Stress Test (38 page)

God, You helped David slay Goliath, but You equipped David with
a slingshot and some rocks. All I have are my bare hands and my wits.
Please let those be enough
.

Matt had no idea how long Lester had been driving. He was pretty sure they were out of the city and onto a highway of some sort. Potholes and sharp corners had been replaced by long stretches of straight driving. An occasional
whooshing
sound accompanied by the car’s swaying suggested the passing of a large truck. Then the driver turned sharply once more, and Matt sensed the roughness of an unpaved road and heard the occasional ping of gravel against the car’s undercarriage.

The car rolled to a stop. Matt had decided on his last-ditch strategy, and in preparation he rolled himself into a crouch, his back hard
against the trunk, his feet beneath him ready to spring as soon as the trunk lid was opened. Lester would be expecting him to be on his side, his hands shackled behind him. The relative freedom of having his hands in front of him, coupled with the element of surprise, might be enough. And if it wasn’t . . . well, a bullet was coming sooner or later.

The trunk lid clicked and opened a couple of inches. Lester must have used the latch release inside the car before he exited himself, expecting his captive to be immobilized by his hands cuffed behind him. Matt made an instant decision. He pushed the trunk lid upward, clambered out, eased the lid almost closed, and scurried around to hide behind the rear fender on the passenger side. He scanned the area. They appeared to be at the end of a gravel service road, the headlights illuminating a rocky ridge with infinite blackness beyond it. Matt thought he could make out several piles of chalky rocks off to either side. Weren’t there some abandoned quarries in this part of North Texas? And as he recalled, most of them were filled with water. Matt had an idea of what Lester was planning, and it made him shiver, despite a temperate night.

Hadn’t he said that Matt was going where Lou was? Did that mean Lou was in that watery grave? The thought gave him no joy, since it was obvious Lester had the same destination in mind for Matt.

There was no traffic on the road, no buildings around—the perfect spot for an execution. Lester probably planned to shoot Matt where he lay in the trunk, roll down the windows, and shove the vehicle into the water. If the quarry was deep, Matt would just disappear beneath the surface.

The driver’s door opened. In a moment, Matt heard a splash somewhere past the built-up verge. His captor must have thrown Matt’s cell phone into the water. Footsteps on the gravel announced Lester’s progress toward the rear of the car. Matt crouched lower as the man
approached the trunk. The footsteps stopped, and Matt risked a peep. Lester had his gun in his right hand. He stood for a moment with his left hand on the trunk lid, then flung it upward. “Okay. Time to take a little swim.”

Matt was pretty sure what Lester’s next move would be, and he planned his own actions accordingly. He crept toward the gunman, staying low and moving slowly, and when Lester bent over to look into the empty trunk, Matt struck. He bumped the back of Lester’s knees with his own, and Lester responded by throwing up his hands to keep his balance. Matt reached up to drop his handcuffed arms over Lester’s head, centered the chain on the gunman’s Adam’s apple, and pulled for all he was worth. He put his knee in Lester’s back to bend him backward and keep him off balance, making it harder for the stronger man to fight.

Lester brought his gun up over his left shoulder, but Matt saw it coming and ducked to the right. The man was gasping already. He fired. Once. Twice. Three times. The third shot grazed the back of Matt’s left shoulder, and he felt blood start to flow. The pain hadn’t started yet—he knew it would soon—but when it did, he had to ignore it and maintain his pressure.

Lester’s struggles grew weaker. He waved his gun, but apparently his oxygen-starved brain couldn’t send the signal to his trigger finger. Then the gun dropped to the ground, and the man slumped forward. Matt resisted the impulse to let up the pressure on Lester’s neck. He might be playing possum, and this was a game with mortal consequences. What if Matt went too far, choked Lester to death? Was it justifiable? But if he let up too soon, Lester might turn on him again.

Matt eased the pressure slightly and managed to get his thumb over Lester’s carotid artery. At first he thought he’d killed the man,
then he felt the pulse—very faint and very slow. The pressure had not only cut off the blood supply to Lester’s brain, it had stimulated the receptors in his carotid artery and slowed his heart rate to dangerous levels. Nothing to be done about it. Matt had to act before his captor woke up from the choke hold.

Matt kicked the gun away and freed his arms from around Lester’s neck. The gunman slumped over the sill of the trunk. Matt’s left arm was almost useless. He used his right hand to paw through Lester’s pockets until he found the handcuff key. Blood from his shoulder wound ran down his left arm onto his hand, making it difficult to unlock the cuffs, but he finally managed. He cuffed Lester’s arms behind him. With one arm out of commission, there was no way Matt could lift the much larger man, but he eventually got his right shoulder under Lester and tipped him over the rim of the trunk, then slammed the lid.

Matt picked up the gun and shoved it under his belt. He reached back to feel the gunshot wound in his left shoulder. The bleeding was a slow ooze—nothing arterial. There was no good way to put a pressure dressing on it, though. He needed to get help before he passed out. Did Lester have a cell phone? He should have looked, but was afraid to open the trunk and risk being attacked.

Matt slid into the car and had a moment of panic. Were the keys still in Lester’s pocket? Matt had heard of people hot-wiring cars, but he’d never figured out how that worked. In the books, the hero just removed the collar from the steering column, ripped some wires loose and crossed two of them, and the car started. He wished he’d acquired that knowledge, but he had no clue.

He held his breath as he fumbled along the dash with his good hand. There they were! The keys were in the ignition. The lights were still on, but seemed dim. Did the battery have enough strength
remaining to start the car? Matt was willing to bet that Hector Rivera hadn’t spent a penny more on the car than was absolutely necessary, and odds were that the battery wasn’t new.

Matt turned the key in the ignition. The car growled a few times and Matt’s heart sank. He tried it again, with the same result. Should he stop, in the hope the battery would recover? No time, he had to get help. He turned the key and the engine caught at last.
Thank You, God
.

Matt shifted into reverse—wouldn’t do to run into that pond and finish what Lou started—and turned the car around. He heard a thump and a muffled shout from the trunk. Lester was waking up. Matt only hoped the handcuffs would hold him until he could get to help. He squinted, as though by doing so he could see beyond the dim headlight beams, and started off into the darkness.

“Mister? Are you okay?”

Matt roused himself from the fog that enveloped him. He was in a car, his head resting on the steering wheel. His left arm and shoulder were throbbing with pain. And a terrible noise issued from the rear of the car.

The boy leaning in the driver’s side window looked to be about eighteen. His streaked blond hair was two weeks overdue for cutting. His faded yellow T-shirt bore the words “Alvord Bulldogs” in faint black script. Matt turned his head to look through the car windshield and saw he was parked in front of some sort of convenience store. Although the events of the night were coming back to him, he couldn’t recall pulling in here.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked. “I’m the only one here tonight, but I can call for help. It looks like you’re hurt.” He paused as the
banging from the car’s trunk increased. “And we need to get whoever’s in the trunk out.”

“No!” Matt said. “Yes, call the police. I need help. But don’t let that man out of the trunk. He tried to . . .” And then darkness closed over him.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“You’re mighty lucky to get away like you did,” the deputy said.

Matt had to agree. The little town of Alvord had no police department, so the boy had called the Wise County Sheriff. The responding deputy removed Lester from the car trunk and took him into custody. An ambulance took Matt to the nearest hospital. Now he was in an open jail cell in Decatur, the county seat, his left arm in a sling and a heavy bandage covering his shoulder on that side, talking with a deputy and trying to figure out what came next.

“After you told me your story,” the deputy said, “I called the Dallas police department, since that’s where all this started. I told them that the guy in the trunk had kidnapped you, apparently wanted to kill you. They said they’d send a couple of officers to get him—give you a lift back too. Should be here in about an hour.”

Matt read the nameplate on the deputy’s uniform. “Look, Deputy Combes, if one of those policemen is a detective named Grimes, I don’t want anything to do with him. He’s out to get me. I’m not sure
who I’m more afraid of, Grimes or this guy.” He gestured to the next cell, where Lester lay stretched out on his cot.

Lester frowned at Matt through the bars, but said nothing.

“Suit yourself,” Combes said. “But you’re going to have to give the police a statement sometime. They’re coming here to get that guy. If you want to ride back with them, you don’t have to say anything all the way to Dallas. And your attorney can meet you at the station there.”

Matt thought about that. Surprisingly enough, his watch was still running, and it showed the time to be about four in the morning. He could call Sandra. She’d probably come to get him, but what Combes said made sense. He didn’t have to answer any of Grimes’s questions. He’d call Sandra from police headquarters and refuse to say anything until she was present.

“I guess that would be okay.” He lay back on the cot. “I think I’m going to rest until they get here.”

A hand shaking his good shoulder roused Matt from a troubled sleep. “Newman, wake up. We need to talk.”

Matt opened his eyes and saw the dark, scowling face of Detective Virgil Grimes. He started to push himself upright, but stopped when little men with hammers started beating on the muscles of his left shoulder. He dropped back onto the bunk. “I have nothing to say until I see my lawyer.”

Grimes’s grin had no mirth in it. “Somehow I thought you’d say that. Do you want to ride with us back to the police station in Dallas? You can call your lawyer from there.”

Matt had decided it was probably his best option. He agreed, and in a few minutes was following Grimes and Lester, his hands cuffed
in front of him, shackles on his legs, out of the little jail toward a dirty, black Crown Victoria. Grimes shoved Lester into the backseat, buckled the seat belt around him, and slammed the door.

He turned to Matt. “You ride up here with me.”

Matt stopped with the passenger door half-open. “I thought they were sending two policemen. Why a detective? Why you? And since you’re here, where’s Detective Ames?”

“Guess there were no officers free to send. I was up for the next detective call, so here I am. As for Ames, I don’t know.” Grimes shrugged. “I called her, but she didn’t answer. But don’t worry. I can handle this guy.” He jerked his head toward the backseat, then patted the bulge under the left arm of his wrinkled suit coat.

Matt wasn’t sure what to do. He hated to get into the car with these two men, one who’d just tried to kill him, another who seemed determined to put him behind bars or on the path to death row.

“Get in. I’m not going to ask you any questions,” Grimes said. “And if you wait here for a ride, you’ll be half a day getting home. We’ll finish our business at the station in forty-five minutes or less. Then you can rest.”

Matt still had misgivings, but he climbed in. Grimes had the car moving before Matt could get his seat belt fastened. When they turned onto the highway, Matt saw a sign that told him Dallas was sixty-five miles away. There was still at least an hour before sunup, maybe more, so he leaned back and closed his eyes.