None of us spoke as we waited for the cavalry to arrive. Bailey Mae stayed close to me, sitting on a stool next to the breakfast bar in the kitchen. I noticed she wanted Hassan near her as well. Despite all the mind-blowing shit going on, my main concern was Bailey Mae. She was a strong girl and had done a phenomenal job just staying alive. She was also the key to justice for these men. At least one of the men in custody was guilty of a double homicide. Could they have somehow murdered Mabel as well?

Timmy Jones was the first to come jogging up the path, calling his exact location into his radio. He skidded to a stop at the front door and took in the scene before looking at me and saying, “Are you guys all right?” Then he looked farther inside the cabin and said, “Who are all these people? Is this some kind of immigrant smuggling ring?”

I stepped outside the cabin and gave him a very quick rundown, only hitting the high points. I told him about the bunker complex, the man locked up in the cell, how we’d released the prisoners, the fight in the cabin. Other than that, I had no real answers yet. But I intended to get them. I wondered if the blank stare he was giving me was similar to the one that had been on my face an hour earlier.

I said, “I know it sounds unbelievable, but you’ll see the bunker and the cells soon enough. And Bailey Mae positively identified a man inside as the one who shot the Wilkses. She was an eyewitness.”

Timmy tried to hide his shock by looking up the path, then back at me, saying, “I never even knew this was back here.”

Within minutes, more patrol cars arrived and someone figured out how to access the path so a rescue vehicle with four-wheel drive could make it up from the lower cabins.

I grabbed Timmy by the arm and said, “There’s a bald guy locked in one of the cells. He attacked me with a knife. Natty was a witness. The guy is strong and knows how to fight, so be careful when you or your people deal with him.”

A few minutes later, two deputies brought the bald man down in handcuffs. One of the deputies had a bloody lip, and his shirt was pulled out of his pants. The bald man had a red mark across his face where someone had used an expandable baton to get his attention. They tied him up with the others in the kitchen.