Page 142 of The Deadly Shallows

“I can’t imagine.”

“It ain’t pretty. Whoever said ‘war is hell’ wasn’t lying, but I know you’re here to talk about my derelict brother.” His jaw tightened on the word brother. “Might as well get to it on our walk.”

Noah went straight to the point. “We believe your brother ties in some way to the mass shooting.”

The lines on John’s face tightened. “I knew that boy was going to cause serious trouble one day.”

Noah climbed in the black rented Escalade, his head spinning with all the information John Mirch shared.

“Well, he certainly was helpful,” Brooke said, buckling her seat belt.

“Yes, he was.” He glanced at his phone and saw a text from Emmy asking him to call.

“Call Emmy,” he said to Siri as he pulled out of the lot and headed back to the base gate.

The phone rang twice, and she picked up. “Thorton.”

“Hey, Em. It’s me.”

“Hey, Noah. How’d it go?”

“Really well. Now I need you to work your magic and get me and Brooke on the first flight out to Leavenworth. We need to interview Scott Mirch face-to-face.”

“On it, but before I let you go, Logan and I found two farms where the group might be staying. One is an abandoned forty acres of land in Murrayville. The second is a thirty-acre farm bought by a corporation a year ago out by Skipper’s Corner.”

“Is the corporation legit?” he asked.

“It’s an offshore company. Trent & Foster.”

“Companies don’t buy farms unless they are going to raze them to the ground.”

“And”—he could practically hear Emmy smiling—“I have to do a bit more digging for specifics, but it looks like Trent & Foster deals in cryptocurrency.”

Noah smiled with relief. “I’d say you probably just found our farm.”

“I hope so,” she said.

“But just to be thorough, let’s check the other farm as well. Go ahead and send Logan and Rissi to the Murrayville farm, and Mason and Caleb to Skipper’s Corner.”

“Caleb . . . might be tied up. If so, I can go. He asked that you give him a call when you get the chance. When you’re finished, let me know what you’d like me to do.”

“Okay. Calling him now.”

He’d barely disconnected the call with Emmy when he had Siri dialing Caleb.

“Eason,” Caleb said, picking up on the first ring.

“Em said you wanted me to call?”

“Yeah. I’m afraid I have some bad news.” Caleb cleared his throat. “Lieutenant Caldwell’s body washed up on the base’s shore today.”

“Oh no,” Brooke whispered.

“It looks like she was strangled or forcibly held underwater until she drowned. Finn’s working the crime scene, Hadley is on-site, and since she was Army, we’ve called Army CID in to take over the investigation.”

Noah shook his head. How many people were going to die before this ended? “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Of course. How’d your talk with John Mirch go?”