Chapter 19
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Langford, Texas
Flint scanned the municipal airfield’s single asphalt runway as Drake taxied to the parking area and shut the engines down. While Drake handled the plane, Flint and Patterson went down the airstair to the tarmac. He checked the immediate area as they walked to Patterson’s rental.
Patterson reached the car a step ahead of Flint and stopped abruptly. He stood looking at the back of the rental as if he might find a dead body in the trunk. “They got here before we did.”
Flint saw the lid wasn’t fully closed because the latch was broken. Damage to the lid looked like a heavy steel pry bar had been used to force it. “What was in there?”
“A duffel full of clothes.” Patterson circled the car quickly, taking in the damage. He stopped at the driver’s door, which they’d jimmied open and bent down to look inside through the window.
“Glove box is open,” he said. “Floor mats are on the seat. Console lid’s up.”
“So they went through it more thoroughly the second time.” Flint peered into the passenger side windows to confirm. “Think it’s the same crew that hit you last night?”
“Makes sense.” He opened the driver’s side door and leaned in. “They already collected what was sitting in plain sight. Why did they come back?”
“And they spent more time, which suggests they didn’t find what they were looking for the first pass,” Flint replied. “If it was the same crew.”
“They must have thought they were tossing Kyle’s car,” Patterson said.
“Makes more sense. They wanted something they thought Kyle had. You said he was an insurance investigator. Could this be about one of the claims he handled?” Flint asked.
“Possibly. He handled some tough cases. Made plenty of people angry, over the years.” Patterson finished rifling through the damage in the front seat and backed out.
“Maybe they thought he was chasing an old case, you mean?”
Patterson shrugged. “If they thought I was him, they probably thought Kyle had whatever he’d learned about whatever they did was sitting in his rental.”
“Which could mean they’re still watching. Waiting for you to come back here.” Flint scanned the area again. Nothing had changed since his last assessment.
“Go ahead. See what you’ve got,” Flint said.
Patterson opened the rear passenger door just as Drake walked up. “Looks like a break-in. What’d they get?”
“He’s checking that now,” Flint cocked his head toward the vehicle where Patterson had climbed half in.
Drake glanced inside as Patterson moved a digital photo frame from the floorboard onto the back seat and worked his hand under the front passenger seat.
He yanked hard and pulled a creased six-by-nine-inch manila envelope free. He backed out and stood, dusting himself off. “They missed this.”
“Where was it?” Drake asked.
“An envelope taped flat to the seat pan. You can’t see it from the front and can’t feel it from the back without getting down into the floor. And only then if you know where to look.”
Flint nodded. “Anything else missing?”
Patterson slid the envelope into his pocket and returned to the car. He went through it thoroughly and came out with the digital photo frame.
“They left my working file in the trunk. They went through it but didn’t take it. Maybe they photographed what they wanted.”
Drake nodded at the frame. “What’s that?”
“Something I picked up yesterday. Buy you a coffee? I’ll fill you in inside.”
The municipal field kept a pilot’s lounge off the back of the office building.
The room had one door, one window with the blinds drawn, and a coffee pot that had been on duty since the last administration.
Drake stationed himself at the window with a clear view of the pavement outside and the parking strip.
Flint and Patterson took the table.
“I picked this up at the Keane house yesterday morning.” Patterson set the photo frame down between them. “Before you and Scarlett got there. I was looking for what Kyle had been chasing.”
Before Patterson had a chance to say more, Drake spoke from his post by the window. “Flint. Over here.”
Flint looked out. A dark sedan had pulled into the lot.
“It’s one of the guys who abducted Patterson. The chatty one,” Drake said. “He parked in front of the office building, got out, and went in the front door.”
“Anyone else in the car?”
“Not that I can see from here.”
Flint spoke into the comms. “Gaspar, are you still on?”
“Still here,” came the reply.
“We’re at Langford. One of the guys who abducted Patterson just drove up. Looks like the one who took off in that plane. Can you confirm?”
“Hold on.” Gaspar’s keyboard clicked in the background. “The turboprop landed at a private airfield nineteen miles north of you. One man got off and rented a sedan. That’s probably your guy, but I can confirm on traffic cams if you need it.”
“Pull the call log from the rental’s communications system. He had to call somebody between landing and showing up here.”
Gaspar’s keyboard clicked and a moment later, he reported, “One outgoing call, twelve minutes after he picked up the car which lasted three minutes. No other calls in or out.”
“So he checked in once and then went dark.”
“Looks like it,” Gaspar replied. “This guy is not giving up. You’ll have to deal with him now or later.”
“We’ve got an opportunity here to find out what the hell is going on.” Flint looked at Patterson. “He wants you. Let’s give him a chance to succeed.”
Patterson nodded. “Works for me.”
“Stay where you are. When he comes through that door, you’ll be the first thing he sees. Drake will be behind him in the hall. I’ll come in from the side. He’ll have three guns on him in a room where he can’t move. He drops the pistol or he dies.”
Drake said, “He’ll fight.”
“Maybe. But it’s three on one in a six-by-ten room. He’ll have a second to think about it and make the right choice.”
“And if he uses that second to shoot Patterson?”
Patterson replied, “He won’t get the chance. I’ll have a clean shot the moment that door opens. He’s not a fool.”
Flint and Drake went out the back door of the pilot’s lounge, which was located at the back of the office building.
A hallway ran the length of the building from the front office to a side door near the trash bins.
The goon had gone in the front door, which meant he was somewhere in the hallway between the office and the lounge.
Flint and Drake split at the corner. Drake went left around the front. Flint went right along the rear wall, past the lounge window and around.
The side door near the trash bins stood propped open with a half brick the manager had likely used when he came out to smoke. Flint slipped through and stopped just inside.
The hallway ran the length of the building. Brown carpet. Two doors on the right side. One door on the left. The pilot’s lounge where Patterson was waiting was the second door on the right.
Precisely where the goon was standing.
His back was to the hallway, head turned to listen, and his pistol held low at his hip. He hadn’t heard Flint open the side door. He was waiting for a sound from inside the lounge that would confirm Patterson was inside.
Flint pressed himself against the wall and waited.
Patterson scraped a chair across the floor inside the lounge.
The goon’s head came up. He shifted his weight forward, brought the pistol up, and reached for the door handle with his free hand.
He opened the door and stepped through.
Flint heard Patterson’s voice, flat and steady. “Drop the gun.”
The goon stopped in the doorway with the pistol in his hand. His shoulders went rigid. Flint moved closer. Drake came around the corner from the front and across from Flint.
“Three guns on you,” Flint said behind him. “Two here and one ahead. Set the pistol on the floor and step back.”
The goon didn’t move.
“You don’t have a play here,” Flint said. “Drop your weapon.”
For a long moment nothing happened. The man’s shoulders rose with a slow breath. His head turned a fraction. He looked at Patterson, gauging the distance, gauging the angle, calculating whether he could get one shot off before three rounds came at him.
Flint had seen men calculate like that before. The answer was obvious.
“You won’t make it,” Flint said.
The goon was fast for a man his size. He pushed sideways instead of forward, throwing himself toward the door jamb, and bringing the pistol up to aim at Patterson as he went.
It was a solid effort. He tried to use the door jamb as cover against Flint and Drake while he got a clean shot at Patterson. Take Patterson first. Then pivot fast enough to shoot Flint and Drake before they could put rounds in him. Three shots in under a second. Difficult, but not impossible.
He almost made it.
But as soon as the goon whipped his pistol up on the way to aim at Patterson, Patterson fired first.
The first shot landed center mass. The reflex shot fired an instant later, but the muzzle had already drifted offline, and the round hit the doorjamb, sending a chunk of wood into the air.
The goon fell back against the open door, slid down, and landed on the threshold with one leg in the hall and one in the room.
He looked up at Patterson with something like awe.
Then he was gone.
Flint stepped around the body and into the lounge. Drake stopped to check the goon’s pulse to be certain. Patterson lowered his weapon.
“Hear any sirens headed our way?” Drake asked.
Flint heard the usual noises around an operational airport. Planes headed in and out, pilots and ground crew handling their jobs, passengers milling about. The office radio played the local country music station over the sound system, which had paused for a news headline update.
Police have made an arrest in the hit-and-run death of Langford woman Theresa Moreno. Police say her ex-husband has been charged with second-degree murder after the couple’s domestic violence history led them to Jason Moreno.
Flint cast a meaningful glance toward Drake to be sure he’d heard the story before he said, “Let’s get this body and the two vehicles out of here before sirens show up. There’s a big box store close by. I saw it when we landed.”
Patterson collected the goon’s keys. “I’ll bring his sedan around to the side door. If you drive it, I’ll drive my rental and we can leave everything.”
After he left, Drake said, “So Annie Oakley was wrong about the motive for Moreno’s murder.”
Flint shrugged and spoke to Gaspar over the comms as he bent to search the goon’s pockets. “We’re moving the body and both rentals a mile north on the east side of the highway. We need a ride back.”
“I’ll send a car and a local team to deal with the fallout later,” Gaspar replied.
Flint found another copy of the Kyle Patterson photo in the goon’s pocket along with a phone and wallet while Drake collected his weapon and the digital photo frame.
Patterson pulled the goon’s sedan up close to the side door, and they tossed him into the trunk along with his weapon.
“Get the plane ready. We’ll be back shortly,” Flint said.
“Copy that,” Drake replied.
Flint slid behind the wheel, and while Patterson hustled to his rental, Drake locked the side door and crossed to prepare the plane.
Flint and Patterson dropped the two vehicles behind the big box store near the dumpsters where they shouldn’t be found for at least a few hours. Maybe longer if they got lucky.
Patterson stuffed everything left in his rental into the duffel in the trunk before they slid into Gaspar’s pickup car. A short return trip to the airport placed them close to the King Air.
Flint pulled up the airstairs and settled into the co-pilot’s seat as Patterson belted in behind him and Drake taxied for takeoff.