Game ON (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 2) (Redemption Thriller Series 14) Read online

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Well, for starters,” Betty said, leaning in closer, “Fred Willard worships money more than the Good Lord above.”

  I gave a slow nod. Carol turned her shoulders, as if she were trying to block anyone from seeing or hearing her friend.

  “He basically shut down two other donut shops,” Betty said. Her earrings shook nonstop for a few seconds after she nodded.

  “How could he do that?”

  “He’s on the planning and zoning commission,” Carol whispered. “He’s almost like…” Her beady eyes darted around before settling on me. “Now don’t laugh or anything. But he thinks he’s the Godfather or something.”

  As she suggested, I tried not to laugh. In fact, I tried to show off whatever scowl I could muster.

  “We’re not kidding,” Carol said. “Somehow he pushed through—”

  “Bribed is probably more like it,” Betty said, her jaw suddenly stiff.

  Carol nodded toward her friend. “Maybe. Probably. But he persuaded the rest of the commission to basically change the zoning for two other rival businesses after they’d already been open.”

  I stuck a hand in my pocket, tried to look interested. I was sure this gossip created quite the buzz. To me, it was petty, small-town politics. And certainly nothing that would help me learn more about Camp Israel and finding Mackenzie.

  The people in front of us were taking forever to order, so I took the opportunity to pivot the conversation.

  “Are you a fan of the Mountaineers?” I asked Betty. “Lovely earrings, by the way.”

  She tilted her head, put a hand to her ear. “These were a gift from my son, Earl. He went to school at WVA, and he gave these to me as a gift when he graduated.”

  “Very nice of him to take care of his mom.”

  “Did you know he’s actually a bit of a local hero?” Carol asked, touching my arm again.

  “Oh, Carol, you don’t have to brag about Earl.” Betty tried to sound modest, but it had the opposite effect.

  “Now you have me really intrigued,” I said.

  “Earl works in the sheriff’s department in Kanawha County. That’s the largest county in the entire state.”

  A single nod, waiting for more. Hoping for more.

  “Well, about a year ago or so—”

  Betty interrupted. “It was actually more like fifteen months, if you want to be exact, Carol.”

  “Okay, fifteen months ago, Earl helped take down the most vile set of criminals this state has ever seen.” Hand on my arm again.

  “Police put their lives on the line every day. It’s a tough job,” I said.

  “Well, he was exactly in the direct line of fire,” Betty said.

  “True,” her friend agreed. “But he was on the scene during the original FBI bust on that Camp Israel.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. “I think I read something about that. He was involved, huh?”

  “Like I said. He didn’t get shot at. But he was there within a couple of hours. He worked right alongside the FBI, and he helped those poor people, who were essentially held hostage in that compound. A couple of religious zealots were running that place, brutalizing women, even young girls. It was just the most awful thing. In fact, they had planned on killing most of the remaining people on the compound had it not been for a couple of FBI agents who stormed the place.”

  I could feel my palms go sweaty, and I pulled them from my pockets. “That’s an amazing story. And Betty, you should feel very proud of your son.”

  “Thank you…”

  “Ozzie.”

  “Ozzie.” She pronounced the syllables as if she were in the first grade. “Well, Earl hasn’t told his boss yet, but he has hopes of applying to get into the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.”

  “I’m sure he’d make a fine federal agent.”

  We made it to the front of the line. The only options were the ones lined with grease and fat. I purchased half a dozen kolaches and two coffees.

  “Well, Ozzie, it was so nice meeting you. You seem like a nice young man,” Carol said at the door as she slipped on her gloves. “Did you say you had a girlfriend or wife?”

  I’d slipped up on that earlier. But I’d told the sheriff she was my wife. Better to stick with one story, since the town was so small.

  “We actually just got married.”

  “Well, how exciting. Are you two thinking of kids?”

  I could feel my chest tighten. “It’s come up in conversation recently,” I said with a smile.

  They started to walk out. This time, I touched Betty’s arm. “My wife and I are real explorers and very curious. About how long would it take us to drive to this compound and check it out?”

  “Oh, I get what you mean. It’s like those ax murders a dozen years ago. Everyone who came through town wanted to see where these horrible crimes took place. So, we know lots of people who go out to Camp Israel. From what I understand, they have the whole perimeter locked down. And it’s basically abandoned. Not sure what the government will do with fifty acres out on the side of a mountain.”

  “Locked down, huh?”

  “Well, between you and me, Earl said the easiest way to get in there and really see the buildings and such is to enter on the northeast side. There’s a fence, but you can scale it.”

  “Maybe we’ll just take a few pictures,” I said.

  I pushed open the door, and we all walked outside. The blustery wind bit into my exposed skin.

  “There’s Peggy’s Apparel around the corner,” Carol said, pointing over my shoulder. “You do any hiking in these parts and you’ll freeze your little acorns off.” She giggled, and Betty did her seal impression.

  I waved goodbye and scooted toward the car.

  24

  My phone buzzed as I juggled two coffees and the box of kolaches, trying not to slip on the snow while opening the car door. If Sheriff Tom Kupchak had seen that graceful act, he probably would have hauled me off to jail for public intoxication or some other fictional charge.

  Once inside the car—my hands now soaked with coffee—I saw that I’d missed a call from Brook, my detective friend from the Austin police force. I turned on the car, cranked the heat, and called her back.

  “You’re alive.”

  “That’s quite a greeting. Hello to you too,” I said, searching the car for a napkin to wipe my hands.

  “I didn’t know what was going on. You kind of left me hanging after your frantic call the other night.”

  “I’ve been…busy.”

  “With what? Wait, don’t bother with all that right now. Just tell me that you have your daughter, Mackenzie.”

  A sigh. “No. Not yet. We have hope, though. I just wonder if it’s false hope at this point.”

  “From what I know of you, Oz, you’re usually not one to speak in such vague terms.”

  I found a napkin, cleaned off my hands, and rubbed my eyes. A weariness had settled in. I’d been masking it with occasional bursts of adrenaline. At the moment, my brain didn’t have the capability to parse through what I should or shouldn’t share with Brook. After all, she was a law-enforcement officer.

  “Look, we’re following this lead that was given to us at Denise’s apartment.”

  “How promising is it?”

  “Promising. Well, it was given to us in the form of a riddle.”

  “You mean like Batman and Robin?”

  “I wish I could laugh. Kind of, yes.”

  She asked for the content of the note, and I recited it to her. I heard a sigh, and maybe an under-the-breath string of cuss words, but I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t really care.

  She asked my opinion on the yakuza’s involvement.

  “Who the hell knows at this point? Keo, at first, had his suspicions. And then his friend, Humala, spoke to her yakuza contact. He denied it but, again, didn’t rule out the possibility of some splinter group acting irrationally and doing its own thing. But sitting here wi
th snow all around me in the middle of the hills of West Virginia, it’s—”

  “You’re where?

  “Oh. I forgot to tell you how we solved the riddle. Or at least we think we did.”

  I briefly walked her through our thought process for the three pieces of the riddle. I didn’t hear anything for a few seconds. I felt behind my ear and made sure my hearing aid was turned up. It was.

  “Are you still there, Brook?”

  “I’m thinking. Your logic, more or less, makes sense. But this could all be a farce, just to get you to run across the country when Mackenzie is still in Hawaii.”

  A pang of unease took hold of my gut. Part of me wanted to lash out at someone, and right now Brook was the easy choice. I picked up one of the coffees and sipped it, felt the heat slither down my chest. And then I took a deep breath. “What you said is possible. We had to make a decision. I wanted to go by myself and have Denise stay in Hawaii, but she insisted. Besides, I’d be worried for her safety if she wasn’t with me. Then again, I was with her at her apartment when we were assaulted by a tank and guy with nunchucks.”

  That led to another debrief and ten more questions. I was beginning to feel like I was being interrogated, but I knew she meant well. Hell, she was one of the few people I trusted.

  I put the car in reverse and slowly made my way out of the parking area.

  “Any major injuries?” she asked after a few seconds.

  “A few bumps and cuts. A normal day at the office, at least in the last week or two.”

  “Damn, you’ve been put through hell. So, here’s the thing, Oz. I think we might want to take a step back and reassess how you….we move forward on this thing.”

  “We?”

  “That’s right, I said ‘we.’ You and Denise are not in this alone. You can’t be.”

  Her direct nature was actually helping, making me feel like someone in this world gave a damn.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  “This Camp Israel place…I’m familiar with that story and all the crazy shit that went on there. Stan and I—when I worked in San Antonio—talked about it extensively. Did you know his cousin, Nick, the one with the FBI, was on the scene, actually saved dozens of lives?”

  “You’re the second person today to tell me they know someone who saved the world at this compound.”

  “I’m not bullshitting you, Oz. Nick was there. He got shot. These nutjob religious leaders were going to gas their flock of followers like some type of Nazi concentration-camp gas chamber.”

  She got my attention, only because Nick’s involvement sounded much closer to the action than that of Betty’s son. I knew Stan, at least a bit. My mind suddenly became overwhelmed with colliding data points. Or was it something else? Whatever. It was just damn surreal to have this third degree of separation with a location where so much harm had taken place. I wasn’t really sure how to process it. For now, it just lingered, along with all the other crap I couldn’t make sense of.

  “Okay, I’m impressed. So what does that mean?”

  “Could they—and we have no idea who they are or why they took Mackenzie or even if it’s some yakuza splinter group—be holding Mackenzie somewhere on this compound in the middle of the West Virginia wilderness? Yes, it’s possible. But sane, rational people… Let me rephrase that. People like the yakuza are typically more focused on the impact to their business. They have a goal in mind. Playing jokes like this—”

  “Technically, it’s a riddle.”

  “Okay. This riddle doesn’t sound like a characteristic I’d associate with that crime syndicate. I know I’m not the world’s leading authority on how they operate. It’s just my opinion, based on what I know.”

  I stopped at a light behind a truck with a Doberman in the back. I instantly flashed back to the night when Nicole’s dog essentially saved our lives. It was the night she’d finally let her guard down, opened up, and told me how sorry she was for going off the rails. Even in the middle of this cross-country quest to find a daughter I never knew existed, I could still feel the pull of Nicole. Her text when we were at LAX confirmed she was still remorseful and trying to be supportive. Could I get past all of her indiscretions to even think about piecing together our relationship? I pushed it aside for now, although my brain was beginning to feel like Ray Gartner’s office—crammed with so much shit, it was almost impossible to operate.

  “Houston, do you read me?”

  “Sorry, I was just focused on some local traffic.” The light turned green, and the truck with the dog in the back turned right. I moved forward.

  “So Ozzie, please hear me on this. With everything you’ve told me about what happened on the Big Island, I think you need help. You can’t keep going at this alone.”

  “Denise is with me.”

  “I already know about her issues.”

  “Low blow, Brook.”

  “It’s true, though. But that doesn’t really matter. She’s got skin in the game. So do you. You’re not law enforcement.”

  “I got to know the sheriff of this little town when we first arrived. Interesting guy.” I traveled two more blocks, then turned left. I saw Peggy’s Souvenir Shop, just like Sheriff Kupchak had noted. Next to that was Peggy’s Apparel. I recalled the sheriff saying he’d been at Peggy’s Diner. Maybe Peggy and this Fred Willard donut guy were like the Google and Facebook of Elkins. Bitter business rivals unless they could both benefit from a situation.

  “So, I know what you’re going to say, Brook. Call in the cops; let them take care of it. But I can’t. Denise won’t let me. They said they’d…” A lump formed in my throat. I sipped some coffee and continued. “They said they’d kill Mackenzie. If that happened, Denise would shatter into a million pieces. There would be nothing left of her. As for me, I’ve come this far, Brook. I want to get to know my daughter, to see if she cares two cents about me. To see how we’re alike, how we’re different.”

  “I get it.”

  I felt my shoulders drop. “Good, because I don’t need another battle.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I agree. Just hear me out. Cops…you’re right. Keep them out of it. Hawaii cops could be connected to the yakuza. The local cops there in BFE, West Virginia, would probably do more harm than good. But we have Stan. He can get Nick on the phone in an instant. He told me as much.”

  “You’ve talked to him about this situation?”

  “Sure have. It’s just between us. That was before I knew all this other crap had taken place. I’m telling you, Oz. Let him call Nick. I can be on the line too. He will maintain discretion; I can almost guarantee it. And if, after that conversation, you decide to still be bullheaded, then I guess there’s nothing we can do.”

  I drove into the motel parking lot and parked the car. “Let me get back to you on that.”

  “Don’t take long, Ozzie. We want to help. Nick, according to Stan, is one of the best agents in the FBI. He understands the importance of family. He won’t ram a bunch of protocol down your throat.”

  I thanked her, and we ended our call.

  I grabbed the breakfast and two coffees and made my way up the steps. No surprise, the manager had yet to clean off the snow or add salt or sand. Halfway down the hall to our motel room, my phone buzzed again.

  Crap. I didn’t want Denise to be aware of the possibility of calling Nick, an FBI agent, to assist us. She might lose it on me. I set one of the coffees on the concrete and pulled out my phone. It was a text from Keo.

  I read it, and then I could hardly breathe.

  25

  A motel door opened in front of me. The only thing I noticed about the person who trudged by me was that he or she was shorter and walking on two legs. I reread the text from Keo.

  Police found Gwen Hammond dead in her back yard. Strangulation. Police buddy of mine says a neighbor might have seen someone, but I have no details yet.

  I went from barely breathing to my brain being flooded with oxygen.

  Gwen, Denise�
�s friend, the person who’d allowed us to stay the night after we’d been attacked in Denise’s apartment, had been fucking murdered. I blinked my eyes a few times. A breeze crossed my face, but it didn’t feel cold. I didn’t feel much of anything.

  I typed in a response.

  Have you sent a message to Denise yet?

  A moment later, he came back with his reply.

  No way. Wanted to tell u first. Police will start asking questions. Not sure if they’ll find out about Mackenzie’s kidnapping or Denise threatening to expose yakuza crimes.

  Up to this point, I’d been able to somehow deal with all the craziness. But someone had now been murdered. That someone was Denise’s best friend. Surely, authorities would learn of their connection, which would only lead to more questions. With the blur of the new facts almost making my eyes water, it was impossible to determine whether that was good or bad. Or did it really matter? We didn’t want to create more conflict with this crime syndicate or with whatever splinter group that might have been born from it. But the more I learned, the more confused I became.

  Killing Gwen, to a degree, made sense if the yakuza thought Denise had shared with her the money-laundering details. But something about it didn’t ring true. I racked my brain for answers, but nothing stuck. I just couldn’t put my finger on why part of my instinct was telling me the yakuza had nothing to do with any of this.

  Then explain this, Oz: why the hell did two Asian guys bust into Denise’s apartment and beat the crap out of you?

  I pushed out a breath and saw smoke drift into the air. That same person walked back by me again and went into their room without saying a word. At least this time I noticed it was a man, maybe upper forties. Wearing hunting gear.

  I got back to my text conversation with Keo.

  Me: I’m assuming no one has dropped off any other notes about Mackenzie?

  Keo: Nope. All quiet here.

  Me: Can you let me know if or when you find out more information about Gwen?