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A man peeked out.
From his appearance, May saw he was slim and older. Probably in his sixties. He had a short, straggly beard that was mostly gray. Not the perp, then.
“I’m Deputy Moore. Good afternoon,” she began.
But the man rudely interrupted her.
“I don’t talk to police. You can get out of here. And don’t come back.”
Firmly, he shut the door in her face, leaving May gasping like a fish out of water.
This was not going to be easy. At all.
Fraught with worry, she climbed back in her car and headed on. About a mile later, she saw another building.
This one looked bigger. It looked to be a proper home. It was set in a wide clearing. There was a neat yard around it. May felt hopeful that someone might be inside.
She climbed out and hurried to the door.
Knocking, May waited anxiously. She saw a shadow at the window. Someone was there. But whether they were going to open up to the police was another question.
Luckily, perhaps because she was a woman on her own, May thought, the door opened up.
A solid, middle-aged woman looked out. She had vividly dyed red hair and was wearing a layered outfit in several different shades of khaki.
"Are you police?" she asked, sounding surprised.
"Deputy Moore," May introduced herself. "I'm here to find out if you've had any noise complaints in the past few months."
The woman looked startled. "Noise complaints?" she asked.
"Heavy machinery, blasting, digging, that beep-beep when a truck reverses? That hammering and knocking that never stops when you're building?"
Light dawned.
"Yes. A few months ago, nonstop. I called the local town council and complained, but they never did a thing. They seemed to think that as long as the work wasn't done on a Sunday, there was nothing I could do. But it wasn't just the work. It was trucks up and down this road, destroying it. I got stuck twice—it was late winter, and the roads were sludge anyway. It was basically a couple of months of pure hell. And I never got answers or action. It just finally stopped. Have you come to follow up on it?" she asked.
"I've come to look into it more closely," May said. "Do you know where it was?"
Now, the woman shook her head, looking frustrated.
"It was down this road, a mile or two. But I followed the tracks one day, and the weird thing was that I didn't see where they led. I could hear this crazy noise, but I couldn't see where the construction was taking place. It was almost as if it was invisible. It must have been somewhere off the road, and maybe even underground." She grimaced.
"How far did the tracks lead?"
The woman thought, tapping her fingers on her chin.
"Not more than a mile. I remember searching to see if they led off from the big, crooked chestnut tree that’s a mile ahead on the right-hand side of the road. They seemed to go up to the tree, but then, I wasn't sure where they led. It made it very difficult to complain," she said sadly.
The big chestnut tree. That was the marker May would look for.
"Thank you," she said and quickly left.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
The clock was ticking, and May felt the pressure bearing down. At any moment, this survivalist might decide to seal and hide the entrance points, concealing his bunker from the world. And she had no idea when he planned to kill his new hostage, but she feared it would be soon. Would she arrive in time to save this woman’s life?
Trying to contain her frantic worries, she drove down the track, scanning the surrounding area, keeping a lookout for the crooked chestnut tree that the woman had mentioned. That would be the starting point for her search. She had no idea where it would take her. The noise and the building had happened somewhere close, though. That she did know.
