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“We went to the online local property records and punched in his name,” Ethan answered. “He’s a property owner. Thanks to Google Earth, we have a picture of his home, although we can be fairly sure he isn’t therenow.”
“Did you find anything online about his marital status?” It wouldn’t be unusual for a serial offender like Tillman to have a wife and family who were completely unaware of his activities. But Alexa didn’t think that was the case here. He might be divorced or had a failed relationship in his past, but she was betting he was aloner.
“I’ve got a call in to the Brandon RCMP detachment and the local police department. They can get us all available details about the man and then,” there was a glint in Ethan’s eyes as he looked at all of them, “once we have a warrant, we’re mounting a raid on Amos Tillman’s base ofoperations.”
* * *
“Bet Friedrich is pissedto be missing this.” There wasn’t an ounce of sympathy in Jonah’swords.
“He’s on a plane. He’ll be here soon.” Ethan gave the equipment in the Halifax RCMP interview room one final adjustment before stepping away, sliding another impatient look at theclock.
“That’s good.” Ian was bent over his laptop. “He deserves to be here when we take this bastarddown.”
They were a long way from that point, Alexa thought. She had to keep reminding herself of that fact to keep her excitement in check. But they were far closer than the team had ever gotten before. The opportunity to stop the notorious killer before he struck again seemed withinreach.
“Information I’ve gotten so far is that Tillman is single.” Ethan prowled the room as if unable to stay still. “Neighbors don’t know much about him. His property is twenty acres, and the nearest neighbor is five milesaway.”
“The remoteness of the house would have been a draw for him,” Alexa added. Tillman had been isolated throughout his childhood in one fashion or another. First with corporal punishment by his father and then by becoming a nameless, faceless child in the merry-go-round of the child welfare system. Overlooked and underestimated. That was part of the profile she’d written from the beginning. But he’d gained the power he’d lacked as a child with his technical prowess. The finder of secrets. The exacter ofpunishment.
“Finally,” Ethan muttered as the screen came to life. The Manitoba ERT command center and team members were parked down the road from Tillman’s home, out of sight. “The members are equipped with weapon lights and helmets with cameras and night vision monoculars attached,” he told Alexa. “They probably have an infrared lens over their lights so they can be seen only by someone with a night vision capabledevice.”
“Or an infrared-capable camera feed,” Ian added, without taking his eyes off the screen. It was divided into five sections, one for each of the cameras’ images. The tactical unit moved carefully up the rutted, tree-draped drive for a quarter mile until a clearing appeared. A small white farmhouse was situated on it with an adjacent garage, flanked by another small structure on the other side of it. The old-fashioned wooden swinging doors on the garage would have to be manuallyopened.
The members of the team halted while they were still under cover of trees. “Change of entry strategy.” A quiet voice narrated the scene. “There’s a bar placed over the outside of the garage doors. We’ll try that wayfirst.”
Alexa frowned. As far as security went, locking the structure from the outside made no sense. Unconsciously, she leaned forward on her chair, holding her breath as the team crept up to the garage doors. Lifted away the bar. But when they tried one of the doors, it held fast. Comprehension dawned. The doors were also secured on theinside.
One member used the breaching device on the right door, and after a couple of attempts, it swung open. Two men entered first, weapons ready, followed by the remainingthree.
There was nothing of interest in the interior. One man tried the doors on the metal cupboards lining one wall. They were locked. Another member opened what looked like freezer tucked into a corner of the space. An officer splintered off to the right, approaching a single door that would lead to the shed. “Touchpad entry here.” His voice sounded on the livefeed.
One of the team members picked up the breaching device and used it on the shed door. The entrance held up better than Merkel’s had. It took three tries to knock itdown.
No one in the conference room seemed to be breathing. Their attention was glued to the scene unfolding in front of them onscreen. Half the team entered through the battered entrance. Flashlights attached to the men’s helmets pierced the shadowy interior. The only light inside it came from the center of the space. The men spread across the area, and Alexa’s breath caught. “Oh myGod.”
The screened-in pen took up most of the room in the area. A strobe of brilliant blue and violet fluttered inside it, a perpetual flash of motion. The scene grew clearer as one of the men approached the enclosure. It was filled withdragonflies.
“He breeds them himself,” she murmured. At some point, he had to have come by a pair illegally, but he hadn’t left his supply to chance. “How does he care for them while he’s gone?” The eggs were probably laid in the child’s wading pool in the center of the pen. But the adult insects wouldn’t live long without a constant source offood.
“Stand up! Arms over your head! Up! Up!Now!”
Her attention snapped to the screen. The other men raced to join the one who’d barked the order. “It can’t be Tillman,” Ian muttered. “No way that bastard got out of the provinceundetected.”
“It’s a kid,” Nyle saidwonderingly.
A flashlight pinned a boy against the wall of the building, his slight figure trembling as he squinted against the beam. His hair was ragged as if someone had chopped it off with a knife. His clothes were toosmall.
“Are youaliens?”
The men lowered their weapons as one. “Son, what are you doing inhere?”
“Anis Tera makes me live here. He’ll kill us if he finds out you broke his door.” His shoulders shook as he started to cry. “I think he’s killed peoplebefore.”
* * *
“The boy is traumatized,as you can imagine.” Ethan had an officer from Brandon’s RCMP detachment on speakerphone. “He isn’t answering questions at this point. He seems convinced that the man he calls Anis Tera is coming back and will killhim.”
A spike of anger ignited in Ethan’s chest. Tillman’s abuse as a child hadn’t kept him from perpetuating the cycle. There didn’t seem to be any line the offender wouldn’t cross when it came to gratifying his ownneeds.