Chapter Twenty
Smoke got in the jeep and started the engine. He turned the vehicle around and drove toward the hospital. A crowd of people going up the steps to the main entrance blocked his view of Kini.
When they passed, no one was left sitting on the steps.
He’d told her to stay there, damn it. It was hot, so maybe she’d gone inside where the air conditioning could take the edge off.
The parking lot was even fuller than before, with a couple of trucks now parked on the groomed, gravel landscaped areas adjacent to the sidewalk on either side of the steps.
He parked next to one of the trucks, got out, and ran up the stairs.
The air was far cooler inside, but no Kini was in sight. Scanning the lobby and a couple of the hallways leading deeper into the building, he couldn’t see her.
Something caught his attention and he did a double take. One of Kini’s shoes lay on the floor of one of the hallways.
He strode toward it and picked it up.
The blood splatter across it was all too familiar. These were her shoes. Kini.
He looked around and saw a caretaker washing the floor farther down. “Excuse me,” Smoke said. “Did you see the lady who lost this shoe?”
“Yeah. Her friends didn’t bother to go back for it when it fell off. Not even when I yelled at them to stop and come back to get it.”
“Friends?”
“Two of them were carrying her.”
“Those weren’t friends,” Smoke growled.
“I thought she was having a seizure,” the caretaker said, horror turning his expression slack. “One of them shoved something into her mouth, I thought it was to keep her from biting her tongue, you know? She flailed around, hit one of them, then seemed to fall unconscious.”
“They took her.”
The hallway wasn’t a direct route to an exit, but it wouldn’t be hard to get to one.
Smoke turned and sprinted for the front door, dodging a line of people coming in. Seconds later, he was in the jeep, gunning the engine and peeling out of the parking lot.
The hospital had many doors, but only two ways a vehicle could get to it. He drifted the jeep as he forced it to speed into the staff parking area and commercial drop-off zone, hoping to confront whoever had taken Kini. He braked, angling the jeep so it blocked the exit.
No one was in sight, inside or outside a vehicle.
No one.
Smoke waited. He was supposed to be good at that, but the weird groan from the steering wheel told him he’d better stop taking his frustration out on his ride.
Why would anyone take her? She was a nurse, not someone with authority, privileged information, or launch codes.
Who benefited from her kidnapping? What could they hope to gain from Kini? Was it an angry local who’d lost a family member?
Smoke pulled into a parking spot and called River’s cell.
“Kini’s been kidnapped,” he said as soon as the other man answered the call. “Two men took her about five minutes ago, made it look like she was having a seizure or something.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I shit you not.”
“What the fuck for?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. She’s not in charge of anything.” They hadn’t really talked in depth about work, too distracted by all the crap going on around them. Had she kept the true scope of her job from him? “Is she?”
“No. She’s mostly independent. Travels a lot, does her job, goes on to the next one. Rodrigues likes her because she doesn’t need anyone to hand-hold her, but she doesn’t go off half-cocked either. This is the first time she’s ever been involved in an active outbreak.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Smoke murmured, considering the entire situation. His heart rate had slowed, the adrenaline in his bloodstream reduced enough to let him think.
“It doesn’t track for me either. I mean, she was firebombed last night. What the fuck was that about?”
“We don’t know what the fuck, because the sheriff is listening to one of his deputies, who just happens to be Lacey’s brother. He’s looking for a way to bury me. Kini was attacked before the light show last night. Graffiti, getting T-boned, dogs, slashed tires, and a dumb fuck all tried to mess with her in the last two days.”
“Is there a pattern?”
That was the question he needed to ask.
“Yup,” Smoke said as his brain finally, finally, saw them. “After she’d been in town for a week, a rumor started going around about the CDC experimenting on people, making them sick on purpose. At about the same time, people started getting sick and dying from the hantavirus.”
“Either someone wants to make her the fall guy, or they’re using her as a distraction.”
“That’s how I’m reading it.”
“So they take her and the distraction continues.”
“Got any intel on this Free America From Oppression group?”
“Surprisingly little. The name has popped up in a few places on social media, but aside from the threat they sent to the news, nothing organized.”
“Nothing about this feels organized either,” Smoke said. “Whoever grabbed her, took a big risk in doing it in a public place.”
“Who started the rumors?”
“I don’t know, but I do know where to find out.”
“Where?”
“The post office.”
“Uh…”
Smoke started driving. “The women who work there are a bunch of gossips. Better than taking an ad out in the paper. I’ll call you as soon as I learn anything.” He ended the call and focused on driving.
The post office was in an adobe-style building that had been there for about one hundred years. It had operated as a jail at one time and still had bars on the windows.
He pounded on the door.
A middle-aged woman with her gray hair cut in some kind of bob came into view. “We’re closed,” she hollered.
Smoke ignored her large hint to leave and waved her over. “I need to know who you talked to about the CDC nurse.”
She looked at him like he’d asked for the moon to be delivered on a silver platter. She came over and opened the door. “Smoke? When did you get home?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said with a shake of his head. “The CDC nurse?”
“There’s been talk all over town about that nurse and the disease she brought with her.”
Smoke leaned closer. “She didn’t bring anything other than a rental car with her, and she sure as shit didn’t get anyone sick.”
The woman reared back. “But—”
“No,” Smoke ordered. “Whatever you think happened, you’re wrong. Thanks to the gossip, she’s been attacked by dogs, idiots, and had her car firebombed.” He smiled his shark’s smile. “I would take it as a personal favor, Sylvia, if you’d put a stop to those rumors.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “How do you know that nurse didn’t bring something with her? No one got sick until she showed up.”
“She doesn’t work in a lab or anything close,” Smoke told her. “She collects information and a small blood sample. That’s it.”
Her frown returned. “Oh.”
He widened his smile. “So, who’s unhappy?”
She shrugged. “Who’s not unhappy would be a shorter list.”
“Anyone stand out as particularly pissed off? Someone with a sick friend or relative?”
Sylvia threw her hands up. “That’s everybody.”
“I’m looking for two fuck-ups.”
Her brows rose.
Shit, he was talking to a civilian postal worker. “Idiots who act before they think.”
“That narrows it down a bit.” She bit her lip and said hesitantly, “One of them is your cousin, Nate.”
Nate? What the fuck? “Anyone else? I need all the names.”
“What for?”
Smoke just looked at her.
Sylvia rolled her eyes. “You always were good at keeping your mouth closed.” She said it like it was an insult. From her, it was a compliment.
“Freddy Alvarez.” She thought for another moment. “A few others, but Freddy and Nate were the worst of the idiots.”
Smoke nodded his thanks, turned to leave, then glanced over his shoulder. “Stay healthy.”
She didn’t respond.
Freddy wasn’t a surprise, but Nate hadn’t been that big a moron when Smoke had been home last.
For his son’s funeral.
His gut tightened as his memory flashed pictures of his little boy. His smiling face as he ran toward him in what he called a sneak attack hug. His son’s tears as Smoke left on his last deployment. His face, still and pale in the coffin. Smoke forced those images away.
So maybe he’d been a little distracted; he’d have still noticed his cousin turning stupid.
Would Nate be stupid enough kidnap a nurse? No. So, Smoke would put him on the back burner and focus on the guy who might be dumb enough to kidnap Kini.
Freddy.
He still lived with his parents, as far as Smoke knew, despite the kid being…he had to think about it, add up the years. Twenty-three.
Christ, he was getting old.
Smoke drove to the Alvarez place, a medium-sized house one street off of Main Street. The dirt and gravel front yard featured a couple of clusters of junk. A rusted and pitted washing machine sat in one corner near the outside of the house surrounded by a broken shovel, a bicycle missing both tires and the seat, and three horse shoes.
A wagon wheel, which was probably supposed to look decorative, sat at the intersection of the driveway, and the street was almost completely shrouded by tumbleweeds. An old TV sat behind the wheel with a cactus growing through the middle of it.
The house looked quiet, shades drawn against the sun, and driveway empty of vehicles.
Smoke parked the jeep, walked to the front door, and knocked. Twice. When no one answered, he went around to the rear and found the back door open with only the screen keeping the bugs out.
“Hello,” he called out loudly enough to wake someone who might be sleeping. He knocked good and loud, too, and called out again. No answer.
Fuck it.
He opened the door and went inside.
No movement or sound. He walked farther inside until he reached a crossroads of hallway, kitchen, and living area.
Air movement inside the house was almost at a standstill, but he caught the slightest scent of decay down the hallway. He walked cautiously forward, hands loose and ready to move if a quick reaction was needed.
The smell became thicker with every step, coating his tongue in putrefaction and rot. Death was the only resident here; the only questions left for him to answer were how many and who they were.
The first bedroom he came to was empty, the bed rumpled and clothes strewn across the floor.
The second bedroom revealed a person-shaped mound under the covers, a patch of black hair visible near the pillow.
Odd. He expected the smell to be stronger this close to a body.
The body moved, coughed weakly.
Smoke strode to the bed and flipped the blankets back, revealing a girl who looked to be ten or eleven years old. Her eyes were closed, her clothing and hair wet with sweat. He put a hand on her forehead. Fuck, she was burning up.
“Hey,” Smoke said, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving her a gentle shake. “Wake up, princess.”
She didn’t respond. At least she was alive. That meant he hadn’t found the source of the decomposition.
He pulled out his cell phone and called River as he left the room, heading for the last door at the end of the hallway. It was closed. As he neared it, the scent of death grew stronger.
As soon as River answered, Smoke said, “I’ve found a sick kid in a house with no visible adults present. I couldn’t wake her, and she’s got a hell of a fever. Can you spare an ambulance?”
He opened the door and took a step into the room. It was all he needed to find out everything he didn’t want to know.
A woman lay on her side on the bed in the fetal position, facing toward the door. She wore underwear and a T-shirt, both soaked with sweat and possibly other fluids resulting from decomposition. The room was hot, so maybe that had sped things up, because the skin at the ends of her fingers was black, her fingernails oddly long, her lips pulled back from her teeth.
She looked like she’d been dead for days, but given the temperature, it could have only been hours since she passed.
With a child in the next room.
“There’s no family present?” River asked.
“No one alive,” Smoke replied. “One corpse. Adult, female.”
“Shit. Just give me a second.” River didn’t put him on hold, and he could hear the man talking to someone else, relaying information.
“No ambulances are available,” he said, coming back. “But one of the sheriff’s deputies is going to pick up the kid and bring her here. Give me the address.”
Smoke provided it then said, “Explain to the officer why I can’t stick around. Kini is out there in the hands of someone desperate. This was just my first stop in trying to find her.”
“I will. Call back if you run into anyone else who needs assistance.”
“Will do.” Smoke ended the call and left the house.
He checked Freddy’s aunt’s house, but no one, dead or alive was there. After that, he stopped at a couple other homes belonging to other members of the Alvarez family, but no one had seen him, and there was no evidence to indicate he’d been by lately.
Smoke worked to keep himself calm so he could think rationally, but it was hard. It didn’t fucking make sense.
Where the fuck had Kini been taken?