AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There may be a connection between him and Varilla,” Charlie suggested.
Before we could enter into a discussion about his suggestion, my phone rang. “Excuse me. It’s Vader,” I said. The room went quiet.
“Hey, Tryst, my department received an anonymous tip about a murder. The caller gave us an address I thought sounded familiar. Turns out it’s where Varilla was living when Luisa Reeve was abducted. The deputies on the scene confirmed two victims, both deceased. I’m headed there now, if you and Jaicon want to meet me there.”
“We will do so. Thank you, Vader.”
While I didn’t have the phone on speaker, those closest to me had overheard the reason for the sheriff’s call.
Brix put his hand on my shoulder. “Looks like we have a lead, Uncle.”
“Many thanks to all of you here tonight. I will be in contact as soon as we know more.”
27
JAICON
“Are you hungry, lass?” Sorcha asked as I waited at Butler Ranch for Tryst’s meeting with Los Caballeros to end.
“I am not, but thank you,” I said, smiling at the woman who made it her mission to feed anyone who visited.
“I never liked Harry Crosby,” she said, almost as though she was talking to herself. “There was always something about that man…”
“How did you know him?”
“He taught at the local high school, but not to my bairns.”
Thus far, everyone I’d talked to about the man said they found him suspicious. What we needed was evidence they were right.
“Tryst has just arrived at the gate,” Laird said, coming in from the front porch.
I was surprised his meeting had concluded so quickly. However, I was stunned when he raced inside.
“Vader called a few minutes ago. Two bodies were found at the house on Calle Caliente.”
“Where Varilla lived for a while, yes?”
“Correct. He’s headed there now and asked if we could meet him.”
Vader metus at the front door. “The exterior of the home is meant to look like this might be a condemned property. The inside tells a different story.”
He led us to a living room, where there was a sofa, chairs, and a large flat-screen television, along with end and coffee tables.
“Follow me,” he said.
We walked down a hallway. Doors were open on either side, where deputies were searching the standard-looking bedrooms.
When we reached the end, the sheriff pulled up a piece of carpeting, revealing a trap door. “This leads to what started out as a crawl space.”
We climbed down a ladder attached to the wall. Once at the bottom, I saw the space had been dug out to create something more like a basement. Metal brackets were attached to the cinder block walls. Crime scene tape surrounded two of them, where blood stains covered the dirt floor beneath two bodies.
“Cause of death was exsanguination—massive blood loss—and suffocation after their trachea was severed when their throats were slit,” the coroner said to Vader when we walked over to him as he examined one of the victims.
“Their teeth were extracted with pliers”—he held up a pair—“and their fingerprints were burned off.”
Vader motioned to other areas in the space. “My guys collected quite a bit of potential DNA evidence. One of them took it to the lab, who’s working on it now.”
“We know these men,” Tryst said.
