Mystery Noir

Down Below Part 4

The Broadick farm was smaller than the one our B&B was on, just a nice two-story farmhouse with a wraparound porch, a barn, some pastureland and a couple corals containing horses. The black jeep pulled up between a jeep and an army-green Toyota truck, leaving me to pull up off to one side in my Mustang.

The sun was starting to hang low on the horizon as we got out of the car and I watched the two guys jump out of the jeep beside our vehicle. Typical military fashion, they were fit and tattooed with short haircuts and no-nonsense looks as they watched us.

"Doctor." Another voice turned my attention to a similar-looking man striding off the porch toward me, though he at least had a smile.

It was a tired smile, and I saw the pain behind his eyes, but there was hope and friendliness in his features that put me a little more at ease.

I picked up my bag from the back seat and strode to meet him, Penny walking behind me as I stuck out my hand for a firm handshake. "Mr. Broadick?"

"Matt is fine." He offered me a smile that told me he knew exactly the kind of jokes his name inspired. Then he waved toward the house. "We're getting set up to go out again, just waiting for the team that's searching this afternoon to come in. We take it in shifts."

"I'm Nina, this is Penny, my partner." I motioned to where she was pulling out our bags, prompting her to give a half wave and a forced smile.

Matt nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. "I know you probably want to talk about financi- "

Cutting him off before he could get into the topic of the money, as I did not plan on charging him, I shook my head and gave him a tight smile. "Sounds like we're on a timeline. Show me where your wife spent most of her time in the house and give me a breakdown of what's happened."

"Right. Ok. So, we're both retired, so other than when she's with Carmen, our daughter... she has an office that she reads and stuff in." Matt could barely get out the words though his emotions and shook his head before starting toward the house.

I accepted my bag and slung it on my back, following him through the door that had a glaring army dude on either side. Past the main entrance, where we were told not to take off our shoes, we were led through what used to be a living room. Now, however, it appeared to be a command center, with maps of the area spread out on the wall, a couple people on computers looking at what looked like drone footage and listening to radios and another table full of food and drinks.

There were three people off to one side, looking like they were filling their bags and the most surprising thing was that, though they all appeared to move with the same military efficiency, there was an even split of men and women.

Matt led us down the hallway into what appeared to be an office, with a desk and a computer and two walls taken up by bookshelves. I turned to the books, which ranged from aircraft mechanic manuals to history and psychology textbooks. "Your wife and daughter."

"We were both in the Armed services... Bonnie was Army, I was a Marine. We met in Iraq, she was a helicopter pilot, worked best on the black hawks, but she did chinooks as well. Anyways, we retired a couple years back, me cause I got a bunch of shrapnel in my back, her because... well, she had a bad crash and had to fight her way out of a bad scenario. She saved a couple lives but blames herself for the ones that she couldn't bring home..." Matt was standing in the center of the room, watching me as I walked around, looking at pictures. He continued talking about their life here, with horses and a little bit of farming, how his wife was a mechanical engineer, but studying sociology in her spare time now.

I paused to run my fingers over a rack of extreme racing medals that hung from a custom holder. This woman had run Ironmans, Death Races, Xtreme Races, you name it, all over the world. I looked up to a picture that was on the wall overtop of the rack.