Page 19 of So Savage (Faith Bold #21)

Faith called Marcus on the way back to the station. “Marcus, how’s it coming?”

"Not so good," Marcus said irritably. "I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. You'd think after twenty-four years on the force, I'd get used to it."

“Well, I’m only half that deep into the FBI, but I hate it too. So no sign of Delgado?”

“It’s incredible. It’s like she vanished into thin air. Do you remember when we speculated that the killer might use some sort of scent masking?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“I think he is. He has to be. The dogs found some darts that match the other crime scenes, but there are no fingerprints, so that won’t help us either.”

“You’re using K9s?”

“We’re using everything right now. We’re turning up nothing. I hate to say it, but I’m beginning to think the killer headed to the airport and took off with her.”

“How? There’s no way he dragged an unconscious and possibly bloody woman through airport security.”

Marcus paused for a moment. “Yeah, you’re right. Damn it.”

“Keep looking. Don’t give up yet. I actually might have stopped spinning my wheels too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Dr. Hayes isn’t our guy. Alibi clears him, not to mention he looks like he’d lose in a fight to a particularly determined toddler. But he had an assistant in private practice by the name of James Cooper. Apparently, Hayes had to let him go because he got in a K9 handler’s face after the handler brought the dog in severely injured.”

“Ah. So he had a problem with the handlers.”

“Yes. He believes that the use of dogs in military and police work is unethical.”

“Well, that sounds an awful lot like motive,” Marcus said.

“Sure does, doesn’t it?”

“Do you have an address for this James Cooper?”

“Not yet. I’m going to work on that right now.”

“Good luck, Special Agent.”

“You too, detective.”

Faith skipped the breakroom when she reached the station. She didn’t need caffeine anymore. She was circling the conclusion to this case, and the excitement of being able to provide justice to the victims was more than enough to keep her awake.

She opened Marcus’s computer again and plugged in James Cooper’s name. There were nineteen matches, but thanks to Dr. Hayes’ description, she was able to find the specific James Cooper she needed.

And along with that, a quite impressive history. Cooper had been arrested for aggravated assault five years prior when he was a civilian K9 instructor contracted with the Army. It seemed that a certain young Private First Class Kevin Walsh had complained that James wouldn’t let him do anything with his K9 because he believed the private would injure the dog. James had responded by shoving Walsh into a wall.

Among the members of the inquest that eventually led to James’s firing by the military was Staff Sergeant Thomas Reeves.

That was his connection to the two men. She already had the connection to Delgado.

Now she needed to find him. His ID was listed as expired, and a few minutes of digging showed that his lease had expired three months ago. A call to the owners confirmed that he had moved out at that time and hadn’t been seen since.

She spent another hour trying everyone who might have known him at one time, but she couldn’t find any more recent information. It looked like he had faded off of the grid.

Okay. So, where would someone like James go if he was off the grid? He liked dogs. He'd once had a civilian training business.

Actually, that might be her answer. She looked up the business and discovered that it had once owned property. The property was still listed as belonging to James. Sometimes in cases like this, it took a while for records to update, but there was at least a chance that James was still there.

She got to her feet and motioned for Turk to follow. Turk was just about to close his eyes and fall asleep and didn’t appreciate the interruption. He let her know by growling irritably.

"You can sleep in the car," she told him. "Come on."

He sighed and got to his feet to follow his annoying human.

***

The training facility was located northeast of the city proper, about halfway between Duluth and the National Guard base. The gate to the property was locked with a rusted padlock so corroded that it was difficult to tell where the actual lock ended and the rust began. A couple of whacks with the battering ram in Marcus’s truck was enough to break it.

Turk trotted ahead of Faith, nose to the ground, sniffing for clues. “Keep close, Turk,” Faith warned. Normally she would let him have free rein, but this killer had shown no concern over the K9s his victims had. The last thing she needed was Turk knocked out of the fight, especially if James used the second compound that had nearly killed the Dobermann.

It was clear immediately that the property had been left to rot. The chain link fence was as corroded as the lock and in some places, the links had begun to fail. The obstacles constructed on the course were either rusted to almost unrecognizability or—if they were plastic—warped to the same state. The field was covered in ice, so Faith couldn’t see if anything still grew there or if the turf had devolved into a choking mass of weeds.

The main building was located on the other side of the property from the gate Faith entered. Like the rest of the facility, it was in shambles. Every window Faith could see had shattered. Mold and lichens filled the pits and crevices of the concrete structure. Looking through some of the windows, Faith could see that parts of the roof had caved in. Snow drifting in through the windows and the open roof had mixed with dust and rust to form a sickly brown powder that reminded Faith somewhat of radioactive fallout.

Actually, that’s what this place felt like to her. It was like she was returning to a war zone after ten years and crawling through the wreckage of a past life. That was true, in a way. She wondered if James felt the same way as he looked around at what once had been a successful business.

She could almost feel sympathy for him. He had fallen to the opposite extreme that Daniel Ross had fallen to, and he had failed because of that, but she had a much easier time being angry with someone who abused dogs than with someone who cared so much for them that he didn’t want them in harms’ way at all.

She walked around the building, handgun ready, eyes scanning for clues and threats. Turk stayed a few yards ahead of her, paws padding silently over the snow, nose to the ground but eyes up and alert.

The silence was the most sobering part of the experience. Faith was used to a constant low hum of noise. In Philadelphia, there was always something going on. Even at four in the morning, you could hear the distant thrum of traffic on the interstate. If by some miracle, you happened to come across a few minutes with no traffic, you could hear the whine of electricity through the power lines. Televisions from neighboring apartments whispered through the walls, water hummed in the pipes—all noises that the city dweller tuned out instinctively but were present, nonetheless.

Not here. Here there was only the muffled crunch of snow under Faith’s boots and the soft pant of Turk’s breathing. This was almost certainly because the cold had driven the animals into hibernation and they were far enough from the main roads that cars would pass rarely if at all, but a part of Faith’s mind couldn’t stop from associating the silence of this place with the death she had witnessed in Duluth, death that the owner of this property might have caused.

They reached the front of the building. Like the windows, the glass here had been shattered. Jagged spears still hung from the top and protruded from the bottom like deadly 2D stalactites and stalagmites. Faith pulled her flashlight and switched it on to shine into the building. From where she stood, she could see nothing, but there was a lot of the building she couldn’t see.

She briefly considered calling for backup. She didn’t want to pull anyone away from the search for Delgado, but this killer worked by lying in wait and striking silently from a distance. She could be walking into a trap.

But she had to stop him. These were the risks that came with the job, and Faith knew all too well how dangerous caution could be to the innocents they were sworn to protect.

She took a deep breath and steadied herself. “Okay, Turk. Wait for me to clear the glass, then follow me in.”

Turk probably only understood “follow me,” but it helped Faith to talk to him like he was a person sometimes.

She switched her flashlight and steeled herself. This would potentially be the most dangerous part because it was the part that would result in the most noise.

She shielded her face and swung the flashlight into the glass. It shattered with a noise like a train wreck. She cried out and jumped back, leveling her weapon, startled by the sudden explosion of sound where before had been silence.

She was greeted with nothing but the echoes of the shattered glass ringing in her ears. She sighed—red from fear and self-embarrassment—and used the flashlight to break another piece of glass.

Now that the first shock was passed, the rest was easy. Within seconds, she had the doorway clear of hanging glass. The glass on the floor was a concern for Turk, though. Faith would have to leave him outside.

“Okay, Turk—”

Before she finished that sentence, Turk leaped through the door with the grace of a dancer, landing in a clear spot on the floor and jumping twice until he landed clear of the minefield.

“Never mind.”

She walked through carefully, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. Inside, the damage was worse than on the outside. She stood in what had once been the reception area. A high counter still stood in front of her, forming an L-shape. The rooms past that were inaccessible, blocked by debris and the brown silt of snow and dust.

Turk peeked around the corner of the L and barked. Faith approached swiftly but cautiously, handgun raised.

There was no one there, but someone had clearly been here very recently. A sleeping bag was stretched haphazardly behind the counter, and a trash bag filled with food wrappers and water bottles sat in the corner of the ruined wall and at the far end of the counter. A collection of magazines—some of the dirty variety, all dated within the past month—stood next to the bag, and a battery-powered lantern sat on top of them as a paperweight.

She holstered her weapon. She’d found James Cooper’s hideout. She’d call Marcus and have them stake the place out. As soon as he returned, they’d pick him up.

She reached for her phone, but before she could dial Marcus, the phone buzzed, and the screen lit up with his caller ID. She answered. “I was just about to call you. I found James Cooper’s hideout.”

“We found Delgado.”

The somberness in his voice told Faith it was bad news. She sighed and nodded. “Where?”

“In a drainage ditch a mile east of the airport. She’s alive.”

Faith’s eyes shot open. Alive?

She pumped her fist and whooped for joy. If she was alive, then she could identify her killer. They could know for sure exactly who was killing these handlers.

Most importantly, she was alive. The killer hadn’t won. He hadn’t killed anyone else. She could still beat him. She could still keep people safe.

“She’s alive, but barely. We’re transporting her to the hospital now.”

“That’s still good news,” Faith said. “Send me the address. I’ll meet you there.”

In FBI work, bad news was par for the course. It made moments like these even more precious to her.

The darker the night, the brighter the light shines, she thought as she started the truck and headed back for the city.