Page 93 of One Final Target

“No. I’m not going to tell you anything. I’m in charge. Period.”

Sam studied the kid. Behind his bluster was fear, and fear was dangerous. Collins could pull the trigger by accident.

“Sure, sure.” Sam turned and walked through the door. He was at another mountain cabin, but he couldn’t tell where. It was on a hillside; off to the right he saw a large shed. As he entered the room, Collins stepped in behind him and turned on the light, revealing a typical cabin with a small living room and a kitchen. Straight ahead were large windows covered with drapes. Sam guessed there was a deck.

“Sit down,” Collins ordered, pointing to the couch. “You’re going to be here for a while.”

Sam turned to look at Collins. The kid had a superior smirk on his face. All Sam could do was sit and wonder what he meant bya while.

“I have a key,” George said before Jodie could suggest they kick the door in. “Sam gave it to me the last time I was here.”

He pulled the key from his pocket and opened the front door. “Sam and I talked about security systems, but he didn’t think he needed one,” George said as he flipped on a light.

The place was neat—and empty. A couch, recliner, big screen, and lots of moving boxes piled in the corner.

“Sam, are you here?” she called out.

It only took a couple of minutes to go through the whole house. Sam wasn’t there. It didn’t look like he’d ever come home. If it weren’t for the car outside, Jodie would have thought he hadn’t. She fought her rising fear. She wasn’t a cop anymore, but she needed to think like one.

“Let me use your phone.”

George handed her the phone. “Who are you calling?”

“Mike.” Jodie dialed her uncle’s number.

Mike answered right away. “George, is something wrong?”

“No, it’s me using his phone,” Jodie said. “Sam is missing.”

“What? Missing? What do you mean? What’s going on?”

“Can you get ahold of Tara? Maybe she knows where Sam is. They were working together.”

“I don’t think she’s with him. She said she’d be running down a lead off the grid for a bit.”

“When did she leave?”

“This afternoon. What do you mean Sam is missing?”

Jodie explained, though it took all her strength to keep her voice calm and level.

“Everyone needs to be mobilized. Have you notified Smiley?”

“No.”

“I will. You go back to George’s and sit tight. I’m headed to you.”

“Mike, wait. I’ve got a bad feeling.” She told him her fears about Tara.

“What? You’re kidding. No one worked harder on the IED case than Tara. I admit it’s odd she’s incommunicado, but...”

“She goes incommunicado and then Sam goes missing?”

A beat passed before he replied. “I’ll try to get a line on her. I am coming up there. We will find Sam—I promise.”

The connection ended.

Jodie handed the phone back to George as a sick feeling rolled around in her stomach like a spinning basketball.

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