Deep in the Heart (23 page)

When he couldn’t stand the ringing anymore, he slammed the phone down in disgust.

“Damn it, where the hell are you, Sam?” He bolted out the door, leaving the letters where they lay. This new information spelled big trouble for Samantha. She needed to know and she needed to know now.

When he pulled back in at the apartment, his truck was still in place. But when he got inside, she was nowhere to be found. A niggle of anger settled alongside the nervousness that had drawn him back to town.

“Damn it all to hell! Where on earth can she be?” he muttered, then bolted back down the stairs as fast as he’d run up.

When he got to the car, he was on the radio before he started the engine. And when he found out that Samantha had not called in to let him know where she was, deeper worry began to surface. Before he could make another decision, Monty pulled into the yard and parked.

“Get in!” John Thomas yelled. “We need to find Samantha, and…we need to talk.”

Monty tried not to frown as he got in the sheriff’s car. He’d been expecting this ever since Samantha overheard his conversation. He took a deep breath and waited.

“Have you seen her this afternoon?”

Monty looked startled. This wasn’t what he’d expected to be asked. “No sir,” he said. “Not since I came after your clothes. I’ve been at the office all day doing the paperwork on this morning’s arrest.”

John Thomas felt sick. “Damn it, I need to find her. Pulaski called. He says there’s a good possibility that the stalker might be a woman.”

“The hell you say! Then that means everyone we’ve been—”

“Right! We’ve been barking up the wrong tree. Now, Deputy, you help me look for Samantha, and in the meantime, start talking. I know you’ve got troubles. And while I recognize the fact that a man needs to tend his own fires, sometimes it’s not a good idea. Sometimes the fire can get out of hand and burn everyone and everything up along with it.”

Monty leaned back in the seat, took off his hat, and absently traced the circle of the brim with his fingers. It was time to explain.

“I came here under false pretenses.” At the startled expression on the sheriff’s face, he sighed. He’d known this wouldn’t be easy. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“My grandfather got me the spot because I needed to work close to Louisiana.”

This was not what John Thomas expected to hear. “What are you trying to tell me? Why Louisiana, and who the hell is your grandfather?”

“Wheeler Joe Turner,” Monty said, waiting for the inevitable explosion. It came.

“Cog-wheel Turner? That old Texas Ranger is your grandfather?”

Monty nodded. “I didn’t want your evaluation of me to hinge on the fact that I was related to such a, well, he’s—”

“He’s a legend,” John Thomas said. “A damned institution, that’s what. But that’s neither here nor there. I never judge a man on who his family is, because I’d hate like hell to be judged by mine. My father died in prison.”

Monty tried not to show his shock. From the expression on the sheriff’s face, he had failed miserably.

John Thomas shrugged. “Nearly everyone around here knows it, but it’s not something I’m proud of. He was a sorry s.o.b., and I’ve spent most of my life trying to live it down. Now, tell me what’s bothering you. I can’t believe that it was just worrying that I’d find out about your relationship to Cog-wheel Turner.”

Monty swallowed past the lump in his throat and closed his eyes. Even now it hurt to say the words aloud. He pulled a picture out of his wallet, tracing the face of it gently to wipe before handing it over.

The car swerved beneath his control as John Thomas glanced down at the picture and then whistled softly, unable to hide his surprise.

“You know what? She looks like Sam. All that long dark hair.” He glanced quickly back up at the road in front of him before taking another closer look. “She even has blue eyes.” He handed it back to Monty.

“What’s her name?”

“Melissa, but everyone called her Lissa. She’s my fiancée.”

“Congratulations, man! But why haven’t you said anything about her before now?”

Monty put the picture back in his wallet, his gaze lingering on the image one last time before he folded it shut and put it back in his pocket.

“Eighteen months ago she was the victim of a hit and run. She’s been in Louisiana in a critical care hospice ever since, in a coma, and with no chance of recovery.”

“My God,” John Thomas said softly, and pulled over on a side street and parked. He couldn’t imagine any worse horror than to watch someone you loved waste away. And then he realized. “So that’s where you spend your off-duty time.”

“Yes sir. And the other day, when I was so, uh…the reason I’ve been…”

He swiped a hand across his face and felt tears on his cheeks. But for some reason it no longer mattered. Somehow telling had made the hurt a little bit less.

“When I got to the hospice that day, her folks met me at the door and told me that they’d made the decision to take her off of life support.” It took another long silent minute before he could finish the story, and then when he did, he slumped into the seat, as if the telling took all of the starch out of his soul. “They don’t expect her to last much longer.”

John Thomas quietly ignored the harsh sob and the tears streaming down the young man’s face. Giving him that much space and privacy was all that he could do, and he knew well that it was not enough. Other than a rough thump on the shoulder in understanding, words would be of little comfort to the young man. He was, however, highly relieved that his distrust of Montgomery Turner had been unfounded.

“So what are you going to do?” he finally asked.

“I guess wait for her to die,” Monty said, and then turned away and stared out the window until he regained control of his emotions.

John Thomas was silent. There was nothing to say that would make Monty’s cross any easier to bear. He started the car.

“Let’s go find Sam,” he said.

They drove along the streets of Rusk for more than an hour, searching in every shop, each time asking the same questions while worry added up. No one knew a thing, and by the time they got back to the apartment, even Monty was beginning to worry.

“Did she leave you a note?” he asked.

“I didn’t see one,” John Thomas said. His expression brightened. “But I didn’t look all that close. Maybe she did. Let’s go see.”

“Say,” Monty said, as they got out of the car. “I guess Claudia must be working days instead of nights now.”

John Thomas looked at the empty parking space at the end of the lot, surprised that he hadn’t noticed the fact himself. The old black pickup she’d been driving was missing. There was nothing to indicate where it had been except a wide; oily stain in the dirt.

He stared at it a moment, trying to figure out why the image of that stain suddenly mattered. But Samantha’s whereabouts took precedence, and he ignored the nudge of memory as he headed for the house.

His hopes fell as they entered the apartment. A complete search of the apartment failed to yield any kind of note.

“Nothing here but a tube of lipstick,” Monty said, as he picked it up from beneath the edge of the living room couch.

John Thomas stared at it as Monty dropped it in his hands. The case was a brilliant red enamel trimmed in silver, and unlike anything he’d seen Samantha use. He pulled off the top and rolled up the tube, trying to make sense of why fire-engine red lipstick would be on the floor of his apartment when it hadn’t been there this morning. And Samantha was usually so neat.

“Is it hers?” Monty asked.

The sheriff shook his head. “She doesn’t wear this color. It’s too…” He shrugged for lack of a word.

Monty looked closer. “You know, this looks like the stuff that Claudia wears. Her mouth usually looks like someone just punched it. You know, all red and puffy and pouting.”

Just then John Thomas’s subconscious kicked in, and the memory of tracking the stalker through the woods surfaced. He remembered most of all his frustration when he found nothing but a wide, oily stain in the road where the vehicle had been parked.

“Oh hell!” He bolted across the hall and started beating on Claudia’s door.

“Boss, have you lost your mind? What are you doing?”

Before John Thomas could tell him, the door swung open beneath the blows.

“Looks like she moved,” Monty said.

“I don’t think so,” John Thomas said. “But, oh God, I hope you’re right.”

Without further explanation, he ran down the stairs with Monty close at his heels. He came to a sudden stop by the curb, staring intently at the place where Claudia’s black pickup was normally parked. A dark, oily stain marked the spot.

“Sucker sure leaks, doesn’t it,” Monty said, and then an odd expression crossed his face. “Say, boss, the day you tracked that intruder out at your place, didn’t you say that his truck leaked oil like—”

He didn’t finish. The look on John Thomas’s face said it all. “Oh man,” Monty said. “You don’t suppose—?”

“Get in the car. We’re going to Marylee’s. I’ve got a sudden hunger, and it has nothing to do with food. I want to talk to Claudia. And she better have a real good explanation for where she’s been the last few months of her life.”

Several minutes later they wheeled into Marylee’s Café. Monty breathed a huge sigh of relief. The old black pickup was parked behind the café, right in its usual parking space.

“Hey, boss. There it is. Maybe we jumped to conclusions. Lots of old cars and trucks leak oil. Maybe I was right the first time. Maybe she just got her hours changed.”

“Maybe,” John Thomas said. “But I want to hear it from her.”

The place was crowded. Marylee sailed by with a frown on her face, and her hands full o dirty dishes. The other waitress scurried to stay out of her way.

“Marylee, when you have a minute, I’d like to talk to you,” John Thomas said.

She dumped the plates in the kitchen and stomped toward them with a wet cloth in her hand.

“If you want to talk, you’re gonna have to follow me to do it. I’m shorthanded today. Two of my day girls called in sick. I intended to ask Claudia to cover and now I find out that she’s gone.”

Fear snaked through John Thomas’s belly. “What do you mean,
gone
?”

“I mean, left, skipped, snuck out! That’s what I mean! You just see if I do any more down-on-their-luck females another favor. I gave her a job when I didn’t need help. I loaned her a truck when she didn’t have wheels. And do I get a ‘thank you, Marylee’ when she leaves? No!” She brushed the crumbs from the table onto the floor and then turned and sighed as she swiped her hair from her eyes. “I suppose I should be happy she didn’t run off with my truck, although to be honest, I suspect she didn’t think it would get far.”

“Where did she say she was going?” Monty asked.

“I didn’t talk to her,” Marylee said. “I’d been trying to call her all morning to come help and just happened to see the truck out back and figured it out. The Greyhound bus had already come and gone. I guess she caught it out front when it stopped to pick up passengers. You think the least she could have done was say good-bye.”

“Would you mind if we took a look at the truck, Marylee?”

She shrugged as a new wave of customers came through the door. “Look all you want,” she said. “Why don’t you wash it while you’re at it. I don’t know where she drove it, but it’s a mess.”

John Thomas still couldn’t rule out the possibility that he was jumping the gun. He had no actual proof that Samantha was really missing. She could be anywhere, doing anything. Or she could be dead. It was that thought that nearly sent him to his knees. But hope that he was wrong made him keep moving.

“Wow. Marylee was right,” Monty said, as he began to circle the truck. “It’s not only dirty, it’s got some new-looking scratches on the fenders. And look here. Wherever she drove it, it must have been on high center at least once, because she’s got a wad of weeds and grasses wound around the crankshaft.”

John Thomas dropped to his knees. Monty was right. He reached beneath the truck and began pulling until he had all of the debris unwound and lying on the ground in front of him.

The grasses were tall. Wherever she’d been, it hadn’t been mowed—probably some out-of-the-way farmland or pasture. The dirt around their roots, still soft and clumped, told John Thomas that the weeds were freshly uprooted.

As he began to separate the plants, something sharp pierced his hand. He yanked it back with a soft curse as a length of berry vine with several hard green berries still attached separated itself from the grasses.

“Well, look here,” Monty said, as the sheriff began picking thorns from his hands. “Berry vines. I had blackberry cobbler just the other day at Marylee’s. She said the berries were from last year’s crop, but it was still real good.”

“They grow all over the place out here,” John Thomas said, and carefully pulled them from the debris and tossed them aside. He sorted the rest of the grasses into separate piles, hoping to find a clue that would tell him where the truck had been.

And yet his need to know was based on the assumption that Samantha had been in this truck. Before he went any further, he had to have proof of that fact. Only then would he know that Claudia might have had something to do with Samantha’s disappearance.

“I’m going to the farm,” John Thomas said, as he piled the brush and grasses into the back of his car. No matter how useless they might prove to be, for the moment they were one of the few clues he had. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Monty didn’t have time to ask why. He went back inside and ordered dessert. And before he’d finished his pie and iced tea, the sheriff was back. By then, he didn’t have to ask. When he saw the sheriff unloading the hound dog from the squad car, he figured it out for himself.

“I thought Rebel might be able to track her scent,” John Thomas said, and held up a pair of shoes that she’d left at the farm. “It’s a long shot, but right now, I’m willing to take it. If I look like a fool later, I’ll be the first to laugh.”

“You might not be so wrong after all, boss,” Monty said. “I just had Lawler go by the apartment and check again to make sure that Samantha hadn’t come back. The little newlywed who lives across the hall from me said she heard two women come downstairs this morning right after I left with your clothes. Said she heard them talking and laughing as they went out the door. She didn’t look out to see who it was, but she heard them drive off.”