CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sam’s phone rang. It was Hank. He answered.

“Sam, there’s been a couple of developments I thought you should know about.”

“Tell me.”

“I’ve had a few of the Brotherhood Protectors listening to the scanners for police chatter all throughout the area where your girl was last seen, just in case something interesting came up.”

“And?”

“A couple of things,” he said. “Separate, but perhaps connected.”

“Tell me.”

“To begin, a short while ago the GPS signal from Lindsay’s phone abruptly ended.”

“Where?”

“Just south of Rochester, Minnesota.”

“Minnesota? What the hell would she be doing in Minnesota?  That’s way out of the way.”

“There’s more. Shortly after the signal ended, there was police chatter about a homicide in that same area.”

“Oh, dear god,” Sam gasped.

“No, it’s not what you think. Police found a sixty-year-old trucker, shot in the head, close range, execution style. It was a professional hit. Sam, the murder took place at the exact same GPS coordinates the cell phone was at when the signal ended, and at approximately the same time.”

“The trucker had her cell phone?”

“Unclear, but it looks that way.”

“It has to be related.”

“I thought so, too, but how?”

“No idea.”

“Well, add this to your thought process,” Hank continued. “I also received a report that a tall, ruggedly built dark-haired Native American man, fiftyish, was reported shoplifting in a drug store in Sioux City.”

“I don’t get the relevance,” Sam said.

“I haven’t finished,” Hank replied. “The pharmacist said the shoplifter had an accomplice, a tall, thin, beautiful teenaged girl with long blondish-brown hair. She told the pharmacist she was eighteen, but he thought she may have been younger.”

“That description fits Lindsay alright,” Sam said, “but hell, that description could fit a lot of girls. I’ve never met this boyfriend of hers she is supposed to be traveling with, but I can’t imagine it would be a fifty-year old man.”

“My thought as well,” Hank said. “It seemed odd.”

“What did they steal?  Money?”

“Nope, no money. The pharmacist didn’t know what was stolen. He did say the big man was coming from the direction of the drug shelves. Does Lindsay have any kind of drug habit?”

“Not that I know of, and I know her mother doesn’t think anything like that.”

“I don’t know what to tell you then.  Maybe the man she was with had a drug habit.”

“So, if we follow the train of thought, Lindsay’s phone was in Rochester, hundreds of miles away from where she was when the trucker was murdered?”

“If the girl in the drug store was indeed her.”

“Sioux City makes more sense,” Sam said. “That would be on the way to Montana from Chicago.  What the hell is going on?”

“Whatever it is, it has escalated to murder,” Hank said.

“Follow this theory,” Sam said. “Lindsay gets kidnapped in Chicago. Somehow, she finds a benefactor, and they run. The kidnapper’s follow. The benefactor finds a trucker headed north and they hide her phone on the truck to throw off the people trying to find her. The kidnappers find the trucker and kill him to eliminate a witness.”

“Sounds wild, Sam.”

“But it fits.”

“Yes, but…”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“No, but why wouldn’t they just go to the police? Or call Vandy?”

“No idea. Maybe the benefactor has a record.  Maybe he wants to help her and get away.  Hell, I don’t know.”

“It’s a crazy idea, Sam, but maybe just crazy enough to be true.”

“If they are on the road and my crazy theory is true, they may need help.”

 “I have alerted more than a dozen of the Brotherhood Protectors who live somewhere between Sioux City and Bozeman. We are all on standby if you need help.”

“I appreciate that, Hank. Keep listening to chatter for me,” Sam responded.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m calling the FBI,” he said.

He hung up.

“Vandy!” he called out. “We have to talk.”