Then the ringing starts up again.
Fuck.
Pressing a kiss on her smooth shoulder, I reluctantly release my hold on her. I roll over and blindly grapple for my jeans. The ringing stops before I can pull the phone from my pocket.
The screen indicates it’s just after five and Matt is trying to reach me.
Swinging my legs out of bed, I return his call.
“Opal with you?”
“Yeah.”
I glance over as she slowly rolls on her back, her eyes on me. Mine drift down to her exposed breasts and I feel a pang of regret. I had plans for those beauties.
“I need you both here ASAP.”
“Where is here?” I snap back.
“Back to the cabin. We found Krebs.”
Ten minutes later, armed with travel mugs of coffee—thank God for my Keurig—and a couple of granola bars, we’re speeding back toward Irvine. Matt had been brief in his report, simply stating Krebs body had been found on the grounds, but there’d been no sign of Kendrick.
Our prime target is still in the wind.
Kate is quiet. I’m not sure if it’s because of the news, or the early hour, or even regret over what happened last night. The latter concerns me most. It would seriously suck if she had second thoughts, because I’d hoped last night would not be a one and done deal.
“Are you okay?” I find myself asking as I glance over and meet her eyes.
“I’m worried. Kendrick is on the run and we have no way to know where he’s heading. Assuming he killed Krebs, what if he’s tying off loose ends? We still have five girls and two boys missing.”
I squash the flash of relief hearing it isn’t regret that had her pensive. The point she brings up is valid and very concerning. If Kendrick was desperate enough to off a public figure like Krebs, he might not hesitate doing the same to those children.
One dead girl was bad enough.
“We’ll find them,” I promise her, hoping like hell I can live up to it.
She smiles wryly, nodding once before aiming her gaze out the windshield again.
There’s frost on the ground when we drive into the hills. The moon reflecting off the layer of pale white clinging to every surface. A bit of magic on an otherwise dark drive.
I pull my vehicle in behind a few police cruisers and the coroner’s van. Matt must’ve been on the lookout, he’s already stalking toward us when we get out of the car.
“Where?” I ask.
He turns toward the house and points to a bare spot on the slope behind it, visible by what I assume are floodlights illuminating the scene.
“See that rocky outcropping? We stumbled across his body at the bottom of the cliff when we were scouring the hill in the dark. There’s a narrow trail—looks like it was used for ATVs or something—heading east into the woods. I sent a few guys to follow it up, see if they could find any sign of our suspects heading that way when they found Krebs.”
“How was he killed?” Kate asks, voicing the question entering my mind as well.
Found at the bottom of a cliff could suggest an accident. In fact, if we hadn’t found the video feed showing Kendrick getting into the former athlete’s vehicle, it might well have been passed off as one.
“Coroner’s up there now, so we’ll know for sure soon enough. At first glance, it looks like he fell, knocked his head—he had a massive head injury—but there wasn’t a lot of blood where he looks to have fallen. There was at the top of the rock though. We’re waiting for daylight to do a thorough search up there. Don’t want to traipse through possible evidence in the dark.”
Probably smart.
The hike up to the scene is hefty but Kate doesn’t even break a sweat. Fueled by only a coffee and granola bar, she’s showing me up, making tracks ahead of me while I bring up the rear, panting already. I’m going to need to add some cardio to my exercise regime if I want to keep up with her.
“We’re going to get some help from the Lexington office this morning,” Matt says over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t take much for Kendrick to have slipped across the West Virginia border. He’s got almost a day on us. We need more eyes looking for this guy.”
“I don’t think he went far,” I put out there, echoing what I suggested to Kate last night. “Something has kept him around here when it probably would’ve been smarter for him to set up shop somewhere else. His connections to big rollers in Kentucky might be the reason for it.”
The congressman, lawyer, and real estate mogul may only be the tip of the iceberg.
“Possible,” Matt concedes. “I wonder how he made those connections. We should be looking into the other men he was at that club with.”
“Jacob is digging into links between those men and Transition House,” Kate contributes from the front of the pack. Clearly there’s nothing wrong with her hearing either. “I know for a fact his connection to Marshall Browning reaches back that far.”
“Was that the son of the former chief of police?” Matt wants clarified.
“George Browning, yes. Although I think he was deputy chief at the time.”
“We’re gonna need to take time for a proper briefing,” I propose. “We’ve had a ton of developments and we’re bound to miss something if we don’t compare notes. We can’t afford to.”
I hate taking the time from actively investigating but the reality is, with the added manpower coming in, we need everyone up to speed. We’re going to have too many cooks in the kitchen otherwise. That’s never helpful.
At this point it’s not even clear whose investigation this is. Will the Lexington FBI office take over or defer to us?
If the death of Krebs is in fact murder, we’re going to be dealing with a mess of jurisdictions stretching across Kentucky.
“Let’s wait until we hear back from the Hardin County Sheriff’s Office,” Matt states. “I spoke to the sheriff earlier to rope off Krebs’s property there until Lampert and Byron can get there. They’re on their way with a warrant.”
Wow, that’s fast, but a good call. Hopefully Krebs was as sloppy with potential evidence in his house as he was at his cabin.
“What about Kendrick’s place?” Kate asks from the front.
“Agents from the Lexington office will be going through it,” Matt answers her.
Kate stops to look back at him.
“Any chance you could arrange for Pearl to have a look at any electronics they pick up?”
“We have an entire specialized department with highly capable agents to do that.”
She tilts her head slightly, staring him down for a moment.
“That may be so, but I’m willing to bet Pearl is better than all of them put together. She knows Kendrick. She’ll know what to look for.”
As much as Matt is right—we do have some of the best computer techs at the Bureau—I do think in this case Kate makes a good point; it might be worth getting Pearl’s eyes on whatever evidence they find.
“It’s not a bad idea, actually,” I voice my support, earning a surprised smile from Kate and a frown from Matt. “Can’t hurt,” I push on. “She already knows this case inside out.”
He stares hard before lowering his eyes and giving his head a shake.