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26

Fort Collins, Colorado

Matt read Michael’s long message about the one-room cabin they had found higher up the mountain from Jesse Morrison’s house, and the idea that someone—possibly someone with ill intent—had been living there until Riley and Andrew showed up. He responded with, Keep me in the loop , then pulled on latex gloves and approached the door of the small well-kept home that belonged to Andrew Gardner and Donovan Smith. Detective Richard Thompson greeted him.

“The coroner removed the body a few hours ago, and we had our crime scene investigators come in to photograph and collect evidence. But you wanted to see the place?”

“Yes, thank you for meeting me,” Matt said.

“I can’t believe there are three other murders just like this and we haven’t heard about them.”

“Virginia, New Mexico, and Oregon,” Matt said. “Now Colorado.”

Thompson led him to the kitchen. “What we know is the victim, Mr. Donovan Smith, arrived at work at 7:25 this morning. He works 7:30 to 3:30 Tuesday through Saturday at a local nursery in town—plants, trees, that sort of thing. Has been there for five and a half years, solid employment record. He told his colleague when she arrived shortly before eight that he wasn’t feeling well and was taking the day off.”

He handed Matt a sealed evidence bag. “This note and flower was found in his truck.”

A red poppy. The note read 9 a.m., your house.

Donovan was expecting Thalia. According to Riley Pierce, Thalia used the poppy as a calling card. So he came in thinking he was visiting a friend.

The detective went to talk to an officer who would be sitting on the place for the night, and Matt slowly walked the house trying to get a sense of the people who lived here. One thing was clear—there had been no struggle. Donovan had come in expecting to meet with Thalia, a woman he trusted, and was killed. Nothing outside of the kitchen had been disturbed. The detective indicated that they had fully printed and photographed the house and grounds, but would need the other homeowner to determine whether something was missing.

Was Thalia herself—the woman who allegedly helped these people escape the cult—killing them? While Matt couldn’t see the motive, he wasn’t ready to say no since he had no idea who the woman was. All he had was the word of a frazzled college student who had a rather bizarre and, if he was honest, unbelievable story about growing up in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, in a seemingly vibrant community—until her aunt left with her mother’s lover.

There were too many holes, too many questions. He’d agreed to let Dean Montero assist, only because the man understood cults and he might have a better plan to extract information from Riley and Andrew. But the assistant director of Quantico hadn’t been in the field in years, and Matt hoped he wouldn’t make things more complicated than they needed to be—especially since this case was complicated enough.

Matt found nothing of interest in the main bedroom. The second bedroom was small with a double bed, desk, and dresser. It couldn’t fit much else. The dresser was full of summer clothing for men. The closet, however, confirmed the men’s connection to Chris Crossman.

Two suitcases identical to those found at Crossman’s house were stacked on the top shelf.

Matt took them down and opened each of them. There were toiletries that matched the brands at Crossman’s. He searched all the pockets and found one money envelope—empty—and a second money envelope with two thousand dollars—twenty crisp one-hundred-dollar bills.

Also in the envelope was a laminated red poppy.

He put everything in an evidence bag. The items confirmed the murders were connected, but didn’t give Matt any new information.

“Agent Costa,” he heard the detective call.

Carrying the evidence bag, he returned to the living room.

Thompson said, “One of my officers found a neighbor with a security camera that may have captured the killer’s vehicle.”

Matt followed Thompson outside, stopping to secure the evidence bag in his trunk. Donovan and Andrew lived in the middle of the block. Across the street was a wooded park; they walked three doors down to where an officer waited at the corner.

“Mrs. Rachel Williams states that when she was leaving for work this morning, she saw Mr. Smith turn onto the street and pull into his driveway. There were two cars she didn’t recognize on the street, a gray Nissan Maxima that is a vehicle rented to Ms. Riley Prince.” He gestured to a car near the main park entrance. “And a dark, newer model van that was parked on the other side of the Smith-Gardner property. I noticed the security system, and she will allow us to view the feed. It’s automatically saved to her computer.”

Riley Prince. An alias? Second identity? She would need a government-issued driver’s license to rent a car. Matt sent the name and the vehicle information to Ryder to investigate, then followed Thompson to the house.

Mrs. Williams was a sixty-year-old widow who taught American history at the Fort Collins high school. She was more than happy to assist them. Her den was cramped, and Thompson said he’d wait in the living room while Mrs. Williams sat at the computer and Matt looked over her shoulder.

“My late husband set this up, taught me how to use it. My daughter keeps the software updated, but I know my way around computers. Maybe not like the younger generation, but I do just fine.”

She slipped on glasses that were hanging on a chain around her neck and clicked on an icon that brought up the security feed. “This is live,” she said. “See? You can see that nice officer standing out front.”

The system provided a clear color feed.

“It’s set up to keep three days of video from four different cameras. Any more than that and it takes too much storage. But I can download any day or segment to keep.” She pulled down a menu and clicked a few commands, then the screen changed. Four boxes appeared on the large monitor, each showing a different angle from her corner home.

“You’re definitely tech savvy, Mrs. Williams.”

She smiled. “I teach high school juniors. I have to be on my toes. I already looked at the recording because I didn’t want to tell the nice officer that I had something if I didn’t.” She fast-forwarded, then stopped. “See that van?”

He couldn’t miss it. It showed up on the north corner of her house and he could follow it to the next camera as it turned up the street toward the Smith-Gardner home.

The only problem was he couldn’t read the plates. A partial was visible, but even if they enhanced it, he doubted they would get more than two numbers.

But it was more than they had before.

A nondescript white female was in the passenger seat. He was confident that the team at Quantico could enhance her image. The driver was unclear in the first frame, but in the second Matt identified a male, based on a thick mustache and short dark hair. He wore sunglasses. Quantico might be able to pull out more details.

“What time was this?” he asked.

She stopped the video, said, “Seven fifty-five this morning.”

Local police found the note and poppy in Donovan’s truck. Had the two suspects delivered the note to his place of work, then driven directly here to wait for him? Conjecture, but logical. The security system at the nursery didn’t have cameras, so they couldn’t confirm who’d left the note and when, but it had to have been between closing last night and Donovan’s arrival this morning.

Matt asked Mrs. Williams for a copy of the recording. She handed him a thumb drive. “I took the liberty of copying all three days from my backup drive. Because they could have come by earlier, right? To check out the house?”

“Good thinking,” he said.

“There’s one more section.” She clicked a few tabs, then showed Matt a video of the van leaving. Now he had a better view of the driver, though he still didn’t have a straight-on headshot.

“Good, I’ll make sure my people sharpen and enhance. We might even get a full plate.”

“But this was at 12:45 this afternoon,” she said, pointing to the time stamp. “They were there for nearly five hours. There’s no way out of the neighborhood, except to go past my house.”

The killers stayed at the house for hours. Did they expect Andrew to return? They left at about the time Riley and Andrew were at Jesse Morrison’s house. That gave weight to Michael’s theory that someone was staying in the remote cabin and spying on people who came to the house.

“They were a very nice couple,” she said as she walked Matt to the door. “Quiet, no parties, didn’t really socialize, but kind. When my husband died three years ago, Donovan brought me a tree from his nursery and planted it for me. To remember my husband. It was so thoughtful. I watch it grow and think of our wonderful life. I hope you find the people who killed him. Please let Andrew know I’m praying for him.”

Matt checked into his hotel after midnight. He would only have a couple hours of sleep before he had to meet Dean Montero at the airport and hop on a small commuter plane for South Fork.

Matt read through his messages and texts, responded to everything that needed a response. Kara had taken Riley Pierce back to the hotel with her. He frowned, uncertain that was the wisest course of action. They didn’t know much about her, and her story seemed...incredible. It wasn’t that he disbelieved it, but cult members could be so brainwashed that they might truly believe what they said was the complete truth. Or, worse, they could be lying and putting his team at risk.

All they knew at this point was that Riley wasn’t a suspect in the homicides. She’d been out of the country, which they had confirmed with the museum she worked for in France. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t involved in some way, or that she wasn’t a threat for another reason. She had, ultimately, inserted herself in the middle of the investigation and now they were relying on her for key information.

Kara was a great cop with terrific instincts and it would take a particularly devious criminal to deceive her. But she’d been focused on Riley from the beginning, from the minute the young woman had run from her in Ashland. She suspected Riley had information, which was proven correct. And she suspected that Riley was in danger, which made Kara protective. Warranted? Was Kara putting herself at risk?

He called her, hoping he didn’t wake her. She answered on the first ring.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“You’re not sleeping.”

“If you thought I was sleeping, why did you call?”

He smiled. “How is everything down there?”

“Good. Sloane and I are doubled up at the hotel—apparently this is a big tourist area in the spring, who knew? It’s friggin’ freezing. But it’s a nice place. We’re taking turns keeping an eye out.”

“For?”

“Making sure that Riley doesn’t leave. I think I’ve convinced her that we’re her best bet to stay alive and catch the people who killed her friends, but she doesn’t trust anyone. Literally, no one. Not even her friend Andrew. In fact, I don’t think they’re friends. I guess it’s like if they were soldiers who didn’t personally like each other but had a common goal.”

Astute , Matt thought. “The sheriff has someone sitting on Andrew Gardner’s hospital room.”

“Matt, I’ve been thinking about how they killed Donovan.”

“Other than the fact that he was in his house and the others were outdoors, he was killed in the same way. Same flowers left behind.”

“Yeah, same people, I get it. But that’s the thing—they could have lured him into the mountains, using the red poppy as Thalia’s calling card. He would have gone anywhere, probably, considering Jane left her apartment for a park two miles away. But they didn’t, knowing his body would be found sooner rather than later. Someone could be watching his house.”

“To know when Andrew gets home, kill him too,” Matt said. He’d been thinking the same thing. “I don’t think they’re here now.” He filled her in on what he’d learned about the van leaving hours after Donovan was killed.

“They could have sent Andrew a message, as well,” Kara said.

Matt sent Detective Thompson a message to check with Andrew Gardner’s employer about any unstamped letters addressed to him.

“I’ll have the local cops follow up on that,” Matt said. “What are you thinking?”

“If there’s a note and poppy at Andrew’s work, they were expecting him to return. And they only left because the person staying in that cabin on Morrison’s property saw him with Riley.”

“Which puts her at risk,” Matt said. He was getting a bad feeling about this case. “You all need to watch each other.”

“We are,” Kara assured him. “You know, if they are watching, then they know the FBI is involved and we’ve connected the murders—even though there is nothing about it in the press.”

“It would have happened eventually,” Matt said. “The murders are too unusual.”

“I guess what I’m trying to say is, you also need to be careful. If they’re watching, you’re now the face of the investigation.”

“They don’t know me from Adam,” he said. “I could be anyone in law enforcement. And by your reasoning, they could be down there, watching Morrison’s house. That puts you and the team in the crosshairs.”

“I’m more worried about the other people Morrison created identities for,” Kara said. “Maybe they couldn’t find them all right away, but if Havenwood’s hit squad have their full names it’s just a matter of time.”

“We’ll find them first,” Matt said, sounding more confident than he felt. “I’m going to catch a few hours’ sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow. Be careful. Love you.”

“Love you too,” she said and ended the call.

He smiled. It had taken months before Kara could say the words, and she didn’t say them often, but when she did, it always made him inexplicably happy.