alone in a room with Carl, with no witnesses. He needed to find out where these kids were. Fredrik might be alive somewhere, even Brittany, although he didn’t put the odds that she was breathing very high.

Ms. Jeanne stepped down the stairs, and Tom met her while Buzz rambled on about Carl being a killer. He could always tell. Something about the man’s eyes, and on and on he went. Tom wanted to tell him to shut up, but he held back, happy to have the key to the last area of the condo building they had yet to search. He didn’t expect to find anything, but he needed to check for peace of mind.

The deadbolt clicked open with an extra turn of the key, and the handle pressed easily. “How often do people use this?” Tom asked Emma.

“I don’t know. I keep a few things here that I couldn’t fit in my unit, or that I couldn’t bear to part with. I had a house in Florida, so my compartment’s full. I only go to the cubicle every few weeks, maybe. Sometimes to look at a photo album I have stored away,” she said.

“Does Carl have a storage unit?” Tom asked.

Buzz took this one. “Sure does. Seen him going into it every now and then. Think he’s one of the ones with a bicycle. Doesn’t ride it in the winter, but he may have dusted it off already this spring.”

Tom told them to wait there, and he eyed Sergeant Juan from the Gilden PD, waving him over. “Sergeant, would you mind giving me backup?”

The man reached for his flashlight and descended the stairs before Tom. “Can’t believe we nabbed the guy. Good spot on the nightstand,” Juan said. Tom liked the guy. He was married with a little girl. Tom had been to his house a handful of times with the guys for poker night. He’d finally started to integrate into the station out in Gilden, and he vowed to make more of an effort after this short stint in Red Creek. He also vowed to never again come to this hellish town if he could avoid it.

“Clear,” Juan said as he stepped on the floor. Tom saw a light flip on, and Juan was crouching at the bottom of the steps. The ceiling was low, just tall enough to stand up without his hair brushing against the tile panels. The floor was painted gray concrete, and Tom spun slowly, taking in the room. There were around twelve cages, six on each side of the space. The entire room looked to be about two thousand square feet, and the lighting was dim, even with the two fluorescent fixtures turned on.

Tom glanced up at one of them, seeing two of the four tubes burned out. It flickered softly as he walked by it toward the first cage. The far wall was concrete cinderblocks, unfinished, and water ran from a crack above. Water always found a way in. His old place in Chicago had leaking issues, and they’d had to get the driveway dug up to repair the foundation from the outside.

The tiny puddle rolled toward the first caged area, entering without permission and stopping against a wet cardboard box. The entire room was stuffy, and he wondered if there was mold down here. Suddenly, the space felt cramped, and Tom wished he could open a window or turn more lights on, or both. Juan lifted a finger to him from the stairs and ran away, leaving him alone.

The storage areas were enclosed in chain link, and Tom stared into the first one, seeing nothing unusual. The next two were empty, just