Chapter 51
It happened in a pothole about a quarter of a mile from Harold Bratcher’s farm where Jason Crawford had gone to milk his uncle’s cows.
So much for showing up unannounced. As if her rumbling muffler-free truck wasn’t bad enough, as soon as she pulled into the drive that went around the house, a dog began to bark, a little yappy dog from the sound of it, no bigger than a loaf of bread.
The drive continued to the barn, a tool shed, a couple of other outbuildings, a water tank, and a smallish corn silo supported by metal legs—sixty by twenty-five feet.
There were no lights on in the house, no lights on in the barn or in any of the outbuildings.
Light shone out through both the open doors on opposite sides of the top of the corn silo, though.
A water tank stood about fifteen feet to the left of the silo.
It was bigger and taller than the silo, and what appeared to be a work light shone from the railing that enclosed the catwalk encircling the outside of the tank.
When she got all the way around the house and started back toward the barn, she saw a dark sedan she assumed was Jason Crawford’s—a classic, maybe a Chevy.
Or a Ford. Jojo believed that anybody who could identify the make and model of a car on sight was a witch and should be burned at the stake.
He’d parked it behind the silo, out of sight from the road.
If that was Jason’s whatever-kind-of-car, he was on the property somewhere. But where? It was a big farm.
Jojo parked her truck next to the small tool shed, got out, and rested her right hand on her weapon still in the holster.
Since you could hear the rumble of her muffler-free pickup truck for five miles in every direction, and the mini guard-dog alarm had sounded, it was absurd to think he didn’t know somebody had come.
She called out, “Jason, yo Jason, you got a minute?”
Her shout was greeted by silence.
“This is Jojo Kaufmann. I just came out because I got a couple of questions I want to ask you. Would you mind talking to me?”
Still quiet.
“Your mother said you were here milking your uncle’s cows … Jason?”
No answer.
Well, then, she’d go find him.
Several pole lights cast pale puddles of illumination with dark spaces in between on the dirt in the open area in front of the cluster of buildings.
Old metal stairs angled up to the open door in the top of the silo.
The water tank had only a ladder leading up to the catwalk, where the pallid glow of a work light was gobbled up by the darkness around it.
He’d come to milk cows, so there had to be a milking parlor—maybe behind the barn where she couldn’t see it. That was the logical place to look first.
She made her way along the wall of the tool shed, then stepped out beyond it.
Crack!
The wood on the side of the tool shed where she’d been standing splintered about head high.
A bullet tears a hole in the tarp on the truck where Jojo has taken cover, ripping it only inches from her head.
She’s squinting, her eyes stinging from the sweat pouring into them, her heart hammers in her ears, beating so fast there are no individual beats, just a steady hummmmm.
Then she sees Yasmin walking forward out of the smoke.
The little girl pauses, then takes another step and calls out something that Jojo doesn’t hear.
The child takes more steps, getting closer, and calls out again, two strange words, and Jojo hears it then.
Jojo understands the words, though none of the other soldiers who hear them can.
Jojo knows what Yasmin is saying, and with a sudden shock of horror and disbelief, she understands what the child is trying to tell her with the strange words.
Jojo freezes in place, as solid as a statue, unable to move or think or …
Crack! More splinters exploded from the wood on the shed … on the farm where she was looking for … Jason Craw?—
Jojo threw herself back behind the shed, pulling her pistol from its holster, her heart pounding. There was another Crack! and more splinters exploded from the same spot. A third crack knocked a hunk of wood out of the corner of the tool shed, but then the firing stopped.
Well, there it was.
Jason Crawford had just tried to kill Jojo. Game over.
They’d been wrong about Adam Cruz/Jake Hadley, and she’d been right about Jason.
He was the killer. Protocol in a shots-fired situation like this dictated that she stand down and call for backup.
Pulling her phone from her pocket she hit the red emergency button, and the phone dialed 911.
Nothing happened. She tried again, and when that call didn’t go through either, she looked at her phone for the first time since she’d left town.
No bars. There were remote places in rural Somerset County where there was no cell reception, and apparently, this was one of them.
And she doubted that Jason Crawford would allow her to merely walk back to her truck, get in, and drive away.
As if to clear up any doubt on the matter, another Crack! ripped open the darkness as the boy placed another slug in the corner of the tool shed. Splinters flew.
Here she was again—outgunned. Her Glock 19 was no match for what she was guessing was a .30-06 deer rifle with a scope. The effective range of her pistol was fifteen to twenty-five yards. That rifle was accurate up to three hundred yards.
The shots had come from above. Jason was either in the silo or in the darkness on the catwalk around the water tank.
Picking up a piece of a broken shingle off the ground, she extended it out past the corner of the shed, and it instantly exploded out of her hand, but she was able to spot the muzzle flash.
It came from inside the top of the silo.
He was firing a .30-06 all right, maybe hollow points just like before, to inflict the maximum injury possible.
Martha Miller’s voice spoke in her head.
“I saw the hole in my Annie’s chest. Her … heart … her heart was gone. Please … please find the monster who ripped my little girl’s beating heart out of her body.”
Jojo felt an icy calm settle over her. She had found the monster. Its name was Jason Crawford.
“Jason, you need to put that rifle down,” she called out, steel in her tone.
“Open the barn door slowly all the way and walk out with your hands in the air. I just called for backup and in fifteen minutes this place is going to be crawling with state police, sheriff’s deputies, FBI and ATF agents.
After what you did, those guys are out for blood.
Come quietly now and you won’t get hurt. ”
“Awww, that’s right nice of you to offer, Jojo,” came a voice from the top of the silo, “but I believe I’ll pass.
How did you make that call, by the way? Bring a Harry Potter owl, did you?
” His giggle sounded too high and unhinged.
“’Cause this whole farm is in a cell phone dead spot and you can’t get coverage. ”
She picked up another piece of shingle and tossed it out into the dirt in front of the tool shed and it instantly exploded into fragments.
That was six.
Then she turned and bolted away from the shed and back down the driveway, a perfect target for three or four seconds in the spill of light until she disappeared into the darkness beyond.
But she knew that Jason was—at least temporarily—out of bullets.
The internal magazine of a .30-06 holds five rounds, plus one chambered for a total of six.
He couldn’t reload fast enough to shoot her.
As soon as the darkness completely enfolded her, Jojo stopped running and turned around, looking down the dark driveway to the puddles of light beyond.
Maybe he believed she had run off to get help.
She hoped so. And maybe he’d also fallen for the “barn” ruse so he’d think she didn’t know his position.
But he was a sharp kid, so a maybe-not on both counts was likely.
It didn’t matter. She had to go after him, had to get close so she wouldn’t be outgunned.
The magazine on her Glock 19 held fifteen rounds.
And she always chambered a round—pulled the slide back and released it so one round dropped into the chamber, then popped the magazine out of the pistol and pushed a lone cartridge on the follower to replace it—giving her sixteen shots.
She had two spare magazines … in the gun case at her uncles’ house.
Out in the darkness where Jason couldn’t track her movements, she made her way across the yard and fields to a position behind the barn. She heard more gunshots, counted them. He emptied out another whole magazine … shooting at what?
Then she kept to the shadows, circled the barn, and stopped behind the outbuilding that was closest to the back side of the corn silo and the steps leading up to the open door there.
She would be a sitting duck as she climbed the stairs.
All he had to do was step out onto the narrow landing at the top, lean over the railing, point the rifle down—no scope—and pull the trigger.
But the two most important words in that sentence were “step out.” There was no way to shoot her off the steps without exposing himself.
She’d keep her eyes and her pistol trained on the open doorway above her as she climbed.
If he appeared there, she’d have a second, maybe two, to shoot him before he could shoot her.
She was a better shot than he was, and that was enough time.
She crossed soundlessly to the bottom of the old stairs leading up to the silo door on the back side of the silo.
Jason had been shooting at her out the open door on the front.
She climbed quickly and quietly, popped up like a gopher out of a hole in one swift movement when she reached the top, lifting her head and shoulders above the bottom of the landing, gun in a two-hand grip, ready to fire.
There was a light in the top of the silo.
Reflecting off the shiny silver metal inside made it a bright beacon, turned the silo into a two-beamed lighthouse.
She could see a narrow internal catwalk that connected the doors in a half circle on the north side.
Jason’d been standing just inside the front door when he fired at her and she could see spent shell casings on the catwalk, but no Jason.
Maybe Jason had escaped while Jojo was out in the darkness circling to flank him. Or maybe he’d just left to get more ammo—Hold my beer I’ll be back.
Either way, if he was on the ground right now looking up, he might be able to see Jojo on the steps, maybe just her silhouette, though she was on the back side of the silo in the dark and in its shadow.
Hurrying silently up the remaining steps, she crossed the narrow landing and flattened her back against the outside wall of the silo in a deep puddle of shadow.
She looked down then into the darkness on the back side of the silo and could see nothing at all.
Jason could be absolutely anywhere. He might at this moment be only a few feet from her, inside the silo, waiting to pick her off if she dared stick her head in.
He was at home here in this place, could probably locate anything he needed on the whole farm without turning on any lights. The night was his ally. How could she possibly expect to catch him, and avoid getting shot when he?—?
A sound rumbled in the darkness. The engine suddenly started in the car Jason had parked behind the silo out of sight.
An instant later, the headlights flared.
Jason was down there, and he had decided to run.
The car was directly beneath her. She could see it through the metal slats of the landing, and she instinctively leapt backward into the silo out of sight, flattening her back against the door, peering out into the darkness at the twin saber beams of headlights below.
There was no way for her to get down to the ground fast enough to stop?—
Her combat “spidey sense” kicked in a second too late. She sensed a presence above and behind her, moved to spin around but didn’t make it. She felt a hard thump on the back of her head and neck and the world went black.