Chapter 2 - The Open Door at Mile 40
Rain had begun to fall by 4:00 AM, a cold, needle-like sleet that turned the asphalt of Route 9 into black glass. Four black Cadillac Escalades tore through the mist, their headlights cutting white cones through the pine forests of the northern ridge.
Beckett sat in the front passenger seat of the lead vehicle, his eyes bloodshot, his knuckles white against the dashboard. He hadn't changed out of his tuxedo trousers and white shirt, though the collar was torn open and his cuffs were soaked with rain from when he had inspected the cut wire fence at the estate.
Pierce sat behind the wheel, his phone pressed between his ear and shoulder.
“Local troopers found it twenty minutes ago,” Pierce said quietly, glancing at his boss. “A mile past the old state quarry. Beckett... they’re treating it as an abandoned vehicle, but there’s blood on the tarmac.”
Beckett’s head snapped toward him. “What did you say?”
“The patrolman noted a red smear on the driver’s side door. It’s unconfirmed.”
“Drive faster,” Beckett growled, the words scraping his throat like broken glass.
When they arrived at Mile 40, the scene was illuminated by the flashing red and blue strobe lights of two county cruisers. The silver Mercedes sat crookedly on the shoulder, its left rear wheel buried to the axle in wet gravel. The driver’s door hung wide open, swinging gently in the wind off the river gorge.
Beckett shoved his door open before the Escalade had fully stopped. He ignored the county sheriff who stepped forward, hand hovering near his holster.
“Sir, this is a restricted—”
“Get out of my way,” Beckett said. The tone was not loud, but the sheriff took two involuntary steps backward, recognizing the face that owned half the commercial docks in the tri-state area.
Beckett approached the open door of the convertible.
The interior smelled of damp leather, gasoline, and the light, clean citrus scent of Laurel’s skin. The keys were still hanging from the ignition, swaying like a pendulum. On the passenger seat lay a map of New York State, open, with a tear running down the spine.
Beckett looked at the door sill. There was a smear of dark crimson. He touched it with his thumb. It was tacky, semi-congealed.
“Beckett,” Pierce said, shining a high-powered beam into the dark woods that sloped sharply down toward the Hudson River. “Footprints. Two sets. One is small—her boot size. The other is heavy. Deep treads. Combat soles.”
Beckett looked down. The sleet was already washing the impressions away, turning them into gray soup. But the story was legible: Laurel had pulled off here. Another vehicle had been waiting—or had run her off the road.
“Declan Cruz,” Beckett whispered, the name tasting like sulfur. “He knew she was leaving. He had an eye inside the perimeter.”
“Or,” Pierce ventured cautiously, his voice dropping so the troopers couldn't hear, “she met someone she arranged to meet.”
“She doesn't know anyone who wears field boots and drives unmarked trucks,” Beckett snarled, grabbing Pierce by the lapel of his coat with sudden, violent force. “She knows lawyers, museum curators, and me! Declan has her. If Declan Cruz puts one hand on her—if he hurts her because of what happened at that party—”
“Beckett, look at the ground again,” Pierce said, not flinching from the grip on his coat.
Beckett forced his eyes downward.
Beside the heavy tread mark, there was an empty brass shell casing. A 9mm hollow point, spent. Ten feet farther, half-buried in the mud, lay a tactical knife with an olive-drab paracord handle. The blade was smeared with grease, not blood.
The tracks did not indicate a struggle. They showed two people moving in parallel toward the tree line, deliberate and swift, before vanishing onto the rocky outcrop that led to the abandoned railway line running north toward Canada.
“She wasn't dragged,” Pierce said. “She was covered.”
Beckett let go of Pierce’s coat. The rain was falling harder now, plastering his dark hair to his forehead, running down his face like sweat. For the first time in sixteen years, Beckett felt the terrifying void of ignorance. He did not know who his wife was when he wasn’t looking at her.
He had spent five years treating her like the prize he had won from the gutter, adorning her in jewels, giving her foundations to run and galas to host, thinking he was keeping her safe from the mud they had both crawled out of. He had forgotten that before they had the money, Laurel was the one who kept the books for the West Side crew. Laurel was the one who had spotted the FBI surveillance van outside their cold-water flat in 2009 because she noticed the registration sticker was crooked. Laurel was the one who had stitched his shoulder with fishing line in a motel bathroom while he bit down on a wooden spoon.
He had hit her.
He had stood in front of sixty witnesses and struck the woman who had held his spine together for sixteen years, all to protect a hollow, pretty thing who couldn't even survive a threat without crawling into another woman’s home.
“Search every rail station from here to Montreal,” Beckett commanded, his voice dead, flat, hollowed out of rage and filled with an iron coldness. “Put twenty men on Cruz’s border outposts. If Declan Cruz has her, we burn his operation to the riverbed. If she went on her own...”
He stopped.
May you like
“If she went on her own, boss?” Pierce asked.
Beckett looked into the dark, yawning throat of the pine forest. “Then God help anyone who tries to stop me from finding her, because I will rip this entire state apart to put those rings back on her hand.”
