AARP Hearing Center
![Illustration of a sign attached to a chain-link fence that reads BLACK HILLS SECURITY INC. Behind the fence is a shooting range, and wood cabin and trailers that are partly visible Illustration of a sign attached to a chain-link fence that reads BLACK HILLS SECURITY INC. Behind the fence is a shooting range, and wood cabin and trailers that are partly visible](https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarpe/en/home/benefits-discounts/members-only-access/chase/chapters-17-20/_jcr_content/root/container_main/container_body_main/container_body1/container_body_cf/container_image/articlecontentfragment/cfimage.coreimg.50.932.jpeg/content/dam/aarp/members-only/member-benefits/2024/02/chase/1140-ch17-20-chase.jpg)
CHAPTER 17
AN HOUR LATER, supplied with a huge coffee and a turkey sandwich from a DC deli, I was behind the wheel of a silver Chrysler 200 rental car. When I looked up Marble Spring on my phone and saw that it was only about four and a half hours from DC, I decided to find this guy, Haber, immediately—before the Air Force shut him up, too.
So I was riding up Interstate 270 through northern Maryland with no idea what I would find. A Google search of the name had yielded a frustrating lack of information, but a potential hit: one Paul Haber had been an Army platoon sergeant.
Okay, I was intrigued. But how had he found me? Did someone in DC tip him off? I thought back over the day—the security checkpoints at the Air Force base, the stonewalling at the Pentagon.
![member card Image Alt Attribute](https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/experience-fragments/uxdia-folder-structure/en/features/membership/inline-membership-promo/default/master5/_jcr_content/root/responsivegrid/container_copy/container/articleimage.coreimg.75.1140.png/content/dam/uxdia/membership-card-d-and-t.png)
LIMITED TIME OFFER: Labor Day Sale!
Join AARP for just $9 per year with a 5-year membership and get a FREE Gift!
Had Payton had a change of heart? No way, I thought, remembering her expression after the phone call. She had too much to lose. Whoever was on the other end of that line wanted Eardley buried for good.
Chris Milne? No, he wouldn’t bother with the cloak-and-dagger, the cryptic note.
My phone buzzed in the cup holder—Emily Parker. I picked up.
“It’s been too long.”
“Ha,” she answered. “I’m guessing you’re not on that train back to New York right now.”
“And miss my date with Paul Haber?” I said. I’d texted her about the note, asking her if she could find anything on the mystery man.
“So I thought. Well, I have something interesting for you. I ran his name and he comes up clean in Army records, nothing unusual, spotless performance records—”
“And that’s interesting?”
“So you don’t want to know?”
“Know what?”
“That he served in Iraq, and his service overlapped with Eardley’s. Both worked in special operations. And what’s more, I also turned up a photo. Dated 2007.”
+++
Marble Spring was a blip on the map in rural Pennsylvania, up in the Allegheny Mountains. I now knew, thanks to Wikipedia, that it’s four miles north of the west branch of the Susquehanna River, and has a population of 112. I practically have more people in my family.
I hooked a right on US 15 into Pennsylvania about an hour and twenty minutes later. Off the interstate, I got on State Route PA 144, then crossed over onto PA 150 and started heading up into the Alleghenies. Stunning ridgeline views opened up as I crossed remote rusting bridges. Down in the distance was a patchwork of farms laid out along zigzagging rivers deep-cut into the heavily forested land.
It had stopped raining when I got out of DC, but around three o’clock it started to rain again. As I came down into a mountain valley alongside a railroad bed, thunder cracked what sounded like a foot from the car. The pelting rain began speed-drumming off the top of the Chrysler.
Five minutes later, I stopped before Marble Spring’s single blinking yellow stoplight. Since there wasn’t another driver to be seen, I paused to look around. Main Street, without even a bank or a post office, redefined the phrase “not much to look at.” By my observation, the town consisted of a dollar store across from a Gothic-looking red brick church, and some sketchy-looking row houses rising up into the woods.
Behind these few structures, in fact all around them, stood the hills, dark and looming, the tops hidden in mist.
Still stopped at the light, I tried my email again. Service was spotty in the hills, but finally the photo from Emily had come through.
It showed our John Doe—Eardley—young and handsome in uniform. And looking very buddy-buddy with the guy next to him, who had an arm slung over Eardley’s shoulder. Tall, also handsome, and apparently Paul Haber.
CHAPTER 18
I FOUND LINCOLN Lane about two miles west of the town. It was a narrow, steep strip of crumbling blacktop, more driveway than road. I counted three residences as I came up the long slope of the valley. Each was a trailerlike home set back under the trees, with old cars and jacked-up trucks in the front yards.
200 Lincoln Lane was the end of the road. I stopped the Chrysler and stared at the mailbox, which had the address but no name, and the dirt and gravel drive beside it curving still higher, back into the trees. You couldn’t see any sign of the house.
The driveway was unbelievably long—three miles, if not more. You could hardly call it a driveway, since it wasn’t paved. I thought I had made an idiotic mistake and was now driving on a state park hiking path. The Chrysler almost got stuck around a steep muddy curve but regained traction to make the top of the hill, where the road ended at a gate.
I stopped the car in front of it and saw that the gate was attached to a chain-link fence, with razor wire running along the top. There was a sign attached to the fence:
BLACK HILLS SECURITY INC.
Executive Training—AR-15 Proficiency—Survival Skills
Outdoor and Indoor Facilities
Corporate Weekends and Team Building
SKILLS TO LAST A LIFETIME!
Must be Haber’s business, I thought. Through the wire, I could see the shooting range about half a football field away. It was very professional-looking, with covered shooting booths and macadam strips to shoot from one knee or prone, along with marked-off firing lanes. It seemed built for long-distance shooting, as the space between the booths and the gravel bullet stop—with hanging steel sheet targets—was immense.
You Might Also Like
Free: An Excerpt From ‘Crosshairs’
Read the first 10 chapters of another thriller in James Patterson’s series featuring Detective Michael Bennett
Free: ‘The Trial’ by James Patterson
Quick-read features Detective Lindsay Boxer and friends and an accused murderer wreaking havoc in San Francisco
Meet James Patterson
Get to know the all-time best-selling author and find out what’s in store for the Women's Murder Club
More Free Books Online
Gripping mysteries and other novels by popular authors available in their entirety for AARP members
Recommended for You