Page 32 of Her Last Refuge

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Rachel kept the accelerator pressed hard as they headed south toward Chesterfield, where Roy Alcott currently held an address. The car surged forward through late-morning traffic, blasting past anything close to what the posted limits allowed. She changed lanes without waiting for full openings and took the on-ramp at a speed that forced the tires to squeal against the curve. Novak braced one hand against the door frame and kept the other near the grab handle above the window.

“You’re pushing it,” he said.

“I know.” But she didn’t ease off the pedal. The Chesterfield address sat roughly twenty-five minutes out under ordinary conditions. She intended to cut that short by whatever margin the road would give her—and to get in front of the temporary clog of lunchtime traffic. The engine settled into something like a purr as she merged and settled into the left lane.

Novak’s phone buzzed against his thigh at right around the same moment he allowed himself to relax now that Rachel had settled into something close to a tolerable speed. He pulled his phone free, read the message to himself, and then to Rachel.

“Three different officers are already out looking for George Tremaine. They know he isn’t at home but are starting to look at family and friends.”

Rachel nodded once without taking her eyes from the road. “Good. I mean, I hate to use an old man as bait, but I also can’t help but wonder if a police presence will keep Alcott away.”

“In my request, I told them to keep a distance and not to engage unless it was necessary…down to life and death.”

“Perfect,” she said as she took the next exit by adding a bit more speed. As she merged onto the highway, a delivery truck ahead of them forced a hard lane change that left little margin on either side. She held the line and kept the speed. Honestly, she sort of hated how exciting it was to drive fast, to blast through traffic when a case finally broke. It made her feel a bit childish.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. Novak kept watching his phone for any updates on the search for Tremaine, but there were none. And because of Rachel’s expert and risky driving, they arrived at Alcott’s Chesterfield address seven minutes ahead of what the GPS had predicted.

The house was located on a two-lane stretch off of Route 5, not quite rural but far from the noise and congestion of downtown, just twenty minutes away. It wasn’t part of a neighborhood, but a squat little house on an overgrown lot, hugged at the back by a grove of thick trees. When she pulled into the dirt driveway, she noted the beat-up Toyota pickup also parked there.

As for the house, the windows showed no interior light. A detached workshop sat farther back near the tree line, separated from the main structure by a stretch of unmowed grass and a concrete pad.

Rachel killed the engine, shared a quick look with Novak, and they got out. They approached the front door in silence, boots quiet on the walk. Rachel knocked as casually as she could. It echoed slightly in the empty yard. When there was no answer, she knocked again, louder this time. When there was still no answer twenty seconds later, Novak stepped forward and tested the handle. It turned freely, and the door opened onto a short entry that smelled of old carpet and some sort of deodorizer.

They cleared the living room first, and by the time they were halfway through it, Rachel knew the house was vacant. She'd experienced the feeling so many times in the past that it had become something like a second nature to her. Still, she did her due diligence and worked the home.

A couch faced a dark television set against the far wall. A low table held a remote control and a single empty mug with a dried ring at the bottom. Closet doors stood closed along the left side of the room. Rachel opened each one while Novak covered the angles behind her. The first closet held a winter coat and two pairs of shoes. The second held nothing but empty hangers and a folded blanket on the shelf. It was all very sparse and bare.

The kitchen sat to the right of the living room through an open doorway. An older model refrigerator hummed gently against the far wall. The sink held no clutter, the drain slightly rusted. It was hard to tell if Alcott simply didn’t spend much time here or if he kept it very clean.

They started down the small hallway. The first room was a cramped bedroom. The bed was small and made neatly, with a dresser nearly butting against it. The equally small closet held a few collared shirts on hangers and a pair of work boots set neatly on the floor. No one hid behind the hanging fabric or under the bed. Rachel checked the space beneath the frame while Novak held the doorway.

The rest of the house was just as uneventful. They checked the bathroom last. The shower curtain hung open against the far wall, showing a shower just as clean as the kitchen sink. The cabinet under the bathroom sink held cleaning supplies, a spare roll of toilet paper, and a bottle of aspirin. The mirror above the sink showed only their own reflections when Rachel opened the medicine cabinet behind it. No one waited behind the door or in the narrow space beside the tub.

Rachel and Novak stood in the hallway for a moment and listened. The house remained still. No floorboard shifted under residual weight. No breath sounded from any corner they had already cleared. The only noise came from the refrigerator in the kitchen and a clock on the wall.

“Empty,” Novak said.

They moved back through the living room and out the front door, then circled the side of the house toward the workshop out back. The structure sat on a concrete pad with weathered siding and a single window on the near wall. A sheet of black tarp covered the glass completely except for one narrow crack near the bottom edge where the fabric had pulled slightly free of the tape holding it in place.

Novak stopped and pointed at the gap. “Light,” he whispered.

Rachel saw it, too—a thin line of white showed through the crack, faint and muddy but most definitely there.

They approached with weapons drawn and stayed low against the siding until they reached the only door, positioned along the western side. It faced the rear of the property and looked out toward a service road that ran parallel to the tree line. The door itself was an old wooden door, solid and scarred from years of weather. It sat in a heavy frame that had been painted over more than once. Rachel tried the handle, but they didn't get the luck they found with the front door. This one did not turn, and the lock held firm under pressure.

“Locked,” she said.

“You think we’ve got enough cause to use force?”

Rachel knew it was a tough call, but the links they found and the history behind it all seemed almost impossible not to look beyond. "Yeah, I think so."

That was all he needed to hear. Novak shifted his stance, planted his weight on his back foot, and drove his heel into the wood just below the lock plate. The door held on the first kick, but the entire shop seemed to vibrate with the attack. He struck it a second time with more force, putting his full weight behind the motion. The frame splintered near the latch and the door swung inward hard enough to rebound against the interior wall with a dull crack.

A beat of silence followed the impact as Novak strafed inside with his weapon raised. Rachel followed close behind and kept her own weapon trained past his shoulder. The interior of the workshop resolved for less than a second before white light flooded the space without warning.

It came from a work light or a high-powered lamp aimed directly at the doorway, the source somewhere to the left. The light was so severe that it erased every detail of the room for a full second. Rachel raised one arm against the glare, unable to see anything at all. She’d never stared directly at the sun, but she imagined it couldn’t be much worse than this.