Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [99]
How to get rid of him?
He looked out the window again, in time to see Kendra’s friend remove a cell phone from his pocket. He continued to stare, watching as the man first stood, then walked away from the garden. He strolled along the fence, coming closer to the back of the house.
A quiet lift of the windowpane permitted a bit of eavesdropping by those who were so inclined.
“. . . probably not much more than another hour or so,” the man was saying. “She’s found a way to pass the time while we wait, so I’m just hanging loose until my replacement arrives. As soon as he does, I’ll head back to the hospital.”
The agent turned slightly so that he could see his charge in the garden, then turned back.
“Yeah, concussion. I’ll give you a call back after I check in with her doctors.” He stood at the edge of the path, the phone in one hand, the other in his pocket. “No, Kendra’s just waiting to get in touch with the friend she’s planning on staying with.”
The agent turned and walked back down the path, and the rest was lost.
The window closed as silently as it had opened.
The eavesdropper walked back down the steps calmly, let himself out by the side door. From there he could see Kendra in the garden, working side by side with old Henry, making rows to plant the corn in. Looked like she’d be there a while. The man who’d arrived with her sat on one of the benches, just watching.
He slipped off into the woods, taking the path away from the Mission.
Peter was on a mission of his own.
“You’re up awfully early, Sheriff,” Adam said after the call from Cole Gamble was put through.
“Well, I wanted to make sure I caught you first thing. I told you I’d get back to you after I went through those files again.”
“Did you find anything?”
“I think so,” Gamble told him. “I’m going to have it checked out today, but here it is. After the Smith kids were discovered to be missing, search parties were arranged to fan out in a twenty-mile radius of the ranch to look for them.”
“Right, we talked about that.”
“And every one of those search parties was led by a member of one law enforcement agency or another. We had the feds, we had state and county, we had the police from nearby Chaco, since the ranch was located within its jurisdiction. Every one of those officers made a report of his search, where they went, who was in their party, that sort of thing. The sheriff who handled the case before me was real careful to dot every i and cross every t. He wanted to make sure there was a record of every square inch.”
“Smart of him.”
“Very smart. Now, the report from the deputy who led the party that went southwest of the ranch indicated that they went fourteen point three miles.”
“I thought you said they were supposed to go twenty in every direction?”
“They were, in every other direction. But fourteen miles southwest of the ranch, you run into some hills. You follow the path into the hills, you run into a series of caves.”
“Weren’t the caves searched?”
“Not all of them. Some of these caves have been taken over by swarms of killer bees that migrated up from Mexico and South America some years ago. Apparently they tried to check a few of the caves, but they weren’t successful. The bees swarmed and attacked, scattering the search team. No one ever goes near those caves, Adam. Entomologists who studied several of the hives a few years ago said that, depending on how far back the caves go, there could be millions of bees in any one of those caves.”
“Killer bees?” Gamble could almost hear Adam’s frown through the wires. “African bees brought over to mate with South American bees as an experiment?”
“Yeah, yeah, everyone knows the story of how the bees escaped and have been moving north, terrorizing everything that threatens their hives.”
“What’s the point, Cole?” Adam glanced at his watch. He was due in Mancini’s office in less than three minutes.
“The point is, the locals refer to these caves as the bee caves.” He paused for effect. “Take a piece of paper and write it out. Bee caves.”
“Cole, I’m late for a . . .”
“Just