Thread of Fear

by Jeff Shelby

  I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can figure it out.”

  Mike leaned back in his chair and studied me. “Is Dennison dangerous?”

  “No, I don't think so.”

  “So you don't need help then.”

  I shook my head. “No. I'll be fine. But thanks.” I looked at the guy sitting across from me at the table, the guy who'd stood by me through all the shit that had come my way after Elizabeth's disappearance. “You didn't have to do all that. For me.”

  His eyes flitted across the bar, like he was looking for someone, before they settled back on me. “Sure I did.”

  “Why?”

  “You're buying dinner.”

  I laughed. “I know. But I'm serious. Why?”

  He rubbed at his chin, suddenly uncomfortable in the chair, fidgeting back and forth. “Because I'm trying to accept your apology. I haven't gotten there yet but I figured if I did this, it'll sort of feel like I did. And then maybe we can get past all of this awkward crap.”

  “There's no expiration date,” I said. “On the apology. No timetable for you to not be pissed at me. It's my fault, Mike. You don't have to accept it. But I'll still be sorry.”

  Mike pushed his chair back and stood. “One of these days, I'll get there.” He walked past the table and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Call me if you need me.”

  He squeezed my shoulder and left.

  FORTY

  I drove home and immediately told Lauren I had to go.

  “Tonight?” she asked, surprised. She was already in bed, the television tuned to CNN. “I thought you were home for the night.”

  “I know where the guy is,” I said. I sat down on the edge of the bed. “I don't want to lose him.”

  “He's close by?”

  “A few hours away.”

  She stared at me for a moment, then pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “Alright.”

  “What?”

  She opened her eyes. “And a couple hours away doesn't really tell me where you're headed.”

  “Yuma.”

  “In Arizona?”

  I nodded.

  “Where is he? The prison?”

  “Some campground,” I told her. “I'd wait till morning, but I don't want to lose him and I have a feeling he'll be gone soon.”

  She sighed. “Right.”

  I walked into the closet and pulled down my backpack. Then I pulled out the lockbox that I kept hidden behind a stack of sweaters. I spun the combo and popped it open. I pulled out my gun, a small box of ammo and laid them in the backpack. I closed up the box, slid it back behind the sweaters and looped the bag over my shoulder.

  “When will you be back?” Lauren asked.

  “Sometime tomorrow,” I said. “As long as he's there, it shouldn't be a big deal.” I forced the words out. Shouldn't be a big deal. That couldn't be further from the truth.

  “So what? You just find him and then...” Her voice trailed off. “And then...then Anchor comes and gets him?”

  My stomach knotted. She and I both knew that wasn't what was going to go down. “Yeah, I guess.”

  She started to say something, then stopped herself. She took a deep breath. “Alright. And if you find him, you're done, right? No more Anchor, no more going back to Vegas?”

  “No more anything.”

  She tucked her upper lip into her bottom lip, then nodded. “Okay. Then hurry up and...and do it. And come home to us.”

  I felt my throat close up and swallowed painfully. I had to do this – I'd promised Anchor. But I had to come home, too – because I'd promised Lauren.

  I walked around to her side of the bed and kissed her. It wasn't soft; it was desperate and she clung to me, her hands cupping my cheeks, her fingertips gripping my jaw. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with her and hold onto her and lose myself in her.

  I pulled away. “I'm gonna say goodbye to Elizabeth before I go.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Call me and let me know...whatever.”

  “I will,” I told her. I put my hand on her stomach. “And then I'll be home. For good.”

  Her smile was sad and grim and hopeful. “I hope so.”

  I left the bedroom and walked to Elizabeth's room. She was stretched out on her bed, ear buds in her ears, tapping away on her laptop. A thick textbook was open next to her and the rest of the contents of her backpack was spilling out on her floor.

  She saw me in the doorway and pulled the buds out. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said. “What's going on?”

  “Just working on a history essay.” She stared at the bag on my shoulder. “Why do you have your bag on your arm?”

  “Because I'm heading out tonight.”

  Her face fell. “Tonight?”

  “I think I found the guy. So if I go get him tonight, I can be done.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “Really.”

  She played with the buds in her hand. “I guess I need to finish my jobs list for you now.”

  “Yeah, maybe after the essay.”

  “I told Mom I'd come sit with her when I'm done. She falls asleep hours before I do.”

  “Definitely do that first, then.” I walked over and kissed the top of her head. “I gotta get going.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Sometime tomorrow.”

  “Try to make it back so we can run.”

  “Will do my best. Love you, kid.”

  “Love you, too, Dad.”

  I went back downstairs, grabbed my keys from the counter and walked out to the car. I stowed the backpack in the trunk, got in and plugged my phone into the charger. I turned on the car, then typed Yuma into the map app and waited for it to pull up the directions.

  Mike had given me a decent lead on Dennison and I knew I should have felt grateful. But I wasn't. Because in a few hours, I was going to have to deal with reality, the reality that Anchor had placed in my lap.

  I was going to have to kill Patrick Dennison.

  FORTY ONE

  “I have a friend who's a cop in Tucson,” I said. “You know him? He sent me out here.”

  The tall, thin man behind the desk rubbed at his eyes and frowned. “Yeah, I know him. You couldn't wait till morning?”

  Technically, it was morning. It was shortly after midnight. I'd had a hard time finding the campground in the dark, the desert not offering any artificial light to illuminate the roads and the GPS had faltered on the phone. After several wrong turns, I'd found the road I needed and then the sign for the Desert Oasis campground. A small gate blocked the entrance, but there was a buzzer on the fence and a sign that said to ring it for checking in after hours. I'd pressed it twice before the gate went up and I followed the gravel trail to a small shack and watched as the light inside went on. I pulled the car to a stop and made my way toward the office. The tall, thin guy had clearly been asleep, his gray hair pointing in multiple directions, his eyes puffy and his T-shirt wrinkled. He looked about my age, with a jagged scar beneath his bottom lip.

  “Technically,” I said, saying what I'd been thinking, “I think it is morning.”

  He frowned some more. “What do you need?”

  “Do you have a guy named Patrick Dennison registered?”

  He shook his head. “We don't do it like that. All I ask for is cash and a license plate. I don't take names and I don't record info.”

  “But you told my friend you thought he was here.”

  The guy frowned again. “Yeah, yeah. Gino told me what the guy looks like. Pretty sure he's the guy out at seventeen.”

  “Seventeen?”

  “The spaces are numbered,” he explained. “Seventeen is the next to last one.”

  “How do I get there?”

  “Keep going down the gravel road. Each spot has a small sign with a number on it near the hook ups. But don't drive.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because your headlights will wake everyone up,” he said. “And if you're gonna
do this quietly, you want everyone asleep.”

  “Right,” I said. “Alright. Okay if I leave my car here?”

  He nodded. His blue eyes were bloodshot and I wondered if it was from lack of sleep or something else. “Yeah. But I'm gonna go back to bed. I don't wanna see or hear anything.”

  “The spots around him. They empty?”

  He cocked his head, thinking. “Eighteen is,” he said at last. “There's a guy in sixteen, but he can barely hear. Should be fine. Just do it fast and don't tell him I told you where he was. If people think I'm ratting them out, this place will be vacant by noon.”

  “Deal,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly. He pointed a finger at me. “And tell Gino we're square.”

  “Sure.”

  I walked back outside and the light in the office went out almost immediately. The stars in the sky seemed bigger, closer, almost ominous. A dog howled off in the distance, or maybe it was a coyote; I wasn't sure. The white noise of desert insects buzzed around me, a soft, steady hum in the darkness. I popped the trunk and forced myself to pull my gun out of the bag and load it. I checked the safety, then shoved it into the back of my jeans. I closed the trunk and started off down the gravel path, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the lack of light.

  By the time I'd reached the fourth campsite, I was able to make out tents and cars and campers in the dark. The campground itself was nothing more than a flat expanse of desert, cleared of brush and cacti, like a grader had been brought in to flatten it out. The sites were about ten feet apart, a small buffer of open space and sand between each one.

  The gravel crunched beneath my feet, the sound magnified in the quiet, like it was coming through a megaphone. I slowed as I reached the end of the road and stood still for a moment, eyeing the next to last campsite.

  A small, two-person tent was pitched near a newer model SUV with Nevada plates. A small cooler sat outside the tent. A miniature hibachi grill was next to the cooler. There was a rickety picnic table nearby and I saw clothes or towels draped over one of the benches.

  The gun felt heavy in the back of my waistband. I didn't know how I wanted to do this. Barging in on him had the potential to create a lot of noise and wake people up, stirring up chaos. But sitting there waiting him out wasn't going to work, either. There was no guarantee he'd be the first one in the campground awake and I didn't think daylight was going to help me. The longer I waited, the better the chances were that something might go wrong.

  I needed to just get it over with.

  I crept closer to the tent, trying to stay up on my toes to minimize the noise me shoes were making on the gravel. I hesitated, then pulled the gun from the back of my jeans and crouched down near the zippered entrance to the tent. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and I squeezed my eyes shut for a minute. I had to do this. I didn't have a choice.

  I opened my eyes and refocused on the tent in front of me. listened and heard nothing. I grabbed the small zipper and tugged it down slowly, soundlessly. I had it almost to the ground when Patrick Dennison exploded through the opening, tackling me.

  We toppled backwards onto the gravel and he pinned me to the ground, his weight on top of me, his hands immediately going to my throat. His head was shaved bald and a goatee he didn't have years earlier encircled his mouth, but it was definitely him. His teeth were locked together, a snarl on his face as he tried to choke the life out of me.

  I tightened my grip on the gun, then swung my arm upward as hard as I could, smashing the side of the barrel into his temple. His grip went slack and his weight shifted to the side. I reared back and hit him again. His eyes fluttered and he slumped, falling to the side like a bag of sand, a small trickle of blood snaking its way down the side of his face.

  I sat up and listened for other campers or footsteps.

  Nothing.

  I got to my knees and put the gun back in my waistband with shaking hands. Dennison was on his side, out cold. I needed to make some quick decisions.

  I crawled into his now open tent. Sleeping bag, pillow, a backpack, some clothes and hiking boots. I grabbed the backpack and rooted through it, finding the keys to his SUV in one of the small zippered pockets. I took those and grabbed his boots and crawled back out of the tent.

  Dennison was still out cold. I stood and walked over to the SUV. I clicked the unlock button on the key fob and the doors thumped. I opened the rear hatch and pushed down the second row of passenger seats. Then I went and picked him up. I looped my arms under his and dragged him toward the car. He was bigger than I was and I had to work hard to pull his dead weight. I got him to the rear, then struggled to get him nearly upright, hugging him to me, my arms locked around his mid-section. I laid him down in the back of the SUV, his body like an oversized rag doll. I maneuvered him in, folding his legs and knees up toward his chest so he was in the fetal position. I closed the door as quietly as I could.

  I took a deep breath, forced myself to exhale. Other than my heart pounding in my chest, it was still quiet in the campground. I walked back to the tent and zipped it back up, then I climbed into the driver's seat of the SUV.

  I jammed the key in the ignition and put my hands on the steering wheel. I took another deep breath, waiting for my hands to steady. Then I reached down and turned the key and the engine rumbled to life. I kept the headlights off. I shifted the car into drive and turned out of the camping space, my foot barely on the pedal, not wanting to rev the engine and risk waking people up.

  The car rolled forward slowly and I took another breath, exhaled deeply.

  Now all I had to do was kill Patrick Dennison.

  FORTY TWO

  I drove into the darkness, the headlights on the SUV cutting through the black night, washing over the desert. I watched the GPS on my phone, heading south, away from the campground, on a series of two lane roads that bisected the desert floor. The further I drove, the darker it got.

  I turned left at some point, heading eastward. The road pitched upward, then dipped over a small rolling hill into what looked like a shallow valley. I turned on the high beams and turned off the road into the desert. The tires went quiet against the hard packed sand and the big SUV tried to hold its own against the uneven terrain. I drove about a mile or so off the road, navigating the cacti and scrub brush, then stopped the car and cut the engine. I got out and popped open the rear hatch.

  Dennison had rolled onto his back but still didn't seem fully awake. I pulled him out of the rear cargo area and propped him up against the back bumper. His chin was tucked into his chest and the blood on his temple from where I'd hit him had smeared along the side of his face. His chest rose and fell as he breathed.

  I went back to the front of the SUV and found a half-empty bottle of water under the passenger seat. I grabbed that and went back to Dennison. I unscrewed the cap and splashed the water on his face. He stirred and rolled his head to the side and a soft moan escaped from his lips. I grabbed his chin, tilted it up and emptied the rest of the bottle on his face.

  He winced and rolled his head back again. Then he coughed and his eyes fluttered open. He raised a hand up, wiped at his face, then stared at his hand like he couldn't figure out what was on it. Then he seemed to notice me for the first time, staring at me, then squinting.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked, his voice rough, phlegmy, like he had a cold.

  “You don't remember me?” I asked.

  He stared at me, then recognition flashed in his eyes. “You're that investigator guy. My wife hired you to find our kid. What the hell?”

  “Good question,” I said. “What the hell?”

  He reached up and touched his bloody temple, then pulled his fingers back so he could examine them. “What the hell do you want with me?”

  “Your wife hired me to find you,” I said.

  He grunted but didn't say anything.

  “So did John Anchor.”

  His body stiffened and fear buzzed through his expression. />
  “You stole money,” I said. “From both him and another guy named Delzano. Correct?”

  He stared down at his legs and didn't say anything. A fresh trail of blood trickled down his temple.

  “You have it with you?” I asked. He didn't say anything. I pulled the gun out from my waistband and pointed it at him. “Do you have it with you?”

  He stiffened again, like when I'd first mentioned Anchor's name. “It's close enough.”

  “Where?”

  He sighed. “Back under the tent. I buried it.”

  I had no idea whether or not he was telling me the truth, but at least he was talking. “What were you gonna do with it?” I asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Maybe.”

  He shook his head, frowning. “I have no clue.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I was...I was just trying to figure some shit out.”

  “Let me tell you what I know and you can fill in the blanks.”

  He stared up at me, expressionless.

  “I think Carina Armstrong was trying to blackmail you,” I said. “I think that might've been one of the reasons you took the money.”

  “How do you know about her?”

  “Because I was looking for you.”

  “So then she told you she was blackmailing me?”

  “No, she didn't. I figured it out after she was dead.”

  He paused. “Dead?”

  I nodded.

  He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Fucking Anchor.”

  “No. Fucking Delzano.”

  His eyes widened. “What?”

  “Just telling you what I know.”

  “Why the hell would he kill Carina?”

  “Because they're trying to find you, too,” I told him. “My guess is that when she couldn't – or wouldn't – tell them where you were, they killed her.”

  His shoulders fell, like the wind had been knocked out of him. He shook his head and stared off into the dark desert, unseeing.

  “Is that how you found me?” he finally asked. “She told you? Before they got to her?”

  “No. I found a camping book in her place. Some pages were folded over.”