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“We just don’t know for sure,” Mark said.
“Well, thank you. We may never have known. The man assisted at our kids’ baseball games! Who would have thought—” Kenworth began.
“He may threaten to sue for unlawful entry or try to get the case thrown out,” Mark warned.
“But he was cocky. He told me to come in and wait when he heard the commotion at the back—Mark and Red,” Ragnar said.
“And I was just catching my dog,” Mark said. “And then we heard all that screaming.”
“If there’s any trouble, we have a legal team to fight him,” Ragnar assured him.
“Our forensic team will be working with yours,” Mark added. “And we will want to question him.”
“Of course. You’ve done us a tremendous service here. That young lady—the paramedic—said she’s going to be okay. She’s dehydrated and half-starved, but the med tech said her vital signs are good. The bastard, the way he held her... Carver must be The Embracer,” Kenworth muttered, shaking his head.
Kenworth was a heavyset man with broad shoulders and a stern face, and from what Mark and Ragnar had gathered on him, he was a good officer. He’d had no problem with others helping out, especially when the man being sought might be heading in the direction of serial murderer.
Killing in his community.
“Again. We don’t know. He kidnapped a woman and was holding her, so it is a possibility. Let him stew in a cell tonight. Tomorrow you’ll have arraigned him, and we’ll work on federal charges. We understand Sally is terrified right now and in need of medical attention before she can tell us much. For tonight, we’re heading back,” Mark told him.
Kenworth nodded. “Of course.”
“We’ll see you in the morning,” Ragnar assured him.
“Can I drop you two—and Red—off anywhere?” Kenworth asked.
“Our car is just down the street,” Ragnar told him. “And we will be here bright and early tomorrow morning. Just make sure you don’t lose our guy tonight!”
“We won’t lose him,” Kenworth said. “These guys are something. Like Carver, I mean. So tough when they attack the vulnerable and the innocent. Not so tough when they’re caught. And we’ve got him now.”
Mark, Ragnar, and Red left the local police and medics to finish dealing with the arrest and the traumatized boy. They headed down the street to their vehicle.
“You want to drive or make the call?” Ragnar asked Mark.
“Whichever,” Mark said.
They had found Sally alive. That made it a damned good day. He smiled.
“You drive, and I’ll let Jackson know we got him,” Mark said.
“Or we could say, Red got him,” Ragnar said as he pat the dog’s head.
Red gave him an approving woof.
“We get to congratulate ourselves today. We made a hell of a team,” Mark said.
He hit the number for Jackson Crow on his speed dial as they reached the car. Red leapt into the back as Mark took his seat in the front.
As Ragnar revved the engine, Mark put the phone on speaker.
Jackson came on quickly.
“Mark and Ragnar here, Jackson. We’ve got you on speaker. We got Carver and Sally,” Mark said.
“Alive?” Jackson asked.
Mark could hear the tension in Jackson’s voice. No matter how long any of them had been at this, they’d always be concerned for the outcome of a chase like this one.
“Yes. We were lucky. Sally was smart, I think. We haven’t been able to talk to her yet; she was frantic, and the ERs suggested I talk to the doctors later, noting she’d probably make sense by morning. But I believe she hid her cell phone at first. Carver eventually found it and ditched it. But the trace led us to the right area, and Angela got the address and the pseudonym info. Red took it from there,” Mark told their field director. “Lieutenant Kenworth has taken Carver into custody. We’ll head back here in the morning, hitting the hospital first to talk to Sally, and we’ll visit Carver before the state arraignment. We also told Kenworth about our ‘anonymous’ tip about Carver, but didn’t get into details.”
It was true they’d received a tip. He just hadn’t told Kenworth it had come from a dead man.
“Ragnar needs to see Carver tonight,” Jackson said.
Mark was surprised. “Jackson, you’re the one who usually wants us to let them stew a bit—”
“Not this time. And Ragnar needs to hit Carver on his own. I’m going to need you—and Red—now.”
“Jackson,” Mark said, frowning, “I know we don’t know if Carver is The Embracer, but I’m not sure that—”
“We don’t know enough at this moment, and we need everything and anything we can get. We don’t know if Carver is clever, has other names, or if he has another stash house,” Jackson said. “Regardless of whether he’s been working on his own, I need you and Red now, before another young woman dies. Carver may be the one and only Embracer. Or he’s a copycat. Or there is a copycat still out there.”
“What makes you say that?” Ragnar asked, frowning quickly at Mark as he drove.
“There’s been another kidnapping,” Jackson told them. “Dierdre Ayers. She didn’t come home last night, and we can’t waste any time. Now that Carver has been taken in, we need to find Dierdre Ayers fast. If we don’t, she could starve or dehydrate or worse. Or, more than one person has been carrying out these kidnappings and murders. An accomplice or a copycat might get spooked; Carver’s arrest could speed up their timeline.”
“Do we have anything to go on at this point? A phone trace? Anything?” Mark asked.
“We have Red,” Jackson said. “And we have a new agent. Ragnar will start on Carver right away. Meanwhile, I’m going to be pairing Mark up with one of our newest Krewe members.”
“Jackson—” Mark began.
But Jackson was gone.
He shook his head, glancing at Ragnar. They worked well together; they had been partners for a year, and time had given them a level of communication—a sometimes silent one—that allowed them to make the right moves to cover one another.
Red and Ragnar worked well together too. Red was Mark’s dog and his loyalty went to Mark, but Ragnar was his next most beloved human.
Ragnar shrugged. “Hey. We’re a good team. Or trio, I should say. But we are talking life-and-death. And whatever this new person can bring to the table, well, Jackson said it was a life-and-death situation. Seems strange to throw a rookie in on this, but I trust Jackson. And it doesn’t sound like we have so much as an anonymous tip.”
The tip that had led them to Carver—who’d already been a person of interest—had come from Sergeant Alfie Parker, who’d been dead since 2018, but he was still patrolling his old route—and was adept at hitchhiking to the offices of their special unit—the “Krewe of Hunters” unit. Parker had seen Carver drag a woman back into the house after she had come flying out the front door, frantic. He had known immediately that the woman was in trouble, and had made his way to Krewe headquarters as fast as he could.
