Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
T he impound yard was an unpaved square lot with a half dozen cars, a couple of tractors, an ATV, and a cement mixer. Weed-tangled chain-link fence formed its boundary. The gate was closed and locked.
“Your dad’s safe and sound at the ranch house, with plenty of folks watchin’ his back,” she said, nodding at her phone.
“Good to know. And your dad the chief deputy thinks we’re not about to break into his impound yard, right?”
She made a face, then said, “If he doesn’t, it’s only ’cause he hasn’t had time to mull on it yet. He raised me, after all.”
Harry looked worried. In the dash lights, his brow was creased, his mouth, tight. “I don’t feel like we have a choice,” he said. “The idea of Lily being in that guy’s hands?—”
“I know. And I’m with you on that,” Maria said. “Up ahead there’s a spot to pull off. There, right there, see it?”
“I see it.” He pulled her van off the road, amid some small brushy trees that might conceal it a little bit. He shut it off but left the keys on the seat. They got out, and walked across the road, pulling on latex gloves taken from her veterinary supplies as they went. Maria jumped up onto the chain-link fence, near a pole, and climbed. In seconds she was landing on the other side and brushing off her hands.
Through the link, Harry gaped at her. She smiled. “Meet me at the gate. I’ll let you in.”
He shook his head then jumped onto the fence and climbed over, dropping down beside her. “I’m not gonna let you show me up.”
“Yeah? Next time we’ll race. See who’s faster. This way.” She led him through a half dozen vehicles and other items. “We have to avoid the camera. There’s only one. See it? It’s angled toward the front.” And she pointed.
He nodded then said, “Why is there a barbecue grill in the impound?”
“Some locals were cookin’ meth on it.” Maria spotted the large black truck with the huge metal grill welded onto the front. Its bed was lined with wood planks and was wider than the truck. At the rear, there was a ramp, folded in at the moment, for loading and offloading the ATVs.
Harry opened the driver’s door and climbed up, so Maria went around to the passenger side. She opened the glove compartment and found a plastic fork, some napkins, and the truck’s manual. If there’d been a registration or insurance card in there, the police would have already taken them. She looked over the top of the visor. A pair of sunglasses fell down. Sighing, she put them back and checked the pocket attached to the door, which was filthy, and held several cellophane cigarette wrappers and an empty plastic ice cream bowl with a wooden spoon.
As soon as she saw that spoon, she remembered its flavor. Yuck.
She looked across at Harry. He was digging around underneath the driver’s seat. So, she bent to look underneath the passenger seat, and whisper-shouted, “Ha! There’s an envelope under here.” She stretched her arm and got hold of a corner. “Got it!”
She pulled it out and climbed up onto the seat. Harry climbed up onto his as she looked at the envelope. He pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight app to illuminate the address.
His face fell. “It’s junk mail. Resident. Rural Route Twelve.”
Maria said, “That’s only a twelve-mile stretch. We’re closer.” She turned the envelope over. The back was covered in handwriting. She read it aloud.
“‘Harrison Hyde, Texas Brand.’ It has your description. See right here, tall, dark, and handsome.”
He smiled, which had been her goal. Then she said, “It also says First to provide proof of death gets 1 million cash .”
He raised his eyebrows and whistled at the amount. “If they only wanted me dead, why take Lily?”
“Did they have a shot at you?”
She saw him thinking back. “No, I pushed dad out of the way, wound up in some brush. It was dark. They drove past without even seeing me.”
“So they took whoever they could get. They’ll use her to get to you, one way or another.”
He pressed his hand to his forehead. She could freel his frustration.
“How could these guys have known we’d be on that particular road at that particular time?” he asked. “Who else knew? Besides your family, I mean. It can’t be one of them.”
“You trust my family that much?”
He looked into her eyes. “My mom used to say you can recognize good people. You can just feel them, she said. She could anyway. I didn’t think it was very scientific, but even so, from then on, I always paid attention when I met someone new, looking for that sense. Never worked until now. With your family, I finally understand what she meant.”
“ Harry ,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “You’re fixin’ to make me cry.”
“So besides them, who? The guy whose jet we borrowed…”
“State Senator Mark Tompkins,” Maria filled in.
“And the pilot,” he said.
“And the driver who picked up the pilot.”
“And the crew who came to get the jet,” Harry added.
“That’s a lot of people.”
Harrison drove slowly over the 12-mile stretch of Rural Route 12. It was a narrow, bumpy stretch of road in need of a fresh coat of pavement. There were not a lot of homes on it. Here and there, a trailer with a couple of outbuildings, or a two-story farmhouse at least a century old.
“I want to search them all,” he said. It was killing him, thinking of his kid sister, tied up and scared in one of them.
“I do, too. But let’s rule some out, first. Look, swing set, kids’ toys on the lawn, we can probably eliminate that one.” Maria had a notebook open and was jotting notes about every place they passed. “No vehicle in the driveway, that’s a red flag.”
“How about an ATV in the driveway?” Harrison asked, because he’d just spotted one, and his heart started beating faster.
She was still scribbling. “Well, that would be a —”
Gently, he closed his hand on top of her head, lifted and turned it. She looked where he was looking, at a small farmhouse with an ATV in the driveway. “Holy heck, Keep goin’, keep goin’!”
“I am. I am.” He drove past, and once out of sight, he chose the first spot where he could pull off the road safely. He did so in reverse, so they’d be ready for a quick take-off, backing up off the road as far as possible. Then he shut the car off.
“Should I call in the troops?” Maria asked. She had her phone in her hand.
“We should make sure.” Because there was no way he was waiting for help to arrive. Lily might be in there. He opened the car door.
Maria grabbed his arm. “Harry, this guy could be a professional killer.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t think a pro cuts loose with rebel yells while repeatedly bashing an empty pickup truck.”
She tipped her head sideways, her gaze shifting in the same direction she tilted. It was a peculiar thing she did when thinking, and it did something to his insides every time he witnessed it, even now when he was itching to run for the house. She said, “You’re right, that wasn’t very professional.”
They started walking together toward the farmhouse. It was full dark and thick storm clouds had crept in to cover the moon. Insects whirred behind a cricket choir, and the air was thick and warm and heavy. It would be dawn in another hour.
“It seems to me like somebody put out a hit,” Harrison said. “Made it a competition.”
“That’s what it sounds like from that paper we found. Somebody put a bounty on your head. And maybe not just yours.”
“Maybe Solomon and Richard and Carrie, too,” he whispered.
“But not publicly,” Maria went on. “It’s not like you could take out a classified ad. Whoever’s behind this put it to a select audience of folks who wouldn’t report it.”
They stopped a few yards from the driveway. “I don’t see any cameras.” Maria wished for more light. “The place looks abandoned.”
“Let’s circle around behind. There’s scrub brush we can use for cov?—”
The front door opened. They were in plain sight on the road, but it was pitch dark. Harry found Maria’s hand with his own as he crouched low. She crouched, too. The figure staggered to the ATV, got on, and started it up. Its headlight came on, bathing the house. Something skittered underneath.
Harry and Maria backed into the nearest bunch of bushes, and in a moment, the ATV was turning in a tight circle, and roaring away, in the opposite direction from where they’d left the car.
“Let’s go.” Harry ran right up the driveway to the front door, ignoring Maria’s whispered warning that the assassin might’ve left somebody behind.
But nobody challenged him as he tried the door and found it locked. He was about to kick it down, when Maria’s hand clasped his shoulder from behind and she said, “Why don’t we see if there’s a less obvious way in first? Come on.”
He was impatient, but it would only take a minute. It wasn’t a very big house. So he went around the side, checking every window until he came to a basement hatch, angled low to the ground. There was no padlock on it. Its rusty hinges squealed into the night.
He froze, met Maria’s wide eyes. She was motionless as well, partially crouched, ready to run. But they didn’t hear a thing. “Okay,” he said. “Flashlights.” He held up his phone.
Maria took hers out, and activated the light, and then she followed him down into the basement. “We should close these behind us,” she whispered.
“We’ll be five minutes. In and out.” He was already aiming his light into every corner and crevice of the cellar, and then mounting the rickety wooden stairway up. At the top, the door was closed, but not locked. It opened when he turned the knob, and he pushed it inward just slightly, peering through, flashlight off.
There was no sign of anyone. He stepped up into a kitchen. There were dishes in the sink, a towel on the rack, a bottle of dish soap, a pan hanging from a hook, potholders, a toaster. Someone lived there.
“We should split up,” Maria whispered. “You take the upstairs?—”
“Not on your life. Stay close to me, okay?”
“Okay.” She looked around the kitchen, grabbed a meat hammer from a rack of utensils, and returned to position behind him.
He crept from the kitchen through a dining room whose table and chairs bore a thick layer of dust. The living room had a ratty sofa and chair, and a big TV on the wall. The recliner had a cup holder in which stood a beer can. There was an overflowing ashtray on a coffee table. A thin spiral of smoke rose lazily from a not-quite-extinguished butt.
“If he’s living here, he probably didn’t go far,” Maria said. “We have to hurry.” She tugged his sleeve toward the stairs, and they hurried up, flinging open doors, no longer being quiet. Bathroom, empty. Bedroom, empty. Bedroom?—
“Lily!”
She was on a bed with a bare mattress and an old metal head and footboard, maybe brass. She was lying on her side, hands and feet bound, hair covering her face. The leg of her jeans was soaked in blood. She wasn’t moving.
Harrison ran to her. “Lily.” He rolled her onto her back, and she moaned. “She’s alive.”
“We need to get her out of here fast, before he gets back,” Maria said. “Scoop her up and carry her out the back door. Come on, let’s go.” She reached over and pulled off one of his sister’s slip-on shoes. “Sorry about this, Lily. I’ll buy you a new pair.”
They moved through the house rapidly, down the stairs, out the back door, which they left open, but Maria darted over to the hatchway door through which they’d entered and closed it. Then she threw Jen’s shoe toward the farthest edge of the back lawn where it met with dark woods.
Maria rejoined Harrison and they headed for the car. “If he thinks she escaped, he’ll waste time lookin’ for her out there,” she said.
“You’re brilliant. I wouldn’t have thought of that.” He walked fast, his sister limp in his arms. “She’s out cold, Maria.”
“He probably drugged her,” she said. “It can’t be from blood loss, there’s not enough.”
The sound of the ATV’s motor came then. Harry ran faster, but Maria sprinted. She got to the van ahead of him and opened the side door. The interior light came on. Harrison slid his sister into the back, lying her down on the floor, and then he and Maria dove into the front, slammed the doors. The lights went off.
The ATV was rolling up to the house. Harry started the van, pulled out, and drove away before the other vehicle’s noisy motor shut off, heading away from the little house. He didn’t turn his headlights on until they were clear.
“Perfect!” Maria said. Then she twisted in her seat, pulled out her cell phone and called Willow on speaker.
She answered on ring one. “Where the hell are you?” she asked. “Why aren’t you at the house?”
“Well,” Maria said, “We found a clue that led us to Lily, so we rescued her.” Maria flashed a smile Harrison’s way, and if he hadn’t been driving, he’d have kissed her right then.
“You rescued her? Is she okay? Are y ou okay?”
“She’s injured, and I suspect they drugged her. She’s unconscious. Hang on.” She put the phone into a cup holder then climbed over the seat to tend to Lily.
Harrison adjusted the mirror, driving and watching.
Hooking her finger into the tear in the Lily’ jeans, Maria ripped them wide open, revealing a thigh sticky with blood, and a small tear in Lily’s flesh that still trickled.
“She has a small wound,” Maria said loud enough for Willow to hear on the phone. “From broken glass, probably. It’s in her left thigh. She’s been bleeding awhile, so she might need a transfusion.”
“We’re the same type,” Harrison said.
“We’re inbound to the hospital.”
“Where was she being held? Was anyone else there?”
“Five-ten County Route Twelve,” Harrison said. “One adult male captor. Has an ATV. Probably armed. And he probably thinks my sister escaped out the back door and headed into the woods behind the house, thanks to your cousin’s quick thinking.”
“Got it. I’ll wake the doc, have him meet you at the ER, and then I’ll wake a judge.”
Harrison stayed by his sister’s side, holding her hand, gazing at her face. It was as if he’d gone back in time a year, and it was his mom in the hospital bed. He’d refused to leave her then. He refused to leave Lily now.
She’d lost a little blood, but it turned out she was unconscious because she’d been doped with ketamine. And she still hadn’t awakened.
He sat there, holding her hand, lost in his saddest memories, and starting to nod off. And his mom said, “She’s fine, Harrison. Your sister’s fine.”
He startled awake, looking around the room. No one was there. The door was closed. Someone tapped on it before opening it. Maria came inside with a white paper bag in one hand and a larger, brown paper bag in the other. The sight of her rinsed the sadness from his brain. She’d been with him the whole time, but he’d been surprised to wake up and find her gone. He got up to greet her with a hug.
“Hey,” she whispered. “I have sustenance and supplies.” She held up the white bag. “Breakfast sandwiches. Two of ’em.”
“Thanks.” He took the bag, took out the sandwiches and offered one to her.
“Aunt Chelsea brought them.” She looked at his sister in the bed, still unconscious. “Hey, Lily,” she said, moving closer, leaning down to squeeze her shoulder. “It’s Maria. I’m here with Harry and you’re safe. Everything’s all right.”
“You think she can hear you?”
Maria shrugged. “Better I talk to her and she can’t hear me, than not talk to her if she can, right Lily?” She gave Lily’ a shoulder another squeeze. “What do the doctors say?”
“That she’ll come around as soon as the drugs wear off. The IV’s supposed to flush them out faster.”
“Good.” She pulled a second chair over nearer to his, sat in it, and opened her shoulder bag on her lap. From it, she pulled out a thermal jug, twisted off its cup lid, and filled it with hot coffee. “There’s a machine in the waiting room, of course, but I thought you deserved the real deal, so I asked Aunt Chelsea to bring a Thermos.”
“Holy, God, no wonder I lo… I mean, um. No wonder I’m lagging. No coffee. Heh-heh.” Lame cover. He’d almost blurted, No wonder I love you. What was wrong with him?
No sleep. Murder attempt. Sister kidnapped. There was a lot wrong with him. He took the cup, took a sip. She screwed on the cap and set the coffee aside.
“Thank you,” he said, and took another sip. “That’s… perfect.” One more sip. Then, “What’s the update? They get the kidnapper yet?”
“Not yet. He wasn’t home when Willow went to his place. ATV was gone, too. Probably out lookin’ for his escaped prisoner. Until she gets a line on him, Will decided it’s best not to let on that Lily was rescued.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, if he’s out lookin’ for her, he’s not out tryin’ to shoot you.”
She pushed his hair off his forehead. “We know who it is, though. Local fella, works for Beckett Oil, like half of Quinn County. Interesting thing is, so did the other fella. The one you uh— tackled off a moving four-wheeler like some kinda superhero. Once Willow arrests him, she’ll get more.”
“Well, what if he doesn’t come back?” Harry asked. He’d demolished one sandwich and was unwrapping the second.
“Then at least he’s not tryin’ to kill you.” She closed her eyes and gave her head a shake. Then said, “You need a shower.”
He lowered his head and sniffed. “I stink?”
“It’s nice and manly. Don’t fret. I needed one, too. Aunt Chelsea brought us some clean clothes. They let me use a shower down the hall. I thought I’d let you sleep for a while.” She set the brown paper bag on the bed. “You can use the shower right in here.”
“That bathroom’s for patients only,” he said, repeating what he’d been told.
“Then you’d best be quick so you don’t get caught. How often they come in?”
“Once an hour, need ’em or not,” he said. He had not intended to sleep at all, so he’d been grateful for the hourly interruptions. If he slept, he was afraid his sister might die.
If he showered, she might die.
“When was the last visit?” Maria asked, shaking him out of his insane thought.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Fifteen minutes ago.” His gaze slid back to his sister in the bed. And then her face changed into his mother’s beautiful face, the last time he’d seen it.
“Then you have time. And I promise, I won’t leave her side.” She put a palm to his cheek. “She’ll be fine. I promise. The drug’ll wear off soon.” Maria pushed his clothes into his arms. She’d taken the things out of the bag. There was soap and shampoo on top of the stack.
“Thank you.”
“Are you okay?"
He wasn’t sure. He looked back at the bed. Lily was Lily again. God, she looked like Mom.
For a moment, his mother appeared in his mind, her angel-hair flying as she twirled, laughing and holding his hands. In his mind she’d told him Lily was all right.
Maria pressed her palms to his chest. “Harry?”
He met her eyes. Could she see the tears in his? They’d pooled up a little. He blinked. “I’ll be fast.” And he went into the bathroom. He closed the door and set his clothes on the sink as there was no other surface and the toilet had no lid. He cranked on the water, adjusted the temp, and shucked his clothes. Then he took the products Maria had brought for him and got into the shower.
Beneath the spray, his emotions spilled over. He braced his hands on the wall and let them go. He couldn’t name all the feelings that flowed with his tears. Grief for his mother, fear for his sister, worry about his father, and agony over his feelings for Maria. It was only when the well ran dry that he realized, he hadn’t shed a single tear for his stolen invention.
When he left the bathroom, cleansed inside and out, Harrison found Lily lying just the way she’d been, and Maria in the chair beside her bed. He went to the bedside and took Lily’s hand in his, and said, “I really wish you’d wake up, sis.”
“I’m ’wake,” Lily muttered, and he and Maria both jumped. “Jus’ resting my eyes.” Lily’s voice was hoarse, her eyes still closed. She squeezed them tighter, frowning. “Why am I in bed?”
“You’re okay,” he said. He was aware of Maria catching her breath as Lily opened her eyes to a narrow squint, as if the light hurt them. “I’m here with you and you’re okay.”
Maria hurried to close the blinds. The light was already off. Then she came to his side, filled a water glass from a pitcher on the nightstand and handed it to him. She found the call button and pressed it.
Harrison held the straw to his sister’s lips and she drank, and when he pulled it away, she said, “I remember now. Someone rammed the truck, we ran through the woods, and then… some guy on a four-wheeler grabbed me.”
“Do you remember anything else?” Harrison asked.
“He jabbed me with a needle, like immediately,” she said. “I remember being afraid I’d fall off if I passed out, but I passed out anyway.” Then her eyes went wider. “What about Dad?”
“He’s fine. Safe and sound at the ranch.”
A nurse came in and said, “Well, it’s good to see you awake, Lily.” Then she made shooing motions at them.
Harrison took Maria’s hand, meeting her eyes as they went through the door into the hall, probably beaming. “She’s okay,” he said.
“She’s okay.”
“Thanks to you.”
“It was a team effort,” Maria said.
He pulled her in for a kiss, and he was nowhere near finished when a throat cleared. They both turned to see Willow, in her uniform, smirking and wiggling her eyebrows at them.
“Shut up, Will,” Maria said.
“She’s awake?”
Harrison nodded. “A nurse is in with her now. Kicked us out. But she seemed good. Remembered what happened. Asked about Dad.” He couldn’t seem to keep the smile off his face.
Willow was smiling, too. “I’m glad. I wish my news was as good.” She paused as another white-coated woman went past them into Lily’s room. While the door was open, Lily caught his eye, held up the breakfast sandwich he’d left on the stand, and called, “Can I have this?”
He said yes while laughing, so the word had about four syllables. The door closed, and he got hold of himself. There were serious things going on.
“Let’s talk where it’s private,” Willow said. “There’s no one in the waiting room.” She led the way, though they both knew it. Once inside, they didn’t sit. They turned to face her, standing so close to each other they were touching.
Maria hooked Harry’s pinky with hers.
“The guy who kidnapped your sister got away. But we know who he is. Kendrick Mason. The one we arrested is Cole Samson. And we’ll get Mason eventually. The thing is, Mason, Samson, and the guy who took a shot at you?—”
“The dead one?” Harrison asked.
“Yeah. Name was Bobby Green. They all had the same employer. Beckett Oil. Owned by Jimbo Beckett, one of the richest and most eccentric oil barons in Texas. And so did one of the guys we questioned in the windmill fire. I’m starting to think this little crime spree might be connected to the theft of your device. We need to pull this thread and see what unravels.”
“And their connection is an oil company? Harrison asked.
“Jimbo Beckett might be crazy, but he’s Texas royalty. I need more than a theory to justify questioning him,” Willow said. “We found your sister’s phone, in the woods, Harry. We were meant to find it. They’d texted a message from Lily to Lily. I forwarded it to myself.” She tapped her own phone to show him.
Lily: Harrison Hyde for the woman. Midnight, Lone Wolf Rock.
Maria grabbed his arm.
Willow said, “My notion is, you show up for the meeting. We have police surround the guy when he shows up, take him in, put him in a cell next to his buddy. Then we can play the two of them against each other. Lead one to believe the other’s pointin’ the finger and get ’em to tell us who’s really behind it.”
Maria said, “Yeah, Willow, you’re forgettin’ the part where this Mason character has no intention of trading Lily for Harry. He don’t have Lily and he’s fixin’ to kill Harry!”
“Well, we’re not gon’ let him,” Willow said.
Maria shook her head. “Things haven’t exactly gone to plan so far. What if you do ?”
“I’m going to do it,” Harrison said. “I’ll meet the guy tonight. But before I do, let’s get my sister out of here. I’ll feel better if she and Dad are together at the ranch before we do this. I know they’ll be safe there. Whatever happens.”
When he said that, he glanced at Maria. She looked into his eyes so deeply that he felt as if her soul was reaching out to his. And his was reaching right back.
Aunt Chelsea made a low-key dinner of biscuits & gravy with roasted sweet corn, fresh from the field. Uncle Garrett and Aunt Chelsea sat at either end of the oval dining table. Harry was between Maria and his dad with Lily and Bubba across from them.
The rest of the gang were around, watching out for them while that maniac Kendrick Mason, who’d kidnapped Lily, was still on the loose. They were just staying under the radar. Aunt Chelsea had probably asked for peace and quiet in the main house today. Hyram and especially Lily had needed the time to recover from the madness of the night before.
“You’re a fantastic cook, Mrs. Brand,” Hyram said at length. He’d been doling out compliments throughout the meal.
“Call me Chelsea,” she said. “And thank you. That’s high praise, coming from a chef.”
“Oh, I mean it. Especially these biscuits.”
“Well, if and when things settle down around here, I hope we can cook together.”
He put a hand on his chest, nodding hard. “I’d love that.”
They all got up and headed into the living room. Willow and Bubba stayed behind to clear the table, and as everyone found a place to perch, Maria smelled coffee brewing.
Ten years back, Uncle Garrett had a big picture window put in. Hyram and Lily were standing in front of it, looking out. The window faced the sunset, which was in progress, vivid orange, and painting the ground in brushstrokes of every shade from peach to red. Hyram said, “This place is…”
“It is, isn’t it?” Lily slid a hand over her dad’s shoulder.
Neither of them knew Harry was going to put his life on the line that night, and he’d asked Maria not to tell them.
Willow was taking all sorts of precautions, but Maria couldn’t shake the sense of a dark shadow lurking over them all.