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

some rat droppings on the floor inside both of them. The next one matched the number on Carl’s unit, and Juan returned with bolt cutters.

“Had them in the trunk of the chief’s car,” Juan said.

Great, the chief was here. Tom didn’t mind him, but he was always up in arms about some protocol violation or another. He hoped no one told the man about his punch to Carl’s gut upstairs.

The lock was cheap, and Juan snapped it off with the cutters in seconds. It felt to the ground with a clang and Tom opened the door, making sure Juan put a pair of gloves on as well before letting him enter the cage.

“Come on, give me something,” Tom said. There wasn’t much inside. A few boxes, stacked messily in the corner. A beat-up bicycle with fat after-market tires, covered in dried mud, and an old set of golf clubs. He doubted Carl hit the greens very often.

“Bartlett,” Juan said, his voice tight. “What’s that?”

Tom looked beside the stack of boxes, where Juan was pointing. It was a shirt, folded neatly. He bent over it, seeing the popular superhero cartoon image. It matched the description of the pajamas Fredrik Karlsson had been wearing.

“Bag it,” Tom said, his headache inching in. “We got him.”

Now he needed to get to the Red Creek sheriff’s office so they could get the truth from this Carl son of a bitch. They searched the rest of the room, but Tom was so intent on talking to Carl, he went against the chief’s protocol and rushed it.

 

 

Fifteen

“What do we do?” Brent asked.

“We wait until they’re done. Maybe they found something. They’ve been there a long time,” Taylor said. They’d sat there watching the police cruisers come and go for the last hour and a half. A car had left, passing them on the gravel road. She thought the driver seemed familiar, and thought it might have been Sheriff Tyler, her dad’s friend. She’d ducked, hoping he didn’t recognize her or stop and ask what they were doing.

Isabelle’s phone rang; the pop song was starting to grate on Taylor’s nerves. “It’s Mom again. What do I do?”

“Turn your ringer off. Let’s just find out what happened, and then we’ll go to your house, okay? We’ll tell them everything,” Taylor said, knowing her dad was going to give her a lecture to end all lectures. But maybe she deserved it. She’d been in over her head, coming here. She should have let the cops do their job like they were. Hell, if they’d caught the guy already, then she could have avoided all the drama and gone home for spring break.

“Fine, but you can explain me avoiding her too. You’re already going to be in hot water. You may as well take all the responsibility. You are the older one, after all,” Isabelle said, laughing at her own comments.

Taylor let out a laugh too. Maybe the cops had found the kids alive. Her foul mood was lifting, giving way to hope, and as if on cue, the clouds started to dissipate and a ray of sunlight peeked through, casting an orange glow on the orchard ahead. Her mom had always called that heaven’s window, and Taylor took it as a good omen.

They watched a steady parade of Gilden police leaving the orchard condo, cherries flashing but no sirens. A car drove by, unmarked, and the man behind the wheel slowed. Taylor locked eyes with him, and she shivered. He was intense, and a fire burned behind his gaze.

“Who was that?” Taylor asked her cousin, not sure she wanted to find out.

“Why, you want a date?” Brent asked, a slight joke to his tone. He hadn’t really ever been the jealous type, and she knew he was kidding, since the man was old enough to be her father.

“I don’t know. He’s probably from Gilden, judging by the other cop cars following him.” Isabelle got out of the car, and before Taylor could ask why, she saw her cousin flagging down the last car in the convoy. It was a local sheriff’s car, and the driver pulled over.

“Guess we should follow her,” Brent said, quickly hopping out. Taylor joined him and heard Isabelle asking the man a flurry of questions.

“Hold on, Izzy.” It sounded like he knew her. “I shouldn’t be talking about this case with anyone yet.”

“Come on. Just let us know if you found the kids,” Isabelle said, batting her eyes at the goofy-looking deputy. He had to be twenty-five at the oldest, and her charm seemed to work.

“Fine,” he said, glancing at Brent and Taylor before talking again. “Keep this among you three, okay?”

They all agreed to his terms. “We didn’t find the kids, but we did find something each of them had been wearing. We have the perp in custody, and it’s only a matter of time before the sheriff and the detective from Gilden get the details out of him.”

“It was a man?” Taylor asked, suddenly feeling foolish for her outburst.

“Of course it was a man. What, did you expect a ghost?” The deputy threw back his head and laughed. “Like I said, keep this on the down-low.” His cherries turned on, and Taylor looked away from the flashing lights. “See you at the diner, Izzy.” He winked at Taylor’s cousin and drove off, kicking up a cloud of dust.

They stood in the middle of the gravel road, and Taylor began walking toward the old orchard field. She hadn’t been here since she was eight, and she paused before stepping through the cast-iron gates.

“Tay, what are you doing? You heard that guy. They caught him. We’re done here, right?” Brent asked.

Taylor turned to him, hands on hips. “B, did you forget all the other stuff we’ve been talking about? What about Trevor Hayes? Do you think I’m making the Schattenmann up? You were there with me in the house. It’s creepy as all hell. You found that box with the journal and album in