Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

The bitch had bound and gagged him with the same duct tape he’d used on her during the night.
    Mitch, if I ever see you again, I’m going to fucking kill you . And Cole meant that. Mostly. He struggled against the tape, but the more he struggled, the harder it was to breathe. His heart pounding like the whole damn marching band, he gave up.
    I will fucking kill you, Mitch . Now I mean that more than mostly .
    Somebody had to come at some point. Mitch. Matt. Even the damn sheriff was starting to sound good.
    No, I’m not going that far . The sheriff would arrest him first and ask questions maybe never. Not with all the shit Mitch had in the basement. Guns . Cash . A girl .
    God . He drew a breath and held it. Relax . You’ll never get free if you don’t relax .
    But panic took hold and wouldn’t let him go. Relax or you’ll suffocate . The air was so totally not fresh. By the time help comes you’ll be dead . Tears pricked his eyes.
    God . What am I gonna do now?
    Wheeling, West Virginia, Thursday, December 5, 10.30 A.M.
    ‘How do you want to handle this?’ Joseph asked Agent Kerr as the two of them plus Daphne and McManus gathered at the entrance to the bus station.
    In the end, they’d used a combination of their ideas to locate Mark O’Hurley, who worked for Appa-Natural Gas, serving a large portion of the Appalachian area thirty years before. They’d found an ad with the bobcat logo in an old-fashioned phone book in the library, used Better Business Bureau records to locate the name of the business owners, now retired, their company defunct. But the owner of Appa-Natural Gas had a good memory and a willingness to gossip. Unfortunately he had a wife who hadn’t seen the need to keep thirty-year-old records. All of his client lists, invoices, and route maps had been thrown away in an office purge fifteen years before.
    Then they’d done a new-fashioned Google search to find O’Hurley himself. He hadn’t been home, but they found neighbors more than willing to talk about Mark.
    The old gas company owner remembered needing to fire O’Hurley twenty-five years before after several years of warnings and two DUIs. O’Hurley had developed a serious drinking problem, joining AA after he’d lost everything.
    Now Mark O’Hurley worked for the bus station.
    And here they were.
    Daphne cleared her throat. ‘Excuse me? I’m talking to O’Hurley.’
    Joseph looked concerned. ‘He might feel too intimidated to talk to you.’
    ‘Joseph, don’t you think it’s interesting that the man starts drinking around the time my incident occurred?’
    ‘Yes, I do. That’s exactly what I meant by intimidating. You’re his personal demon.’
    ‘He’s gone through AA,’ Daphne said stubbornly. ‘He’ll want to make amends.’
    ‘Lady’s got a point,’ Kerr said. ‘Let her try, Carter. If he looks like he’s shutting down, we can take over.’
    ‘All right,’ Joseph agreed. ‘Let’s hurry.’
    Daphne searched the faces at the bus station until she found the night watchman. She knew it was the right face when her lungs suddenly deflated and her knees went weak. He was twenty years older, but the shape of his face, the placement of his eyes, hadn’t changed. ‘There he is,’ she murmured, grateful that Joseph was there to put his arm around her waist, keeping her upright.
    She drew a steadying breath before approaching him. ‘Excuse me. Mr O’Hurley? Mark O’Hurley?
    He looked up from zipping his coat. ‘Yes? Who are you?’
    ‘My name is Daphne Montgomery. I’m with the state’s attorney’s office in Maryland. These are my colleagues, Special Agents Carter and Kerr, FBI, and Detective McManus, Wheeling PD. We’d like to talk to you about the days you worked for the propane gas delivery company.’
    O’Hurley’s eyes flickered. ‘All right. What do you want to know?’
    ‘November, 1985,’ she said. ‘I know it was a long time ago, but do you remember making a delivery to a cabin in what’s now the wildlife management area?’
    ‘That was nearly thirty years ago,’ he said, but he’d paled slightly. ‘I made a lot of deliveries out there in those days.’
    His hands were trembling, Daphne noted. He knows .
    ‘This is very important,’ she murmured. ‘I’m interested in a day about a week after Halloween. You’d stopped at a cabin to make a delivery and it was late afternoon. Just starting to get dark. As you got out of your truck, the cabin’s owner pulled up next to you in