Teresa Watson

  “Who did you call?” Owen asked as we walked to the front door.

  “Who else?Your sister. And when I tell her what you did…” I shook my head and whistled.

  Yeah, it was petty, and a low blow, but a girl’s gotta hit below the belt once in a while.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Trixie was waiting for me at the entrance of the hospital when we pulled up fifteen minutes later. Jake got out and opened the door for me. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”

  “It’s nice of you to offer, but I think we can handle this,” I told him. “We won’t be long.”

  Trixie gave me a hug before we walked in. “You look like you’ve had a pretty rough day.”

  “You have no idea, girl, no idea at all.”

  “Tell me about it before we get up there.”

  So, as we rode the elevator to the third floor, I told her everything. By the time the doors opened, she was livid. “I can’t believe my brother did that!” she fumed. “I swear, I am going to kick his…”

  “Hold on, Trixie,” I said, putting a hand on her arm. “I’m mad at him, but he was put in a position where he didn’t have much of a choice, I think.”

  “Why are you defending him?”

  “I’m not. They all have one goal: to catch my aunt. When you’re desperate, you’ll use whatever means necessary to achieve this goal, even if it means screwing your family and friends in the process.”

  “You’re being rather calm about this,” Trixie said. “If it was me, I would be thoroughly ticked off.”

  “Who says I’m not? Trust me, I am. But I have to put that aside right now to help them find T.J. before Debra does something to him.”

  “You think she has him?”

  I nodded. “I have no doubt about that at all. I just don’t know where she is holding him.”

  There was a different man sitting outside of Hopkins’ door. “I’m Elizabeth Crenshaw,” I told him. “Sheriff Greene said that Agent Hopkins wants to see me.”

  “Hold on a minute,” the man said. He made a call that lasted less than a minute. “You can go in, Ms. Crenshaw, but your friend will have to wait outside.”

  Trixie started to say something, but I stopped her. “It’s ok, Trix. I’ll be fine. All I have to do is scream, and he’ll come running, I’m sure.” I smiled at the man and went inside.

  Hopkins was staring at the wall as I walked in. “Sheriff Greene says you know about T.J.”

  “He’s the person you met in Red Oak,” I said, sitting down in the chair by his bed.

  He nodded. “If it makes any difference, he tried to get out of the assignment three months ago. He didn’t feel right about the way we were using you for information.”

  “You were using me for bait.”

  “Yes, we were. But you are the only connection we have to her.”

  “You still have Earline, her mother’s best friend.”

  “She isn’t doing us much good locked up, Ms. Crenshaw. You and your mother are the only living family she has left.”

  “But she hasn’t made contact with my mother, has she?”

  He shook his head. “No, she seems to have attached herself to you for some reason.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “At a meeting with our superiors a few days ago, T.J. said he thought Cosgrove was hiding out at an old farmhouse a few miles outside of town.”

  “Well, that certainly narrows things down. There are only twenty or thirty farmhouses around here. Shouldn’t take more than two or three days to search them all.”

  “He said it had a red barn near the main house.”

  “So that narrows the search to maybe fifteen. Why didn’t you tell Owen this?”

  “Because I wanted to tell you that T.J. truly loves you. He was hoping that you wouldn’t find out about his assignment until after we caught your aunt. He was talking about resigning and joining the sheriff’s department on a full-time basis, just so he could be here with you. I didn’t think that was something you wanted me to tell the sheriff.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Half of me thought it was sweet that he wanted to give up his career to stay here; the other half wanted to kick him to the moon for the deception. “I broke up with him, Agent Hopkins. No one likes to be used, even if it is for the right reasons.”

  “Just give him a chance to explain before you write him off completely,” Hopkins said. “You’re the first person who has been able to crack through that hard heart of his since his wife died.”

  “His…wife?” Wow, did not see that one coming.

  “She was an agent, like us. She was killed on assignment overseas. T.J. took a leave of absence for a few months, and when he came back, he had changed. He didn’t allow himself to get too emotionally attached to anyone. But once he took this assignment, he mellowed. You became more than an assignment to him. He fell in love with you.”

  I shook my head. “But it doesn’t change the fact that he used me. That’s not something I am going to easily forget or forgive.” I stood up. “Is there anything else?”

  “Just one more thing. The envelope that T.J. gave me had a flash drive in it. It contained some new information he had. I never got the chance to look at it. Your aunt must have it now, so whatever he knows, she does, too.”

  “I’ll tell Owen about it. What do your superiors have to say about all this?”

  “Not much at this point.”

  “Did you tell them about T.J.’s suspicions about her whereabouts?”

  “I did. They’re going to start searching the county soon. I doubt they told your sheriff about it.”

  “So you want me to do it.”

  “Professionally, I am telling you not to get involved. Personally, I think you should tell him what is going on. This is his turf; he needs to be involved because he knows the area. Whether you decide to tell him or not is up to you.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Good luck. I hope you find him.”

  I thanked him and left. Trixie was leaning against the wall, filing her nails. I nodded to the agent outside the door, grabbed her arm and walked to the elevator. “We need to go see Owen right now.”

  “Why? What’s going on? What did Hopkins tell you?”

  I quickly gave her a recap of the conversation as we got on the elevator. “Just like the FBI to feel like they have it all under control,” she said.

  I pushed the down button and watched the doors close. “We need to tell Owen what is going on so he can start his own search.”

  “He isn’t going to like having the Feds on his turf without his knowledge.”

  “I agree, which is why he will send out his own people. And we are going to be one of the search teams.” The doors opened on the ground floor and I stepped out. “Are you coming?”

  “What is this ‘we’ bit?” Trixie said, following me. “I’m not a search and rescue kind of gal. I’m more of a give aid and comfort person.”

  “Well, after we find him, you can give him aid and comfort. Now, let’s go,” I said, grabbing her arm and dragging her out the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Needless to say, when we told Owen and Jake about our plan, they were less than enthusiastic. Okay, so they flat out said “No!”

  “I am not about to let you take my sister out on a manhunt for a serial killer!” Owen said.

  “But Debra isn’t after me. She’s after you and T.J.,” I pointed out. “She’ll be much safer with me than with you.”

  “She’ll be safe, period, because neither one of you are going out there.”

  “Besides, you are still recovering from your last run in with Debra,” Jake said.

  “What, this?” I said, holding up my cast. “Just a scratch.”

  “If that is just a scratch, I wonder what you’ll call a gunshot wound,” Owen replied.

  “The point is,” I said, “you need us. You don’t have enough people to do a big search. With the manpower you have, it will
take you twenty-four hours to go to every single farm. Unless you’d rather the Feds find her first. They’ve already got at least a two-hour head start.”

  Owen’s eyes narrowed. “No way are they going to come onto my turf and arrest her.” He rummaged through a cabinet behind his desk and pulled out a county map. “We’ll split this up into five search areas. Lizzie, you and Trixie take the east side of town. There are about ten farms out that way. I doubt you’ll turn up anything. I think she’ll stick close to Interstate 35 for a quick getaway, so my men and I will cover those areas.”

  I wanted to smack him in the head for assigning us to the weakest area, but on the other hand, I didn’t really want to run into Debra, so I kept quiet. I’d have a talk with him later about his chauvinistic attitude.

  “What about me?” Jake asked.

  “You aren’t that familiar with the area, so you won’t be much help to us out there. But you can stay here and be our home base. Each group will check in after they clear a farm, and you can check them off the list.” Owen left the office for a minute and came back with a walkie talkie. “You’ll be able to stay in touch with Jake with this,” he said, handing it to me, “and you’ll be able to get in touch with me if you find something. If you do find her, don’t do anything stupid. Just stay a safe distance away and call for help.”

  I gave him a mock salute. “Aye aye, Captain.”

  “I’m serious, Lizzie. I don’t need to give her any more hostages. That will just make the situation more volatile. If she feels cornered, she might kill T.J.”

  “I get it,” I said, standing up to leave.

  “Besides, if anything happens to Trixie, my mother will kill me.”

  “And I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life if I get killed,” Trixie told me.

  I rolled my eyes at her and headed for the door. Jake stopped me. “Promise me you’ll be careful,” he said quietly. “I would like a chance to get to know the person you’ve become.”

  I felt goose bumps pop up on my arms. “I’ll be fine,” I assured him.

  Weren’t those the last words of Custer before he went to Little Big Horn?

  Two hours and five farms later, I was tired, hungry and frustrated. The other groups weren’t having much luck, either. “Now I know why they call off searches when it gets dark,” I groused.

  “Quit complaining. What’s the next place?”

  I looked at the map. “Looks like the old Fitzsimmons place.”

  Five minutes later, we came to the turn off. “Are those skidmarks?” Trixie said.

  As she stopped, I got out and looked at the road in front of her headlights. Sure enough, there were some black tire marks. Someone must have missed the turn, slammed it in reverse, and turned down the road. But I had no clue whether they were fresh or not.

  “What do you think we should do?” I said as I got back in the car.

  “We keep going. For all we know, those have been here for years.”

  “Those look like fresh marks in the dirt, though.”

  “It doesn’t mean it’s her,” Trixie said as she headed down the dirt road.

  At this point, I was trying to convince myself that this was a good idea. But something told me to run the other way. Unfortunately, I wasn’t driving, so I couldn’t listen to that little voice.

  Trixie turned the headlights off and drove the last quarter mile in the dark, pulling off two hundred yards from the driveway. “You still want to do this?” she asked.

  “T.J. may be a jerk, but we can’t let Debra kill him, if that is what she has planned.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t, but we can’t let her hurt him, now can we?”

  “Definitely not.”

  We got out of the car. Trixie popped the trunk, rummaged around, and pulled out a crowbar and a baseball bat. “Do I even want to know why you are carrying these things around in your car?”

  “I had a date with a minor leaguer a few days ago. We went to the batting cage to work on his swing.”

  “Uh-huh,” I replied, not believing her for a minute. “Give me the crowbar. I can manage with one hand.”

  I slipped my cell phone out of my purse, which I put in the trunk. Turning the phone on silent mode, I slipped it into my pocket and gave Trixie the walkie talkie. At that moment, I was happy about having a broken arm, because it meant that I was dressed in comfortable clothes: jeans, t-shirt, and tennis shoes. Trixie, who hadn’t bothered to go home and change even after I told her she should, was dressed in a skirt, blouse and heels. “How are you going to walk around in those shoes?”

  She pulled out a pair of tennis shoes from the trunk. “I’m prepared for anything.”

  At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had a mini-fridge back there. “You take the house, I’ll take the barn.”

  “Are you sure you want to split up?”

  “This is a long shot,” I said. “I don’t see any lights on and there aren’t any vehicles in sight.”

  “That doesn’t mean she isn’t here,” Trixie pointed out. “Those tire tracks could be a month old, for all we know.”

  “I know. If one of us gets caught, the other one can go for help.”

  “How are you going to drive a stick shift with a broken arm?”

  “I don’t know,” I snapped. “I’ll figure it out. Let’s just get this over with, okay?”

  Trixie headed left toward the house, and I went right toward the barn. When we were kids, Mr. Fitzsimmons used to have dances in the old barn during the summer, and hay rides in the winter. His wife had died early in their marriage during childbirth, and he had never remarried. The kids in town, in a way, became his foster kids. His door was always open to us if we needed to talk, or if we just wanted to hang out. When he died about ten years ago, the Methodist church in town was packed, inside and out, with adults who had spent time at his place as kids. The procession to the cemetery took forty-five minutes. I still miss him.

  But in the dark, the old barn didn’t look as inviting as it did when I was a teenager. It looked dark and menacing. The urge to turn and run became stronger, but I ignored it and kept going.

  I knew there was a side door on the backside of the barn, so I quietly made my way over to it. I tripped a couple of times over some rotting wood, and I really wished I had a flashlight. Pulling my phone out, I used the glow from the screen to pick my way to the door, hoping that Debra wasn’t around to see it.

  The side door was slightly ajar, which caused me to hesitate. I switched my phone to my right hand, which was a bit awkward to do because of the cast. I opened the door just a little bit, waiting for the inevitable squeak, and breathed a sigh of relief when it didn’t happen. Slipping inside, it took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. There were a couple of windows in the barn, but that didn’t help much since trees surrounded three sides of the barn, making it impossible for moonlight to get in.

  I heard movement to my left, which caused me to stop in my tracks. It sounded like scratching. Please don’t let it be mice, I silently prayed. I moved toward the sound, which became more frenzied the closer I got. Taking a chance, I touched my phone screen and held it out in front of me. I saw a pair of feet.

  Oh man, this was not good.

  I moved closer, the light shining on someone’s bound legs, then a torso, and finally T.J.’s bruised face. I pulled the gag out of his mouth. “Are you alright?”

  “Does it look like I’m alright? What are you doing here?”

  “I came out here to relive old memories. What do you think I’m doing here?”

  “You shouldn’t have come,” he said.

  “Ok, I’ll just leave you here then,” I said, standing up to leave.

  “No, wait. I’m sorry. You’re the last person I expected to see, all things considering.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not about to leave you in the hands of a crazy woman, even if you are a jerk. Just give me a minute to
get you out of these ropes.” It took a few minutes, but I finally got them undone. “Is anything broken?” I asked as he struggled to his feet.

  “My ribs are a bit sore, and my face hurts, but I think I’m ok. We need to get out of here before she comes back.”

  I felt something cold at the base of my skull, followed by a click.

  This definitely was not good.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Hello, Aunt Debra,” I said.

  “Lizzie, this is an unexpected surprise,” she said. “What are you doing here?” She kept the gun trained on us as she moved slightly to her right. Suddenly, the barn got a little brighter as she turned on a lamp.

  “Looking for him.”

  “I thought I told you he wasn’t someone you could trust.”

  “You did. I know who he is.”

  “And yet, you came out here anyway.” I nodded. “Such useless sentimentality,” she sighed.

  “I’m just an old softie, what can I say?”

  “Good thing I’m not,” she replied. She grabbed my left arm and pulled me back so I was standing beside her. “I still plan to kill you, Agent Roosevelt, but not in front of my niece.” She released my arm. “Get out of here, Lizzie. This doesn’t concern you.”

  “Yes, it does,” I said. “You’re doing this because they have been using me to find you.”

  “I’m doing this because their little manhunt is making it extremely difficult to move around and do my job.”

  “And what is your job, Aunt Debra?”

  “People hire me to take care of their little problems, and they pay me quite handsomely for it, too.”

  “So you’re a murderer.”

  “Oh my dear, I don’t always kill people. I have very good persuasive skills, and I make the most of them. Those I can’t persuade, well…” she shrugged.