Noaz (Van Doren #2)

33. Briar

33

brIAR

My heart is racing, and I’m not sure what to expect at this point. I’ve taken in a lot of information since we left this afternoon, all of which feels too big to be real. My partner is a killer. I’m trying to make peace with the idea because they kill the bad guys. That makes it okay, right? They’re killing people who have killed the innocent. That’s like balancing out karma.

I might be freaking out about it a little more if Miranda and our unborn baby weren’t missing. Overall, I feel a little numb. Like I’m living in a movie. Because this can’t be real. This isn’t happening to me. This is the kind of thing you see on the news and maybe your heart goes out to the people going through it.

It doesn’t happen in real life. Not to people you know. And definitely not to yourself.

“You okay?” Noaz asks.

Taking a breath, I nod. “Yep. Just thinking about how horrifically surreal this is.”

They nod, mirroring my single bob. “Yeah, I know. I’m really afraid of what we’re going to learn.”

“You think Voss found something?”

“Yes.”

“Did he find Miranda?”

Noaz shakes their head. “No. If he did, he’d be sending us there right away.”

“I don’t want to sound like a downer or like the glass is half empty, but I feel like time is running out.”

“I know,” they say, voice quiet. I can feel their fear. “Me too.”

I reach for their hand and maybe it’s not safe, but that’s how we drive the rest of the way to the house in Rock City. I’ve been here before; we stayed in the house a few times during our visits to Miranda, sometimes opting to stay in a hotel closer to where we were meeting her.

However, I think I’ve only seen a third of it. We were here on a mission in the past and I never looked around. Noaz has me drop the suitcase by the door and after locking up, they lead me upstairs.

One of the rooms has a large television on the wall and a bunch of recliners in a semicircle facing it. Noaz shuts the door and reaches for the remote. I’m both surprised and not surprised to watch as they open the armrest of one of the seats and pull out a keyboard.

The blue screen of the television changes to black and the Van Doren logo moves around slowly, hovering and bouncing gently off the screen walls like an old-school sleep mode on the computer. They click another button and look at me.

“Sit, Briar.”

I take a seat beside them as the quiet ringing of a phone fills the air. The sound the phone makes when we’re the one dialing .

It’s less than thirty seconds before the call is answered, however, it’s not just Voss on the other end. Jalon’s there in a big conference room with Voss, Myro, Loren, the triplets, and Kairo. Part of me wonders where Oakley is.

Another square on the screen is Oxley. The third is another large conference room with only Arath and Elgin. Elgin and I are the only non-Van Dorens in the bunch. Although, I could be considered a Van Doren since I married one, right?

“What did you find?” Noaz asks.

“The most interesting thing you sent was about the daughter’s friend mentioning a pregnant neighbor disappeared last year, so I followed that trail.”

The screen flickers, changing so we were no longer looking at the little squares of everyone. Though, truth be told, the size of the screen meant those squares were actually quite large.

Now we’re looking at a map of Colorado. It zooms in and little dots start populating rapidly. Far too many to count and clustered in a wide radius around Denver and Colorado Springs in an oval.

“In the last eight years, over fifty pregnant women have been reported missing,” Voss says and my breath catches. “All except one have vanished without a trace between their thirty-seventh and thirty-ninth weeks of gestation.”

“The outlier?” Jalon asks.

“Twenty-two weeks. Her body was found and the reports say her boyfriend killed her. The boyfriend is still in prison on two counts of manslaughter.”

Chills race over my body. I feel like I’m hovering over us in the room, watching from a distance. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening right now .

“Other similarities?” Noaz asks.

“I’d like to tell you they all had something specific in common besides their pregnancies, but not really. Different OB/GYNs. Different adoption agencies when applicable. Up until the past couple years, different precincts were investigating until Detective Anthony Malone took over.”

“Have you looked into him?” I ask. “He’s determined to convince everyone she ran away.”

The map of Colorado disappears and the three boxes with the Van Dorens take their place again. Voss is nodding. “He was assigned his first case in this series three years ago when one of the women was abducted from his jurisdiction. From what I can find, he pushed to create a task force.”

“That ultimately led to only himself being on it,” Imry says.

Voss nods again. “Correct. I can’t tell if there were budget issues or what the deal was. I’m still digging that up, but since I’m not sure that’s relevant to finding Miranda right now, it’s not a top priority.”

“Okay, fine. How do we find her?” Noaz asks.

“I’ve patched myself into as many security cameras all over the area as possible, looking for anything that might be promising: a warehouse, a cemetery, any abandoned buildings. Hell, a suburban Victorian. It’s not a quick process. I have a few people working on systematically poking around private cameras connected to the internet for anything that might be useful.”

“Nothing?” Noaz asks. I can hear the distress in their voice. Their distress makes mine spike.

I’m staring at the screen, still feeling like I’m watching from outside my body. Staring at all the faces in the squares in front of me. Jalon, looking like a king, regal and stoic. Kairo, looking like a grouch, but keeping studiously silent. The triplets’ heads are bowed together over a tablet. Oxley is staring into the screen. I’d think maybe his feed is frozen except he blinks regularly. In Arath’s box, Elgin takes the laptop that’s in front of Arath and slides it in front of himself. Arath doesn’t seem to notice as he stares at us through his own screen.

“Where does the detective live?” Loren asks.

“We looked at his house. He has an acre of land, mostly wooded. I’ve already sent someone to comb it over. However, his neighborhood is covered in security cameras, including his own house. We haven’t gone further back than the last week since we’re specifically looking for Miranda and we know she disappeared just over three days ago. I’m happy to report he lives on a pretty boring street,” Voss says.

Loren frowns. “I think it’s the cop.”

“I do too,” Noaz agrees.

Voss nods. “He’s acting suspiciously enough in his lack of actual investigation that I think we’re all leaning toward the cop.”

“Can you trace Miranda and follow her?” I ask.

“Done that. She heads down an alley right outside her employer’s building and we don’t see her again. While we can’t see into the alley and I’m currently still scoping out all the dark spots to make a map of possibilities, the doors in the alley that lead into buildings have cameras facing them on the inside. She didn’t go back inside any of the buildings as far as we can see.”

“But that’s a direction,” Imry says, almost absently. “These blueprints overlaid with the camera map show a very clear route she must have taken. She comes out on the east side of the building’s diagonal from her employer’s office. ”

“Which, conveniently, is a blind spot for the cameras for three or four car lengths,” Avory says.

“So we know where she was picked up,” Noaz says. “What about the cameras on either side of that blind spot?”

“I’m already running plates during that window of time and investigating whether there’s a connection between the owner of the vehicle and Miranda.”

Elgin leans into Arath and says something. Arath nods. Elgin’s voice is low enough that it only sounds like a murmur, but whatever he says has Arath sitting straighter and pulling the laptop toward him.

I hold my breath and wait. Voss continues to talk about something, but I’m staring at the one screen.

Arath looks up. “Stop. Drop all of that for a minute. We need to search for any property the detective might own under different names.”

Voss nods. He seems to switch gears without question.

“What did you find?” Jalon asks.

“Records show that the officer assigned to each case is different, depending on the precinct right up until the first one in Malone’s jurisdiction. However, Malone’s name is in each of the first ten case files as someone who assisted with the investigation. Once it’s abbreviated to Det AM, so we’re still operating on the premise that they’re referring to Malone,” Arath says.

“I knew it was the cop,” Loren says.

“He owns some land in Utah, in Maine, and in… Africa?” Voss says, tilting his head. “That’s not weird at all.”

“Wait,” Imry says. “Look at the houses he owns. Those are just parcels of land, but he owns houses all across the US. In a straight line, coast to coast.”

“A trail. That’s convenient,” Voss says. The screen flickers with more feeds. Dozens of little screens pop up that are clearly security feeds.

“What’re we looking at?” Noaz asks, leaning forward.

“Feeds from the houses. Conveniently, they’re all tied into a primary system, likely so he can watch them all. Which means we’re also peeking in on locations that don’t seem to fall into line with these houses,” Voss says.

The four boxes containing our images drop to line the bottom of the screen. The security cameras continue to come to life on the top, creating row after row. Between those feeds and our boxes, a map appears. Dots come to life. Every time a new camera shows up, a new dot appears.

“He’s watching a lot of places,” Avory notes.

“There,” Elgin says. We can see him stand and point at the screen. Then he’s rounding the table and closer as he points.

“Second row. Third from the right,” Arath says.

I know I’m not the only one searching the feeds. Voss finds it first and blows it up. My breath catches. We’re looking at a nursery where there are two newborns being overseen by a nurse.

“Oh, my god,” I whisper.

“Where is that?” Noaz asks, getting to their feet and pulling me with them.

“Hold on,” Jalon says.

That screen shifts to the right and the map zooms in on an area west of Denver. It looks barren. It looks? —

“That’s the property he has a picture of on his wall,” Noaz shouts. “Fucker. He was announcing his guilt right in front of everyone!”

“He… ah. He owns the land under a different name,” Voss says. The map of the US gets bigger again and more dots appear. Now we’re crisscrossing the continent.

Yeah, I feel sick.

“What is this? What is he doing?” Imry asks, looking disgusted.

“He’s built his own messed up version of the Underground Railroad,” Oxley says. “He’s created highways with safe zones that he owns all across the country. When one path is blocked, he can take another to reach anywhere on either coast of the US.”

“Look at the center,” Voss directs and zooms back in. Right on the barren piece of land. “If this were a wheel and Denver was the center of the US, we’d be looking at the center and all the little spokes move out of here.”

“Go,” Jalon says. “Cameras and coms at all times. I’m sending Loren.”

Noaz nods. With my hand still in theirs, they pull me from the room without bothering to disconnect the call. We’re racing down the stairs and through the house, into the garage. He finally lets me go as he crosses the space and shoves aside a large shelf on wheels filled with totes. One of those new trends that you see all over the internet about using DIYing a system to store your totes.

I’m only slightly impressed with the shelving, but am far too distracted by what Noaz opens next to truly appreciate it. The wall behind the totes appears to be nothing but drywall opens like a vault door and I’m looking at a fucking arsenal.

“Oh,” I breathe, staring .

“Come here,” Noaz calls.

It takes me a minute to unstick my feet from the concrete. They’re pulling articles of clothing from shelves and tossing them to me before stripping and changing themselves. We’re not wearing black, but dull military green and brown. We’re dressed to blend into the mountainous desert.

I strip down and dress again with the clothes handed to me. Then put on the boots tossed by my feet. Under different circumstances, I’d be impressed they grabbed clothes that fit me exactly right, including the boots.

Noaz pulls out a big duffle and sets it at their feet. “Can you shoot?” they ask me for the second time today.

“I guess we’ll see,” I say as I step up alongside them. “Give me something easy.”

They nod, hands hovering. “Do you think you’d prefer something big or small?”

“In your opinion, which is easier?”

“Big. I find them less wieldy and easier to get off an accurate shot from a distance. It also gives you the added benefit of using it as a close-range weapon to hit them with.” Noaz pulls one off the wall. I’m not going to pretend to know what I’m looking at. Guns never interested me, but now I’m kind of wishing I had a bit of training.

Noaz hands it to me and gives me a quick lesson on how to hold it. How to load it and change the magazine. Where the safety is. They add a scope so I can see exactly where I’m shooting.

“My goal is to not let you get into a position where you need to use this, but understand they won’t hesitate to kill you. You need to kill them first. Understand?”

I nod. My insides feel cold. “Yes. ”

Noaz takes the rifle from me and sets it in the bag along with a few more knives, a machete, some rope, and fuck knows what else. Then they toss it in the back of a gray SUV. Next comes Kevlar. Then electronics. I watch as they test the mics and cameras before adding them to a much smaller padded case.

Then Noaz closes the arsenal so it seamlessly disappears and moves the tote storage back. I wonder what the odds are that the police would find that right away.

Noaz’s hands frame either side of my face. “Last chance, Briar. Are you sure you don’t want to stay here?”

I shake my head. “I’m not letting you go alone.”

“That’s not a good enough reason. I’ve been doing this since I was sixteen; I know what I’m doing. I know how to disassociate. There’s zero shame in not wanting to be a part of this. This is the kind of thing that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Every time you close your eyes, Briar. I’ll get Miranda and bring her and our baby home to you. You don’t have to come with me.”

I take just a moment to think about it, but the thought that they’re walking into a wolf’s den by themselves makes me shake my head. If they’d wait for Loren, maybe. But I understand why we can’t. I can almost hear the clock ticking and when those ticks stop, time’s up and we’ll be too late.

“No. I’m coming.”

Noaz nods. “I might argue if we were a day earlier. I see you struggling. But we don’t have the time to argue. Get in the car and buckle up.”

I do as I’m told and stare at the road as we drive. The only thing I can think is, please don’t let us be too late.