B00NRQWAJI (29 page)

In response, my cellphone buzzed almost immediately.

“Did I disturb you?” I asked, answering Marc’s call.

“No. Stakeout.”

“Gee, that sounds like fun.”

“It will be if my suspects show up.”

“Well, in the meantime, let me tell you a story.” Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I leaned back against the bed and filled Marc in on finding Vance dead at Hidden Hills. “He won’t tell us about Llewellyn now.”

“He won’t jump security specialists in country kitchens, either.”

“You heard about that?”

“I hear all kinds of things, babe. I’m one with the wind. Plus, I had a late supper at the Apple Blossom Café last night. Don’t forget the sheriff’s girlfriend owns the place.”

I hadn’t forgotten.

I hadn’t forgotten Charlotte’s arch remark about getting over Barrett, either.

“Yeah, she saw you and me in the motel parking lot the other night. If she puts two and two together, she’ll realize you’re not in town to invest in soybean futures.”

If word got out Marc was a DEA agent, it could compromise his investigation.

Moreover, if the wrong people heard that word, Marc could end up dead.

“I suggest you steer clear of the Apple Blossom Café,” I advised him.

“Then how will I hear the local gossip?”

“Oh, I can give you that.”

And I told Marc how Rittenhaus had detained Barrett.

“That’s not a good sign,” Marc said. “It means local law enforcement doesn’t have a ghost of a lead in how McCabe ended up dead.”

“Neither do I,” I admitted, “so at least we’re even. Could Llewellyn be involved in Vance’s murder?”

“It’s not impossible. Llewellyn was in and out of trouble during his army years. Possession, intent to distribute. Drug-related charges like that. Since he was dishonorably discharged three years ago, he’s started a shipping business. Been successful at it, too. He’s got eighteen trucks in his fleet. But he’s kept his nose clean. Still, with a history like that and a growing company…I’m thinking he may’ve graduated to bigger and better crimes.”

“Like racketeering? That wouldn’t explain why he was meeting Vance at the Cherry Bomb, though.”

“Except McCabe’s death is pretty timely.”

“I’ll say.”

Theodore must’ve picked up my conversation while on her patrol thorough the house. She nosed her way into the room, padded over to me. Starting at the top of my head and working her way down, she snuffled me like I was her long-lost pup.

“Is that a dog,” Marc asked, “or is all this talk of drug trafficking turning you on?”

“It’s Barrett’s Labrador. I think she misses him.”

“Sounds like she’s not the only one. I’m about to wrap my surveillance. Want to meet for breakfast someplace other than that café? By the way, I’m not trying to move in on you while the jarhead’s in jail, I swear.”

I chuckled. And it felt so good to laugh a little. But I thanked Marc for his offer to get together and politely turned him down.

After all, I had things to do.

“All right,” he said, “but you call me if you need me.”

I assured Marc I would, and twenty minutes later, after verifying that Elise had locked the kitchen door behind me for once, I rolled up in front of Vance McCabe’s mother’s home.

Really, of all the unsolved deaths that had occurred in Fallowfield, Vance’s was the only one I’d seen that could’ve been a true suicide. But part of me didn’t buy it. His meeting with a suspected drug trafficker, his own drug use, and his desperation to blow town were reasons that could support his taking his own life. To me, however, they spoke of a desperation to stay alive. To that end, I wanted to learn more about him. So I returned to his boyhood home, to take another look at the heart carving cut into the old glider.

As I got out of my car, a sharp blast from a train’s whistle reminded me the rail yard wasn’t far away. And I bet that played havoc with real estate prices in the area. But once the train passed and the morning grew still, songbirds on their way south for the winter flitted through the hedges and burst into song. Spears of sunshine gilded the ranch home’s brick-and-siding façade, making it prettier than it actually was. If a buyer could see it like this, the McCabe brothers would have a sale on their hands—but then I noticed a single plume of white smoke curling from behind the house.

Fighting down a rising sense of trepidation, I trotted through the carport and into the backyard. The concrete slab that served as a patio was chilly under the soles of my shoes. Or maybe that was just fear taking hold of me again. Because in the corner where the old wooden glider should’ve been, all that remained was a smoking pile of kindling. Someone had torched the glider—and with it, the carving that had attested to Vance’s love.

Frustrated, I picked through the ashes, just in case the flames had left something behind. I found nothing salvageable, however. So I beat it back to my Jag, and from there, I phoned the Sheriff’s Office.

Once again, I was told Rittenhaus was out.

I reported the vandalism, stressed that the fire marshal ought to take a look. Whether he could connect this act to the fire that had burned up Dawkins, I didn’t know. But like so many incidents that had occurred in Fallowfield, the two events were too close for comfort, in my opinion.

More than irritated, I cranked up the car and started driving. The McCabe family’s skinny 1960s-era street met Fallowfield’s main drag at a right angle, but I didn’t want to turn and head downtown. I didn’t want to take off into the countryside, either. I was angry with the town and everything in it. But sitting at the intersection wouldn’t solve anything, so I drove through the junction.

Bumping over a train crossing, I found myself in what had to be Fallowfield’s rail yard.

All but defunct, this section of town was a patchwork of corroded warehouses and rusty rails running off into the distance. At one time, dozens of daily trains must’ve come and gone through here. Now, like the one I’d heard whistling in the distance, they bypassed it. Still, a tangle of tracks lay nestled in a broad gravel bed running parallel to the street. On the other side of the trench, dilapidated factories with smashed windows overlooked loading docks that backed onto the railroad. I could imagine the hikers I’d seen in the Apple Blossom Café taking shelter in any one of these old buildings. It wasn’t where I’d want to unroll my sleeping bag, but if I were living hand to mouth, the rent would be right.

Ahead, a car approached from the opposite direction. Long before it reached me, however, it turned sharply onto a side street that would take it deeper into the district. When it turned, I got a good look at its black paint—and the wide orange racing stripes running up and over it.

It was the Dodge Charger I’d seen too often outside the Apple Blossom Café. But what was it doing in this neck of the woods? I’d hoped Toothpick Boy and his gun-toting driver had found somewhere else to be, and I didn’t like that they were still skulking around town.

A block short of the avenue they’d taken, I turned, cruised slowly past decaying tenements and empty offices. At the next intersection, I paused. I didn’t see the Charger anywhere along the cross street, but instinct told me to roll on, so I did.

The road dead-ended at a falling-down chain-link fence. Where a guard with a clipboard had undoubtedly checked the identity of visitors, a striped barrier on a swing arm lay in pieces in the dirt. Stretching for blocks in all directions, this property had probably been the domain of a great railroad company. Tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt had made their bread and butter in facilities like this. In this day and age, however, the fence encircled nothing more than an eyesore—and a reminder that Fallowfield’s golden age had come and gone.

Still, it was the perfect place for a couple of guys in a fancy car to lie low between bouts of being up to no good. So I eased into the enclosure. Hulking hills of coal mounded on my right. Abandoned boxcars massed on my left. More rusty warehouses stood empty on all sides.

I drove slowly, tried to take it all in. As I rolled past a broad alley, I spied the Charger. And it was parked alongside Eric’s silver Mercury.

Nose to tail they were, so the drivers could talk through their open windows. I could make out dark shapes in the cars, but no identities. But I wasn’t going to stick around to get a better look. I knew Toothpick Boy’s driver was armed. And the driver of the Mercury had already proved he was up for some hit-and-run.

Before I could hightail it out of there, though, I saw a distinctive flash flare from the window of Eric’s car.

And I heard the blast of bullets as the driver fired on the men in the Charger.

Bang, bang, bang!

On the far side of the vehicle, the Charger’s passenger door popped open. Toothpick Boy slithered from the seat. His boots touched the pavement and he took off at a scuttling run, pounding up the street toward the cover of the closest warehouse.

With a squeal of tires, the Mercury took off after him. He would kill Toothpick Boy in cold blood if he got the chance. And I couldn’t let that happen.

Blaring my horn, I stomped on the accelerator. I raced up the alley, intent on Eric’s stolen car. But another vehicle flew from a derelict boxcar. It roared down the train car’s loading ramp. It cut me off.

It was Marc’s Chrysler 300.

He fishtailed to a halt alongside the Charger. The driver had to be dead, since he’d taken gunfire to the face. But Toothpick Boy was still on the run.

Springing from his vehicle, Marc tore after him.

Up the street, the Mercury’s driver gave up on gunning down Toothpick Boy. The car zoomed ahead and around the corner. I fought the urge to chase it down, to force it over, to discover the driver’s identity. Because, whether I liked it or not, I was Marc’s only backup. And in good conscience, I couldn’t leave him undefended.

Marc ran all out. But Toothpick Boy stayed one step ahead of him. Tripping over broken asphalt and scrambling over weeds clotting crevices in the roadway, he dodged through the gaping door of a deserted factory’s delivery bay. Marc plunged into the darkness after him. It was a dangerous thing to do. And I wasn’t going to let him do it alone.

I hit the bay’s incline with a bump, cringed as broken glass crunched under my tires. And then I was inside the building. It was like night. I hit my high beams. They picked out a pair of handcarts with peeling yellow paint looming on the loading dock. To avoid them, I hooked a hard left, found myself cruising along on the old factory’s work floor. A forest of massive concrete columns dotted the space. They supported the weight of the building above. And the effect made me feel like the ceiling was crashing down on me.

Half an acre away, wooden crates, left to rot, made a mountain in the corner. It was a lousy place for Toothpick Boy to hide—but it was the only place. In the gloom, I could make out Marc approaching it warily, his service weapon at the ready and a penlight held high. I swung his way, drove closer slowly, and let my headlamps illuminate the heap for him. Light streamed through the crates’ slats—and silhouetted Toothpick Boy against the cinderblock wall.

“Don’t shoot!” he yelled.

“Throw down your weapon,” Marc ordered, his eye to the sights of his gun, “and come out of there!”

“I have to climb out!”

The pile of crates shimmied. A spiky brown-haired head appeared at the top of the heap. The young man clambered onto a pallet. With his left hand, he whipped the toothpick from his mouth. With his right, he raised a flat black handgun—and blasted Marc with it.

In seeming slow motion, I witnessed Marc jerk once, twice as the slugs slammed into his chest. The impact threw him backward. Feet flying high, he hit the concrete like he’d slipped on a banana peel. Except there was nothing funny about this. Especially when he didn’t get up.

Shivering with a sick rush of adrenaline, I wanted to spring from my car. I wanted to run to Marc’s side. I wanted to stop his blood from pouring from his body with my bare hands. But I didn’t act on that impulse. Because first, I had to neutralize the threat that had taken him down.

Toothpick Boy was still armed. He was still dangerous. And he was still on the move.

In a leap that would’ve broken my ankle, he jumped from the crates, hit the factory floor at a run. I spun the Jag’s wheel hard, punched down on the gas to tear after him. We were in a race now—and only one of us could win.

A freight elevator yawned at the far end of the building. I saw it through the intervening columns. Stuck between this level and the next, the iron lip of the elevator’s floor waited five feet from the ground. I had no idea if the lift would work. But Toothpick Boy was willing to find out.

He ran flat out for it.

Circumnavigating the pillars slowed me down, and Toothpick Boy beat me to it. He leapt for the elevator, got an elbow over the edge. But he couldn’t haul himself up. As I sped toward him in my car, he dropped to the concrete and whirled to face me, gun at the ready. He shot into my windshield one, two, three, four times.

The glass fractured, formed complicated spiderwebs of breakage. But it didn’t collapse on me. I ducked low to peer through an undamaged corner of the windscreen. With hands sweaty on the steering wheel, I kept on coming. Vance had stolen my Beretta, but I still had a weapon. It weighed two tons and could kill a killer all the same.

He fired again. Five, six, seven times. Like a hot blade, pain sliced through my right shoulder.

I paid it no mind and drove on.

He took aim once again. This time, I was so close, I could see the nut-brown color of his eyes. He looked into mine and I knew, when he squeezed the trigger, this bullet would end up in my brain. So I jerked the wheel, went into a skid. Just as a black blur tackled him at the knees.

My car pitched to a halt. Toothpick Boy was on the ground. And Marc was on top of him, slapping cuffs on his hands pinned behind his back.

I was out of the Jag in an instant. Toothpick Boy’s weapon had skittered across the cement. I scooped it up, shoved it in my coat pocket—and when Marc stood up, I grabbed him by the lapels of his black leather motorcycle jacket.