Disturbance (29 page)

The lodge was designed so that it could have operated as a small inn even without the cabins. Several of the rooms were connected by shared bathrooms, which meant that someone could easily move unseen into a room they had already searched and wait for an opportunity to ambush them. Because of that, despite Jack’s “test,” once they were past the front entrance, they seldom spoke.

The floors were wooden, although there was carpet in the hallways. Once they were off the carpet, it was hard to move quietly. Inevitably, boards in older buildings squeaked.

Frank’s flashlight had a strobe setting on it, and as they
entered each room, he used that feature, which would make it harder for any attacker to see them.

One of the first rooms they came across was a small office. Paperwork lying atop a desk was addressed to Quinn Moore.

“So it’s his place?” Jack asked.

“Looks like it.”

“Could you be in trouble for breaking and entering here?”

“Not as much trouble as I think he’s going to be in.”

They entered a commercial-sized kitchen, where they discovered a set of concrete stairs leading to what appeared to be a cellar, and as they hurried down them, Frank found himself wondering if he would find Irene held captive there. The heavy door was unlocked. As he cautiously pushed it open, he thought of Kai Loudon’s basement and felt a stab of fear about what an unlocked door might mean.

Frank recognized a familiar scent—gun oil. His hand located a wall switch, and the room flooded with light. Even recognizing that scent, he was unprepared for what met his eyes.

“Holy shit,” Jack said.

“Everything okay?” Ben asked.

“We’ve found an arsenal,” Frank said.

The room, which had probably once served as storage for food, wine, or kitchen supplies, was now lined with cases holding neat rows of weapons—mostly knives but also handguns, rifles, and assault weapons. A closer look showed additional stores of ammunition and explosives.

“Why leave weapons behind?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” Frank said. “Maybe they wanted flexibility, and these guns and explosives just didn’t suit their plans. Maybe these all belong to Quinn Moore and he didn’t want to share.” He took a closer look at the explosives and shook his head. “They’re lucky they didn’t blast themselves into the middle of next week.”

Ben’s voice came over the headset. “Maybe those are supplies for his army of Moths.”

“Maybe,” Frank said, relaying Ben’s guess to Jack.

“Possible,” Jack said.

“Let’s do a quick barricade of the stairway and then get on upstairs.”

Jack worked with him to block the door into the armory with some heavy sacks of flour and a table and chairs.

At the top of the stairs leading to the second floor, Frank saw bloodstains on the hallway carpet. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing, to stay focused.
Don’t assume it’s her blood. Approach it like any other scene. Try to figure out what happened here.

He wanted to search the other rooms as soon as possible, so it was going to be a quick study in any case. He could see bullet holes in the walls and clear signs of bullet damage to a small wooden table. He did no more than glance at them—he knew that touching the bullet holes would completely screw things up for the San Bernardino evidence team—but it appeared that weapons of differing calibers had been used. And the patterns of stains and damage seemed to indicate that two individuals had been hit. The stains were just outside two rooms, a bathroom at the other end of the hall and a bedroom.

Quinn Moore’s injuries came to mind. It wouldn’t be hard to compare DNA here to the DNA found on his bloodstained clothing. Frank made a mental note to mention Celox to the SBSD lab.

Three of the rooms nearest the gunfight had recently been slept in—unlike in other rooms they checked, there was bedding on the mattresses in these rooms. One of the pillowcases had bloodstains on it.

Next they came across the room that housed the security system’s monitors. All the cameras and alarms were off.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jack said.

“It does if you’re expecting company. Company you want to give access to or company you want to trap.”

They opened room after room with no sign of Irene, their search speeding up until they came to a set of rooms with dead-bolt locks and exchanged a glance as they tried the first one. It opened easily and the room was empty, but it was clear someone had slept in the bed.

Frank leaned close to the pillow, saw a strand of long black hair on it. Took a deep breath. Drew in her scent.

“Ben,” he said into his headset, in a voice that was not quite his own, “bring the dogs in, will you?”

“Sure. Are you all right?”

Before he could reply, Jack signaled for quiet, laying a finger along his lips and nodding his head toward an adjoining room.

Frank looked a question.

Jack drew closer to him and said, in barely more than a whisper, “Thought I heard footsteps.”

“Ben, wait, stay put for now,” Frank murmured into the headset.

He listened and heard a faint noise. He motioned to Jack to stay back, drew his gun, and opened the door. It was a bathroom. He checked the shower, which was empty, then stood as still as possible and listened at the connecting door.

He heard it again, an odd sound. But not footsteps.

He turned out the bathroom light and waited in the darkness for a long moment. He had the strobing flashlight ready to go, held out to his left. He had checked the door, noting that the hinges were on the other side, and positioned himself to take advantage of what cover the door itself could offer him, weapon ready. He took a breath, let it out, and then opened the door quickly, strobe light on, moving fast to avoid making a target of himself. But there was plenty of light in the room, coming from
an open door to the hallway. Enough light to allow him to see that no one was standing anywhere in the room, although it was not empty.

A hospital bed held a frail woman. Her mouth and neck and chest were covered in blood, but her eyes were wide open. She was staring at him.

“Frank?” Jack said softly from behind him.

Frank hurried over to the bed. “Violet Loudon?” he asked, and she blinked at him.

It took only seconds for him to register that she was blinking in Morse code.

Hurry. He escapes. I am not hurt. Bit his nose.

“You heard footsteps!” Frank said to Jack. “She sure as hell didn’t make them or open that door!”

They ran into the hallway, but in the next moment they heard a door slam downstairs.

“Ben,” Frank said, “watch out—he may be coming your way.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know yet. A male with damage to his nose. He just ran out of here.”

The man never ran past Ben and Ethan. Jack stayed behind to guard Violet while Frank followed a trail of blood drops leading from a back door toward the trees. The sky was lightening, but he could see no sign of the man. He was just about to call Ben to bring the dogs when he heard a motorcycle starting up. He ran toward the sound but had to move carefully through the trees and over the uneven ground.

He soon reached a narrow dirt maintenance road and heard the bike retreating over it but didn’t catch so much as a glimpse of the rider.

B
en,” Frank said as he moved back toward the lodge, “I’m thinking maybe it’s time to give San Bernardino a call. By the time they get someone over here, Jack and I can be at the airfield. I’d prefer to have you come along with us, but I don’t want to leave Violet Loudon here alone.”

“Agreed. Ethan’s offered to stay here. He’s been talking to Jack on his phone.”

“Good.”

“I think you should spend a few minutes with her first, though. Jack’s been getting some information from her that you may find useful.”

“He knows Morse code?”

“He said he learned it as a Cub Scout but at this point can’t remember anything beyond ‘SOS.’”

“Jack was a Cub Scout?”

“Yeah, Ethan’s already giving him endless shit. Anyway, Jack’s pulled up some site about Morse code on his phone. He’s been painstakingly writing out the pattern she blinks and then translating it.”

“Okay, I’ll be up there in a minute, but we need to get the
sheriff onto trying to find the guy on that bike. And the SBSD has the manpower to really search these grounds.”

“Will do. Cliff Garnett?”

Ben and Frank had both worked on cases with Garrnett, an old friend and homicide detective with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

“Cliff would be ideal, at least as a starting contact point—but he’s not likely to get the case, since we all know one another.”

When Frank reached the upstairs
room again, Jack had cleaned off most of the blood on Violet’s face, which would probably piss off some lab guy, but there was, after all, lots more on her neck and clothing. Jack was giving her water when Frank walked in.

“Violet says the noseless one has been by here before. She said his name is Roderick Beignet, and he lives in Las Piernas. She described him to me. Heavyset, reddish brown hair, blue eyes. Not young—maybe about sixty.”

“That helps a lot. I’ll need to make some phone calls to Las Piernas once we’re on our way.” Frank turned to Violet. “Your doctors led us to believe you could not communicate.”

She smiled slightly, but it was Jack who answered for her. “We talked about that. She learned Morse code from Donovan.”

“Donovan?”

“One of Parrish’s sons. I got this from her in an abbreviated form, but if I made it out right, she said Kai, Quinn, and Donovan are half brothers. Parrish, Kai, and Donovan took Irene from here. Donovan told her that if that ever happened, Parrish would probably take them to the Sierras, not the old location but near there. Parrish is comfortable there.”

“Who is this guy Donovan? Other than one of the half brothers?”

They both looked to Violet.

Pilot. Forced to help Nick.

“Forced how?”

Don’t know.

“What was Roderick doing here?”

Said Nick sent. He heard you come in. Leaned over me. I bit.

Ethan arrived and introduced himself
to Violet.

“You know Morse code?” Frank asked.

“Um … no. I mean, just SOS. Dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash. Right?”

“That’s O-S-O,” Jack said, rolling his eyes. “So unless you want a Spanish-speaking bear to come to your rescue, don’t ever use that one if your boat is sinking.”

Ethan looked at Violet, smiled charmingly, and said, “Will you teach me?”

“Ethan …,” Jack said.

But she had already blinked a response.

“Was that yes?”

“Yes,” Frank said.

“Christ,” Jack said.

“He’s a quick study,” Frank said.

“Maybe, but we shouldn’t leave them here alone,” Jack said. “Who knows how many more of his Moths Parrish has hanging around?”

“Just go,” Ethan said. “Frank has to get out of here. Cliff told Ben they’d have a patrol car here soon, and God knows how many other cops are going to be here right after that. If Frank is sitting here when they arrive, this is all going to go to sh—” He looked at Violet and said, “Sorry. It’s all going to be wrecked.”

Violet blinked, and Frank and Jack exchanged a glance.

“What did she say?”

“Something worse than you were going to say,” Frank answered. “You have your gun?”

“Yes, and Ben mentioned that I was armed but would not be shooting any deputies today.”

“Did Ben mention that Frank and I were here?”

“No, but Cliff is suspicious. Wanted Ben to wait around, but Ben told him he was already gone and wasn’t coming back—so you two get the hell out. Find Irene. I’ve got to learn Morse code.”

Frank could see what Ethan wasn’t saying, knew that he wanted to be going with them but also recognized that, of the four of them, he was the best choice to stay behind.

“Thanks, Ethan. We’ll try to meet up a little later. You want us to leave a dog here with you?”

“No, but Ben wants to drive his car to the Sikorsky because he’s doesn’t want to shift all the dog stuff to the other car. So leave your keys, if you don’t mind.”

Frank called Pete as they
made their way to the airfield. Pete let him know he wasn’t happy with him for not telling him about the text message, not calling in the bomb squad when he found the Ford Escape on Jacaranda Street, not reporting finding the vehicle immediately, borrowing lock picks from his wife (Rachel had insisted that Frank not tell her any details so that she wouldn’t have to lie to Pete), leaving his partner of many years behind in Las Piernas, and half a dozen other aspects of the situation—all before Frank told him about anything that had happened once they reached Quinn Moore’s mountain lodge.

“Pete,” Frank said when his partner finally drew a breath. “Listen up. You can help me, or you can bitch about my doing
my level best not to get the captain as pissed off at you as he will be with me.”

“You think I give a flying fuck about that?”

“Not for a minute. But I’m not going to ask you to sink your career along with mine.”

Pete fell silent. It was an unhappy silence, but Frank took advantage of it and told him about the mysterious Donovan, assuming the man had told Violet his real name. He told him about Quinn’s and Donovan’s family ties to Kai and Parrish. “There’s someone else—he may be headed to Las Piernas right now. His name is Roderick Beignet.” He gave Pete the description and told him about the attack on Violet. “Vince and Reed need to know all of this, of course.”

“Talk about people who are going to be pissed off at you …”

“Like you, they’re friends,” Frank said. “I hope they’ll forgive me for it. Thanks, Pete.” He said good-bye before his partner could start a second tirade.

They were within sight of the helicopter when Frank got a text message from Ethan.

All OK. SBSD just arrived.

Then he texted a line of Morse code that spelled out “Tell Jack I said hi.”

“Sometimes that kid scares the shit out of me,” Jack said.