“Move your cars. My team will be here in the next hour.”
The two cops exchanged looks.
“I’ll have to call the Sheriff.” The younger reached for his shoulder radio.
“You have one minute to either move your cars or call your sheriff. When that sixty seconds is up, I have an SUV full of soldiers who are going to do it for you. Count starts now.”
Harrington rolled up his window.
The two cops stared.
“I don’t think they’re going to cooperate.” Reese leaned closer to the dash.
“Just wait.”
Reese estimated thirty seconds when both deputies broke and got in their cars. As soon as they’d pulled back, Harrington drove up the driveway.
He stopped under a tree.
“Where’s Phillips?” Rain broke apart Reese’s view.
Harrington opened the door.
“Wait, we’re going to just go out there in the rain?”
“I would have never taken you as a man who’s afraid of getting wet.”
“It’s not the wet that worries me; it’s the pneumonia.”
Harrington got out. His shadow moved through the puddles of light cast by the floodlights on the front of the house.
Reese cursed and shoved open his door. Icy droplets pelted Reese’s neck, weighted down his clothes, and poured ice into his core. He pulled up the hood of his jacket and joined the colonel a few yards away.
Phillips stood in the mists of the downpour closer to the house. Her carefully styled hair plastered to her skin. For some reason seeing her like that made her more human and demanded respect. Despite the rain, she stood with her shoulders back and her chin up while talking to the two officers withering in front of her.
Reese leaned in closer to the colonel. “What do you think she’s saying to them?”
“Probably threatening to feed them their balls if they don’t get out of her way.”
The two cops dashed off in the direction of the cabin. Three yellow tarps in the front yard collected water in the craters formed by the wrinkles.
Other than the two cop cars in the driveway, the place was empty.
“Why isn’t there a crime scene unit out here?” Rainwater dripped into Reese’s eyes and speckled his glasses.
“I think we’re about to find out.” Harrington nodded at Phillips who headed their way.
“A silent alarm was triggered six hours ago, but there’s no sign of Dr. Markus.” She breezed past them in the direction of the SUV. Harrington and Reese followed. “Two county officers responding to the call pulled over a Jeep. There were two male suspects on board. The driver was described as six-four, two hundred and fifty plus, in his early thirties, and naked.”
“Nash.”
Phillips nodded in the direction of the tarps. “If the condition of those bodies is anything to go by, I’m sure he was here.”
“And the person with him was Luca.” Reese made it a statement.
“Nineteen to twenty-one, five-seven, one-forty, one-fifty, Hispanic.”
Reese nodded. “That’s him.”