Vinny McCabe's Arc

Chapter 9 of 9

Vinny left the freight office with the ledger under his arm. He walked two blocks before he stopped under a streetlight and opened it again. The delivery route was written in pencil on the inside cover—four addresses, each crossed out except the last. He spent the next morning tracing the route. The first three addresses were empty lots or demolished buildings. The fourth led him to the edge of the city, where the blocks gave way to open fields and farmland. A dairy truck sat parked near a white farmhouse with a wraparound porch. The truck had red trim along its sides and the company name painted on the door. A man in work clothes carried a crate of bottles toward the porch. Vinny watched from across the road. The man knocked, waited, then carried the crate inside. When he came out, the crate was empty. Vinny waited until the truck left, then walked up to the farmhouse. He knocked twice. No one answered. He tried the handle. Locked. He walked around to the side and looked through a window. Inside, he saw a desk with papers stacked across it and a telephone on the corner. On the wall behind the desk hung a map of the city with pins marking different streets. Some of the pins matched addresses from his wife's file. Others matched locations from the warehouse case. He recognized the pattern immediately. He stepped back from the window and returned to his car. He had the route's end now. He had proof someone was still operating from this location. But he also knew they'd seen him—the delivery man had looked at his car when he drove past. Vinny started the engine and pulled onto the road. The network knew he was closing in. They'd have to respond.