Page 124 of Fatal Intent
“Nice.” Seth gave a nod. “Make the call.”
Zane answered on the first ring. “Murphy.”
“It’s Grant.”
“What do you need?”
“A search for real estate holdings.” He rattled off the name of the five men. “I need anything, Z. You can see on your screen that we’re heading into a farming area. The driver isn’t hesitating anywhere along the route. He knows exactly where he’s going.”
“Got it. Hold.”
Grant heard the sounds that meant Zane’s fingers were flying over the keyboard of his computer. He shook his head in amazement. At that speed, Grant was surprised the keyboard didn’t catch on fire.
“Nothing for Gino Savage.”
One down. Four to go. Grant kept his gaze glued to the pulsing light of the tracker still moving at a steady pace. Where was he going? He’d passed by a couple of small towns already and was heading further into an agricultural area.
“Nothing for Rex Lawson.”
Two down. Three to go. He glanced out the window. Couldn’t see much of the scenery at this speed. Grant didn’t know how fast Seth was driving but it was fast enough that he couldn’t see anything except blurry trees and fields as the SUV zipped past them.
“Barry Fritz has a cabin in the woods but it’s in Gatlinburg.”
“Not what we’re looking for.”
A minute later, he said, “Chase Ferguson has a small beach house in Florida. Nothing else aside from the house he lives in.”
Another bust. Perhaps he was on the wrong track. “What about Ellis Lindsey?”
“Hold.” Soon, Zane’s voice came through the speaker. “Lindsey has a farm that he inherited from his grandparents.” He rattled off the address. “I just sent that address to you by text. Based on what I’m seeing on the screen, that’s where the kidnapper is headed.”
Grant’s gut knotted. Lindsey had taken Rayne? He’d been concerned about Donovan Vance being the culprit. The sniper was a stone-cold killer. But Lindsey had shown too much interest in Rayne, almost as though he was obsessed with her.
He shuffled the puzzle pieces again in his mind. After he contemplated the possibilities for a beat, another probability surfaced. Donovan and Ellis might be working together, and that led him to another option. Perhaps the reason the five men left the fishing camp together is they were in on the murders together.
No. Something didn’t fit with that explanation. He still didn’t have enough information to make a judgment call on this. No doubt in his mind that the five men were up to no good, and they were working together, but he couldn’t figure out a reason for them to kill the survivors of Red Dawn.
Eileen had admitted to killing her husband. So, where did that leave the rest of the murders? Eileen wouldn’t have killed all those innocent men unless Grant was missing a gigantic piece of the puzzle, one that justified the murders by someone in that group.
Aside from Beau’s death, Eileen hadn’t admitted to murdering the other soldiers. So who had killed them?
On his phone screen, the blinking light stopped moving. Grant waited for it to continue onto another location. It didn’t. “Andre.”
“I see it.”
“What?” Seth demanded.
“Rayne stopped moving.”
“Wish we knew if that was good or bad,” he muttered.
No kidding. Grant’s hand gripped his phone tighter. Either the kidnapper had reached his intended destination or he’d shoved Rayne from the vehicle. The second possibility gaveGrant cold chills. He had to find her. She could be hurt or…. He couldn’t finish that sentence. Just couldn’t.
Seth pushed the accelerator to the floor, and the Fortress SUV leaped forward, the vehicle smoothly gliding down the asphalt ribbon. “How far out are we?”
“Thirty minutes.” Andre made a call. “Z, can you send us a satellite image of Rayne’s location?” Seconds later, he ended the call and tapped his screen. He remained silent while he studied the image. “It’s an old farmhouse sitting in the middle of hundreds of acres of farmland. Someone’s been keeping the pastures trimmed because we won’t have much cover on approach.”
Grant stared at the image. His teammate was right. They’d have almost no cover going in. His jaw hardened. Didn’t matter. Nothing would stop him from going after his woman. He wouldn’t leave her in Ellis Lindsey’s hands.
