by Nora Kane
“That’s the same morning he was seen going into Randy’s room.”
“Exactly.”
“So, what does that have to do with anything?”
“I’d bet he was asking so he could check if Randy had a tracker on his phone. If he did, Stick might have been able to track the phone’s location.”
“That won’t do us much good now. The battery is surely dead. In fact, it was probably dead then.”
“Was it? The blood seemed fresh enough you thought it was possible Stick was one shot.”
“Well, mostly I thought he was one doing the shooting.”
“Either way, the shooting was recent. Recent enough that Randy’s phone still might have a charge.”
“Seems like a long shot.”
“Yeah, except he sent the coordinates, which makes me think it paid off.”
“Assuming those actually were coordinates.”
“Yeah, well, for the sake of argument, let’s assume they were.”
“Okay, but how does that help us now? He didn’t dig him up and if he marked the spot, I don’t see it.”
“It explains his actions. It might give us a clue as to who killed him.”
“How is that?”
“Whoever killed Randy most likely killed Stick.”
“Sure, but doesn’t that just make it worse?”
“How so?”
“Now we’ve got two unsolved murders.”
“I don’t think it's too hard to figure out what happened to Randy. The cartel gave him money to find someone they wanted dead. It didn’t work out too well for them.”
“How is that Randy’s fault?”
“From what I understand, they’re not big on failure or being fair...”
“No, I suppose they’re not. I hear they’re not very big on people getting in their way, but they gave you a break.”
“That doesn’t mean they gave one to Randy.”
“Too bad all we’ve got is speculation.”
“Well, we have to walk back to the car anyway, so why don’t we spread out. I’ll take the right side and you take the left.”
“Alright.”
They started walking, observing the sand. Even though she was specifically looking for any small anomaly in the sand to indicate someone had been digging, Margot almost missed it.
The stones were just enough off the path she was walking to not be obvious, but once she moved closer, it was clear they were arranged to form the letter X.
“I think I figured out the X!” Margot yelled over to Brantley.
“You have?”
“X marks the spot! Bring your shovel.”
Brantley walked over and saw the X.
“Well, I’ll be damned. It looks like Stickley did find that grave after all.”
“It looks that way.”
“You don’t suppose it could be buried treasure instead of Randy?”
“I guess you could find out. It is awfully hot out here though and he could be deep. You ought to call it in, get some help.”
Brantley stuck the shovel into the ground like he was going to start digging, but he left it there and stepped back.
“I should have thought of that phone thing,” he said, “It would have saved us a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You didn’t know Stick asked about the phone.”
“No, I mean, I should have taken it off the poor bastard before I buried him.”
Margot turned to see Brantley draw his Glock.
“Sorry Margot,” Brantley said as he swung the gun her way.
Chapter 9
Margot stepped back and put her hands up. She looked toward the SUV where she’d foolishly left her purse with all her weapons inside. It didn’t matter much though since he’d got the drop on her before she had figured out what was going on.
“You’re pretty smart but not quite smart enough,” Brantley told her.
“If I hadn’t figured this out, would you be pointing that gun at me?”
“No, this was going to happen regardless. I was just curious if you could actually put it all together.”
“You don’t want to do this. People know we’re out here together.”
“Do they? They know you were headed this way, but they don’t know you got here. You never went inside the substation.”
“My car is there.”
“By the time they get around to looking for you, it won’t be.”
“The motel clerk saw us together.”
“You mean the same guy who didn’t hear this nine-millimeter pistol putting a bullet in Randy’s brain? That old boy is on the payroll. He ain’t going to remember shit.”
“I’m not the only one who knows those are GPS coordinates.”
“Yeah? Who else knows?”
Margot hadn’t told anyone and wouldn’t have told him if she did. So instead, she asked, “Why?”
“Sorry Margot, you don’t get the details. All I can say is, someone presented a ‘lead or gold’ situation to me a while back and I took the gold. Once they’ve got you, they don’t ever let you go.”
They both heard a vehicle coming their way.
Brantley turned for just a split second, but it was enough time for Margot to close the gap. She grabbed his arm as he pulled the trigger. She pushed his arm away just enough that the slug went out into the desert instead of into her face.
Brantley was bigger and stronger, but Margot was faster, and she had taken him by surprise. She bent his wrist back as she kicked him right behind the knee. When his leg buckled, Margot swept his feet out from under him with another kick.
He landed on his back and Margot went to the ground with him. She locked her legs around his neck and squeezed while she brought one arm up under his elbow. With her other hand, she pushed down on his wrist. As his wrist and elbow moved in an unnatural direction, he let go of the gun.
If this were a mixed martial arts fight in the octagon, he should have been tapping out to avoid having Margot break his arm. However, this was taking place in the desert on top of Randy’s unmarked grave, so Margot kept pulling down on his wrist as she pushed against his elbow.
Brantley twisted and got enough leverage to lift Margot up off the ground. He slammed her down and, despite her best efforts, she felt her grip loosen. Brantley slammed her down again and this time he was able to free himself.
Margot got to her feet first and tried to punch Brantley in the throat, but he dipped his chin enough that she hit him in the jaw instead. The punch might have hurt her hand more than it did his face.
He threw a punch and Margot got a hand up to block it, but it was like blocking a tree trunk. She took the blow mostly on her forearms, but it was still enough to knock her backward. While Margot was trying to regain her balance, Brantley kicked her in the chest, knocking her to the sand.
Brantley went over and picked up his pistol while Margot was trying to regain the wind he had knocked out of her. She rolled to her feet and got a good look at the wrong end of Brantley’s pistol.
“Put it down, asshole,” someone said from behind them.
They both looked to see Shaw standing there with a thirty-eight revolver aimed at Brantley’s chest.
“You do know I’m a deputy sheriff in the process of making an arrest?” Brantley said to him.
“Yeah? Well, we can talk about that with your boss.”
“That’s fine with me, but you need to quit pointing that gun my direction.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Margot said to Shaw. “He killed Randy and I’m guessing Stick as well.”
“I don’t know who you are, but I don’t think you want to bet on this one telling the truth about anything,” Brantley told Shaw.
“Does this look like an arrest or an execution?” Margot asked him.
“She resisted and tried to take my firearm,” Brantley said. “I was just taking control of the situation.”
“What are you arresting her for?”
“Mu
rder. She killed Mr. Stickley.”
“You don’t believe that do you, Shaw?”
“I don’t.”
“Look,” Brantley said, as he lowered his weapon. “I can see why you might doubt me, but are those doubts enough for you to kill an officer of the law? You want to go talk to my boss about this? Well, that’s fine by me. You can even keep your gun, just quit pointing it at me.”
“Don’t do it,” Margot said, as Shaw lowered his weapon.
Brantley’s pistol was up and firing as soon as Shaw’s gun was no longer pointed his way. The first bullet hit Shaw in the shoulder. The next one would have hit him in the chest, but Margot grabbed the shovel and hit across the knees, sending another bullet careening into the desert. He swung the gun her way, but she smacked it away with the shovel.
He lunged forward, but she sidestepped and let him have a faceful of shovel as he went by. Margot spun and swung the shovel once he was by her, smashing the flat side against the back of Brantley’s head. He swung around and took the next blow on his forearms. He caught Margot’s next swing before he took another shot to the face.
While he was trying to wrestle the shovel away from her, Margot kicked him the groin, hard enough that she saw him wince. She drove her heel into the side of his knee and then twisted the shovel out of his grip.
She feinted at his head with the blade end and gave him another groin shot with the handle. When his hands lowered, she brought the blade end down and shattered his nose. Margot swept his legs with the shovel and, while he was down, beat on him with the shovel until he stopped moving. Then she hit him a few more times to be sure.
Margot dropped the shovel and picked up Brantley’s pistol. She briefly considered shooting him, but he wasn’t moving. Margot wasn’t sure he was even breathing after the beat down she had given him.
Margot saw his hat lying next to him and spent a half-second wondering if he was ‘the cowboy’ Mal had been going on. Then she went to Shaw.
Shaw was sitting up, but there was a lot of blood on his shirt and he looked pale.
“How bad is it?” Margot asked as she tried to get a look at it for herself.
“I don’t know, but I do know that piece of crap isn’t killing off my whole detective agency.”
Margot nodded. Then she asked, “Where’s your car?” as she tried to help him to his feet.
“Just around the bend. I heard the shot and figured I needed to come in with some stealth.”
He seemed to not be quite steady and Margot worried that the extra time it would take to get him to his car might be time they didn’t have.
Brantley’s SUV was closer by, so she helped him to it instead. Once he was leaning against the hood, she went back to get the keys from Brantley’s body. She fished them out of his pocket and was starting to stand when he reached out and grabbed her wrist.
He pulled her toward him and grabbed her by the throat with his other hand. His one big hand around her thin neck was enough to cut off her air supply instantly. Margot could feel herself losing consciousness as she put the gun against his side and pulled the trigger.
She fired three shots into his side before she was able to get loose of the hand on her throat. Instead of putting a fourth bullet into his side, she fired into the arm holding her wrist, freeing his grip enough for her to pull away.
This time she did shoot him while he lay there. She noticed the small amount of body armor he was wearing had probably saved his life again, at least from that bullet. The other bullets had to have done some serious internal damage.
By the time she got to Shaw, he’d slid to a seated position against the front wheel. Margot helped him up and then managed to get him in Brantley’s Ford. Once he was in, she got behind the wheel and sped off as fast as she could go.
“Stay with me,” Margot told him.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. What were you doing out there, Margot?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“My partner sent a coded message he figured only I would understand. I mean, who gives a damn about latitude and longitude?”
“You told me you didn’t know what it meant.”
“That’s because I didn’t want you going out here. He was my partner, so it was my case. I guess I shouldn’t have assumed you wouldn’t figure it out.”
“I didn’t, that was Brantley. Considering he probably buried the body out there himself; it wasn’t like he cracked a code either. Coordinates or not, I figure he would have found a way to get me out here just so he wouldn’t have to haul my body to my unmarked grave.”
Shaw didn’t reply. Margot thought he was still breathing, but it was shallow. She hit the road and turned on the sirens.
Chapter 10
“Is Shaw going to make it?”
“He’s good—or at least as good as an old man who got shot could be,” Ames said as he took the seat across from her. Radcliff came into the small interrogation room as well. Since there were only two chairs, he found a spot against the wall.
“Are they going to let me out of here anytime soon?” Margot asked.
Once she had set up the airlift for Shaw, the sheriff had immediately put her under arrest and hauled her back to the holding cell at the substation. Margot wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t heard anything about her being hired on as a consultant. It was news to him that his deputy had traveled out to the coast to investigate a possible murder as well. Margot called her lawyer and asked him to contact Ames and Radcliff.
“Well, you allegedly beat his deputy with a shovel and shot him five times with his own gun, and then after that, you stole his car. So Sheriff Carson isn't all that keen on letting you go,” Ames remarked.
“Yeah, the sheriff didn’t seem too sympathetic.”
“Since Brantley isn’t around to tell his side, he might be forced to believe you.”
“He didn’t make it?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t where you left him. Neither was Shaw’s car.”
“That doesn’t seem possible.”
Ames shrugged. “All I know is, he wasn’t there. That doesn’t mean it was a waste of our time.”
“You find Randy?”
“Yeah, he wasn’t in good shape, though he looked better than Mom, who was underneath him.”
“I guess all that still leaves me locked up?”
Radcliff smiled as he told her, “Not necessarily. That tip about the hotel clerk panned out. He tried to play it cool, but it took Ames about five minutes to break him. Remember when Brantley said he checked, and Mrs. Cantor wasn’t at any of the places Randy told us to look?”
“Yeah.”