Bone Secrets 03 - Buried

nod.
    “Yeah, I didn’t think you were too stupid. You’re no good to me barbecued or roasted.”
    She was silent.
    He considered giving her some water, but that’d mean taking the tape off her mouth, and he didn’t feel like acting like a nursemaid. She’d be okay without water for a few more hours. The air-conditioning should make a difference.
    He poked at the inside of the trunk where the lights connected. All solid and covered up. She wasn’t going to be able to damage them, no matter how hard she kicked.
    Gerald slammed the trunk, opened the rear driver-side door, and yanked at the console that was tucked into the backseat. It moved forward. He could feel hot air from the trunk move into the cooler air of the car. He pointed the two wimpy rear vents at the center of the backseat.
    He got back in the driver’s seat and headed back to the highway. He hadn’t seen a single vehicle in fifteen minutes. He took a long swallow from his bottle of water, sighed, and wiped at his mouth. He was gonna be driving most of the night.
    It was a long drive back to the other side of the Cascade Mountains. Gerald was aiming a little farther south this time. He wasn’t going back to Portland. He was headed toward home. Salem, the state’s capital. Salem was his comfort zone.The bunker had been closer to Salem, and his job was primarily in that city.
    He took the highway turnoff toward a mountain range pass. Hopefully, he’d hear from his boss soon. He wasn’t going to try calling while driving this time.

    To Michael’s relief, Spencer stepped out of the Luna County car. Nothing against the deputies of Luna County, but Spencer was the one with the brains. The rest seemed to be a bunch of local recruits who stood around a lot. One deputy tailed his boss. Hove opened his cruiser door but sat in the driver’s seat, talking on his cell.
    “Whatcha got?” Spencer asked as he strode up the walk. He nodded at Chris. “Jacobs. ’Bout time you turned up. I’ve got a couple of questions for you about Juan’s place.”
    “Right now we’ve got to find Jamie. I know the Ghostman grabbed her,” Chris said.
    “Who?” Spencer scowled.
    “I called him the Ghostman. Same guy who held me captive as a kid. Freaking ghostly, white-skin-colored asshole.”
    “Covered in ink now,” Michael added.
    “Mr. Tattoo is the Ghostman. Got it.” Spencer’s expression said he thought both of them were slightly nuts. “Who the fuck is he really?”
    Michael shook his head. “Dunno.”
    Hove stepped forward. “According to your Detective Callahan, he’s a former sexual predator known as Gary Hinkes. But the guy has vanished from the face of the earth. There’sno driver’s license, no tax records, nothing. He was arrested in the late eighties for some sex crimes, but no one can find any records. He was also arrested in conjunction with a murder of a Portland woman but went to prison on a lesser charge. There hasn’t been a peep from him since he got out.”
    “Where are the records from the trial?” Spencer asked.
    “Gone.”
    “And from his time in prison?”
    “He was there for two months. Any scrap of paper relating to it has vanished.”
    Chris looked at Michael. “How does that happen?”
    Michael’s stomach thrummed. “Someone knows someone with the right connections.”
    “Well, the people who interacted with him shouldn’t have disappeared…I hope. What about the warden from when he was in prison? He remember him?” Spencer crossed his arms on his chest.
    Hove shook his head. “Retired. And he was only there two months. No one can tell us shit.”
    “How about the judge at his trial? Or his lawyer or prosecutor? Someone has to remember something besides Fielding. It was a fucking murder trial.”
    “The detectives in Portland are looking into that and some other possibilities. They’ll find someone who knows what he’s doing these days. Now, what do you got inside?” asked Hove.
    “Absolutely nothing,” Michael answered, but he waved the cops into the bed-and-breakfast. Michael was ready to crawl out of his skin. Standing around and waiting for the police wasn’t how he operated. He liked action. He craved action.
He needed to DO something.
    But right now he had no fucking information to move on.
    Chuck greeted the group of men and then watched them pound up the stairs. Spencer’s deputy stayed back to question Chuck. Hove and Spencer made a quick survey of the bedroom and bathroom, identical to