“We could arrest this woman but we’d need a damn good reason. I don’t think ‘she might know where her missing son is’ would fly. Come on, let’s reconvene at the precinct. We’ll think of something.”
As they headed back to the car, Ella heard a gate creak open. She looked around and saw a young girl, no older than eleven, standing beside the house.
“Psst.” The girl ducked her head below a side window. She motioned with her head for the agents to join her. Ella checked the front windows for any sign of the lying mother and saw none, but she might be lurking.
“Ellis, wait by the car, just in case the mom is watching.”
Ella slid over to the young girl beside the house. She too crouched down out of sight. The girl was disheveled and fidgety, her blonde hair tied in one long braid that almost reached her legs.
“Hey, you okay?” Ella asked.
“You’re looking for my brother aren’t you?” the girl whispered.
“Bret? Yes we are. Do you know where he is?”
“Is he gonna get in trouble?”
Ella couldn’t rightly divulge the details of these crimes to such an impressionable mind. “We can’t say for certain, but your brother might have done some bad things. If he has, we need to talk to him. If we don’t, some people might get hurt.”
“I want him to come home. He seemed sick the last time I saw him. I hope he’s okay. He’s not a bad guy. He just struggles with a lot of things.”
“Do you know where he is?” Ella asked.
“Kenny’s house. Pine Street. It’s the house in the middle. The one that smells funny.”
That was enough to go on. “You’re a star. If anyone asks, you didn’t tell me a thing, okay?”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” Ella said. “Now get back inside before your mom catches you.”
The girl nodded and disappeared. Ella saw Paige had driven the car about fifty feet away so Ella could make a discreet escape.
Time to visit Kenny, whoever he might be.
***
The funny smell that Bret’s sister mentioned was marijuana. Ella tasted it from halfway down the block.
Pine Street was equally as shabby as Elm Street and even less populated. There were about ten houses stretched over a mile or so, and Ella assumed that the dilapidated home smack bang in the center belonged to this mysterious Kenny gentleman. They pulled up a stone’s throw from the house so the occupants wouldn’t sense their arrival. They got out of the car.
“I just noticed something on the GPS,” Paige said. “This street is the exact central location between the three murder sites.”
“Good catch.”
“Do you think this is our man?” Paige asked as they sneaked up to the front door.
The pieces fit almost perfectly. Bret Styles was an unhinged psychotic who matched the eyewitness descriptions. He had a military background, owned a chainsaw, and once targeted someone who only had one leg. If this was a game of Clue, it wouldn’t last very long.
“Ninety-five percent of me does. But if I’ve learned anything in this job it’s that coincidences exist.”
Ella readied her knuckles for the door, but then her agent’s intuition kicked in. She was about to enter a house where a violent, unscrupulous, physically capable man dwelled. Going in all guns blazing was probably not the best approach, because times like this only ended one way. Given her levels of frustration, she didn’t trust herself not to cave this guy’s head in with her fist.
Time to delegate a little responsibility.
“Ellis, we’re going to play this one differently. I want you to knock on the door and ask whoever answers if they’re holding.”
“Holding?”