Snowbound - Blake Crouch [14]
“Joe Foster.” The pot was full. He set it on the stove, turned up the gas, took a seat at the kitchen table across from Kalyn. The woman had draped her coat over one of the chairs, laid her briefcase on the hardwood floor. “Which field office you out of?” Will asked.
“Phoenix. So, I’ve been dying to ask—why’d you run?”
“My daughter has cystic fibrosis. I had to assume her mother was dead, and this Ajo detective had a giant hard-on for me right out of the gate. I figured there was a decent chance I was going to be charged. I don’t know how familiar you are with CF, but it’s a terminal disease. Most people who have it never see their thirtieth birthday. I wasn’t taking a chance that my daughter would die without me there by her side.”
“But she’s okay now?”
“We’ve had three good years. That’s not to say she won’t get sick again.”
“How are you making a living?”
“Web design. I work out of my house.”
“Must be hard, knowing what everyone thinks of you. What they think you did.”
“Look, we have a new life now, and it’s pretty good. I know what happened the night my wife went missing. My conscience is clear.”
“You shouldn’t have run.”
“If you aren’t here to arrest me, what is it you want?”
Kalyn reached down and lifted her briefcase. She opened it, pulled out a manila folder. The first thing she handed Will was a map—New Mexico, Arizona, SoCal. Red X’s had been marked in four locations across the Southwest.
“What’s this?”
Kalyn scooted her chair beside his, laid down a photograph of a woman smiling, with ski slopes in the background. Reflective sunglasses. Enormous down jacket.
“Suzanne Tyrpak. Disappeared in July of 2000 between Gallup and Albuquerque.” She dropped another photograph on the table. “Jill Dillon.” She pointed to an X on the southern border of Arizona. “Disappeared in August 2001, outside of Nogales.” Another photograph. Will’s wife stared at him. Beautiful, devious Rachael smile. He remembered taking the picture on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. “Rachael Innis. Disappeared in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, July 2002. Here’s the last one.” She laid a photograph carefully beside Rachael’s picture. “Lucy Dahl. Disappeared August 2004 on the interstate between El Paso and Tucson.”
A strange silence settled in the house. Chimes clanging in discordance on the front porch. Will feeling like it wasn’t just Kalyn and him in the kitchen. Ghosts present. He glanced down at the photographs, lined up side by side, and a chill pushed through him.
“Oh my God,” he said.
“You noticed.”
“These women could be sisters.”
“I know. The dark eyes. Curly black hair.”
“Is that a coincidence?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll show you what isn’t.” Kalyn took four more photographs from the folder, spread them out. A Lexus. Honda Civic. Ford Explorer. Rachael’s Jeep Cherokee. In each photograph, the driver’s side window was busted out. “You can’t see it here, but the right front tire on all of these cars was punctured.”
“So this is like a, um—”
“An MO. Yes.”
“Were any of these women ever found?”
Kalyn shook her head. “Your water’s boiling.”
Will got up from the table and took two mugs from the cabinet.
“I have peppermint, green tea, and Earl Grey.”
“Peppermint, please.” Will dropped the tea bags into the mugs, and as he poured the boiling water slowly over them, Kalyn said, “I think I know who took these women.”
Will set the pot of water back on the stove, turned off the gas, his hands trembling now.
He stared at the floor and took deep breaths. “You think? Or you know?”
“I’m about eighty percent sure. Let me ask you something. You were a defense attorney. You somewhat familiar with how the cartels operate?”
“Sure.”
“Ever heard of the Alphas?”
Will carried the cups of tea over to the table and sat down. “No, what’s that?”
“There used to be an antidrug paratroop and intelligence battalion called the Special Air Mobile Force Group. These were Mexican soldiers, but they were trained at the School of the Americas. In 1991, a large contingent of this elite military force deserted and went into business with the