Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

going directly home. In that case, she would stop Sara on the street, display her department identification, and explain that Sam had been involved in a traffic accident and that Sara should ride with her to the hospital. She’d take Sara home, ostensibly to pick up the old lady, and then she’d have them both.
    The plan came off without a hitch. At precisely two-forty, Sara emerged from the school in the company of three other children. Two of the kids separated from Sara in the school parking lot and hopped into waiting vehicles. Sara and the other girl left the school grounds and meandered slowly through the residential Park Meadows neighborhood. The children stopped at a corner about a block from Kincaid’s home, which was located in a small cul-de-sac called Lariat Circle. They talked for about five minutes before separating.
    Stimson drove past Sara and parked the Explorer on Motherlode Drive near the entrance to the cul-de-sac. She gathered the small bag that contained her cell phone, plastic handcuffs, hoods, and duct tape.
    She waited until Sara was almost in the driveway before she emerged from her vehicle. She walked rapidly up beside the little girl, arriving at the moment Sara opened the front door. At the last instant, Sara glanced over her shoulder and saw Stimson for the first time.
    “Who are you?” Sara asked.
    “Just a friend of your daddy’s.” She pushed Sara gently from behind into the living room.
    Mild curiosity now gave way to genuine fear and Sara said, “You can’t come in here.”
    All pretenses of friendliness gone, Stimson snapped, “The hell I can’t.” With that, she delivered a hard, open-handed slap to the side of Sara’s face, momentarily stunning her. She tossed the little girl to the hardwood floor face-down. Before Sara could scream, Stimson placed duct tape over her mouth and bound her hands behind her back with plastic handcuffs. She pulled Sara to her feet, placed a cloth hood over her head, and dragged her to a nearby couch.
    “Now you sit right here and keep perfectly still, or I’ll kill you and the old lady.”
    From the kitchen, Aunt June heard the commotion, but assumed it was Sara arriving home from school with a friend. Moments later, she turned from the kitchen sink and stood looking down the barrel of a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver aimed directly at her face.
    “Sara is okay and you will be too as long as you do exactly what I tell you. Do you understand?”
    Aunt June nodded and said, “Please don’t hurt my little niece.”
    Stimson smiled. A niece, huh.
    She handcuffed Aunt June just as she had Sara. She placed the duct tape over her mouth and ordered her into the living room. As soon as Aunt June saw Sara seated on the couch, handcuffed, with a hood placed over her head, she let out a muffled groan. Stimson used the second hood on Aunt June, and placed her on the couch next to Sara. She reached for her cell phone.
    ***
    I spent the early part of the afternoon looking for anything out of the ordinary in the personnel records of Bob Fuller and Steve Schumway. Fuller and Schumway had been with the department for over twenty years, and both were pension eligible. There was nothing in their files indicative of the kind of corrupt behavior I now feared. The trio, including Stimson, had worked together in the North Point facilities for more than three years.
    A little after three o’clock, I left the prison for a meeting with Kate at a location near Allred’s home. He lived in Holladay, a small Salt Lake County bedroom community. The surveillance team at Allred’s confirmed that he hadn’t moved since his return from work earlier in the morning.
    We planned to transport Allred to Salt Lake City P.D. headquarters, where we would be met by Webb and Gill. They wanted to observe the interrogation from an adjoining room.
    Unfortunately, I was about to discover that things don’t always go according to plan.

Chapter Forty-six
    On the way to meet Kate, my cell phone rang. It was Patti calling with a disturbing message. “Sam, I just received a telephone call from a female whose voice I didn’t recognize. It definitely wasn’t Sara, and I’m almost positive it wasn’t your Aunt June. The caller said there was a family emergency and you needed to call home immediately. By the time I asked who she was and the nature of the emergency, she’d hung up. Do you want me to notify Park City P.D.?”
    “No,” I snapped. “What about caller ID? Do