“Son of a bitch is burning something,” Butler said, his face flushed with anger. “I should have made him talk to me yesterday.”
“Well, we’re going to talk to him now,” Santos said. “But first we have to find him. We’ll serve the warrant and talk to Mrs. Henley, and then you head toward the burn pile and try to make sure he’s not trying to torch any evidence.”
“Be careful,” Butler said. “If Jackson is in the house and drunk, he can be pretty unpredictable.”
“Got it,” Santos said as she and two other deputies approached the house. She saw movement behind the heavy curtains that covered the window. “See that?” Santos asked. The deputy leading the way nodded and her hand moved to her sidearm. On high alert, they picked their way up the broken steps to the front porch.
Santos rapped on the door and identified herself as law enforcement. “Mrs. Henley,” she called out, “we have a warrant to search your property. Please open the door.”
The door opened a crack, and a rheumy blue eye looked back at them. “What’s going on?” June Henley asked.
“Ma’am, I’m Detective Camila Santos of the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, and we have a warrant to search your premises and the adjoining property. Please open the door.” Santos and the other officers waited tensely as June decided what to do.
Detective Levi Robbins was interviewing known sex offenders in the area when he learned two pieces of information that led to the end of his career in law enforcement and a civil lawsuit against the Blake County Sheriff’s Department.
The first was that the body of sixteen-year-old Ethan Doyle had been found buried in a feed bunk in his family’s barn.
“Don’t leave town,” Levi told the scumbag he was questioning.
Levi jumped into his cruiser and headed toward the Doyle farm. That poor family, Levi thought. The only consolation was that Ethan hadn’t been the one to kill his parents and kidnap Becky. But that didn’t change the fact that three-fourths of the Doyle family had been wiped out, and a thirteen-year-old girl was still missing.
Levi’s mind was buzzing with questions when the second piece of information reached him. The state police had worked quickly and were able to trace the number tied to the cruel calls that were made to the Allen family. Tied to the caller who claimed to be Ethan Doyle. The Cutter residence.
Levi’s gut told him to find Brock Cutter. Goddamn Cutter. He had fed them the information that Ethan was homicidal—wanted to kill his parents, that Ethan had something going with the Allen girl. It was all a load of bullshit. So, what did he do? Go to the scene or go after Cutter? Just as he was going to turn off onto the road that led to the Doyle home, Levi decided to go straight toward the Cutter farm. He was going to get some answers.
In the distance, Levi saw a vehicle approaching at a high rate of speed. He tapped his brake and locked eyes with the driver. Cutter. Levi slammed on his brakes, his tires screeching across the pavement, leaving a wake of acrid smoke and skid marks. He made a sharp U-turn, flipped on his lights and sirens, and pressed on the gas.
In front of him, Cutter was speeding up. What the hell? Levi thought.
Levi floored it, and the cruiser screamed forward until he was just behind Cutter’s truck. Why wouldn’t the kid just pull over? Cutter made a quick right onto a gravel road and Levi nearly missed the turn. “Son of a bitch,” Levi cried out as his car nearly went off the road and into a cornfield. He wrenched the steering wheel to the left, and the car straightened out. Still Cutter sped forward. Dust billowed and enveloped both vehicles in a gray cloud. He couldn’t see what was in front of him, beside him, behind him. Chalky dust covered the windshield.
He needed to slow down, but it was too late. The cruiser slammed into the back of Brock Cutter’s truck. The crunch of metal filled his ears and Levi felt his legs snap, felt his torso strain against the strap of the seat belt. He howled in pain, felt his stomach lurch as the car spun round and round until it came to a stop. When Levi opened his eyes, the cruiser’s front was smashed, pinning his legs beneath the steering wheel. Strangely, he didn’t feel much pain, just a heavy pressure on his chest.
He cautiously turned his neck from left to right. At least his neck worked. Next, he tried his toes. He thought they were moving. He wasn’t sure. Slowly the dust cloud around him settled and gradually the world outside the car came into focus. In the bright beam of his headlights, he saw it. Cutter’s truck was nearly split in half by a telephone pole. And there was Brock Cutter, half hanging out of the driver’s side door, knuckles scraping the gravel road, a gaping wound at his neck. He wasn’t moving. How could he? There was so much blood.