Page 28 of Hard Rain
“He’s using hunting trails,” Axel said, drawing his attention and flipping through another page in the file.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Tina answered immediately.
Axel leaned back slightly. “That explains how he keeps slipping roadblocks.”
Whip watched Axel process the information.
Axel tracked people.
He tracked movement.
Like lining up two halves of the same trail.
Between them, the scattered pieces of the case slowly started fitting together, like landmarks emerging through fog.
Places Cutter knew well enough to disappear into before anybody thought to look twice.
Three years ago, deputies had rescued several young girls from an abandoned trailer outside Silver Lake. Dirty. Scared. Hungry. One had been raped. Cutter had slipped away before law enforcement arrived, carjacked a young man during his escape, murdered him, and vanished into Canada. The FBI had built the trafficking case. The Marshals got the warrant.
Grady started marking search areas across the map in red ink. Tina circled locations while Scott dug through another stack of reports thick enough to bend at the corners from handling.
The whole room carried that stretched-thin feeling law enforcement offices got after too many hours chasing the same problem.
Some thirty minutes later, Whip frowned down at the empty jerky bag sitting beside the maps before looking over at Axel.
“You take the last jerky?”
Axel didn’t even glance up from the paperwork in his hands. “Yeah. Thought maybe starvation would improve your attitude.”
One of the deputies barked out a laugh.
Whip ended up snorting before he could stop himself.
“Smart ass,” he muttered.
Axel actually looked proud.
Grady tapped another spot on the map. “Half the county’s hunting land sits off County Road 12.”
“So do most of our tow calls,” Scott chimed in.
“Y’all remember Axel got a truck stuck out there senior year,” Whip said, leaning back in his chair.
“That fence came outta nowhere.”
Scott frowned. “There ain’t fences in the middle of the road.”
“Exactly. Suspicious,” Axel said, stuffing the last piece of jerky into his mouth.
Tina giggled.
Scott just looked disgusted.
“He lost an argument with a ditch two weeks later,” Whip snorted.
Axel shrugged. “Ditch was aggressive.”
Tina covered a laugh with her hand while Scott looked seconds away from developing a migraine.
