"Okay."
"And I’ll try to locate Mark, also. But please, don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll show up soon. Probably before I get there."
" Okay."
Crystal pressed the switch hook on the phone and dialed Mark’s home number. She stuffed papers into her briefcase as she waited through several rings. Mark’s answering machine picked up. Crystal left a message about JT, then tapped the switch hook again and dialed his cell phone. On the third ring, he answered.
“Mark, Crystal. JT just called. Luis is missing. So is Eddie Ray. She’s imagining all sorts of things. Anyway, I’m going over. She actually called for you. Thought Eddie Ray might have said something to you last night.”
“No, he didn’t.” There was a moment’s silence. “I’ll meet you there.”
Crystal snapped her briefcase shut, and got up. She glanced out the window at the busy street below. She was sure no parent down there was worrying about having a child kidnapped.
#
Already the traffic was thinning. She took the toll road North for a few miles, exiting at Lovers Lane, then wound through residential streets for a few blocks. Twenty minutes after leaving the office, she was parked in front of JT's house. She pressed the doorbell, and even as she did, she heard a child's voice. She smiled. A wasted trip under these circumstances was a blessing.
"Crystal, Luis is here.” JT was smiling, but there was a tinge of concern around her eyes.
Even before they were seated in the living room, the doorbell rang. JT brought Mark into the living room, apologizing all the way.
“Tell us what happened,” Crystal asked.
JT sat down and lifted Luis up to sit on her lap. “A few minutes before you got here, Luis called. He was at Rita’s house. She lives behind us—on the next street. He came in the back door just as Crystal rang the bell.”
"And Eddie Ray?" Mark asked.
"I was just asking Luis when Crystal arrived. Luis, tell us what happened. Why were you over at Mrs. Daughtery's, and where is Eddie Ray?"
Luis wiggled closer to his mother and looked at Mark out of the corner of his nut-brown eyes. Already the young boy had the darkly handsome features common in Mexican men. He pulled his mother's arm around him, but kept his gaze on Mark when he answered. "I was in the kitchen. I just finished a glass of milk and put my glass up.” He looked at his mother, waiting for approval. She nodded, and he continued. "Eddie Ray came in and told me to go to Mrs. Daughtery's. Right now. And stay there 'til I called and talked to you right here at home.” He looked back at his mother.
"Is that all he said?"
"Yes. I asked him why and he pushed me out the door, told me to just go. Right now. And no questions.” Luis emphasized the last two words.
"And what did you do?" asked Crystal.
"I went."
"Did you look back and see what he did?" Mark asked.
"No sir. Eddie Ray said go and I went. He don't like for me to ask too many questions when he's in a mood."
"He doesn't," Mark corrected.
"No, he don't.” Luis put his hand over his mouth and giggled. "I get it. He doesn't like for me to ask questions.” He giggled again and looked at his mother.
Mark continued. "So you didn't see anything else? No other people? No cars?”
Luis shook his head from side to side.
“Did you hear anything unusual? A different car sound or maybe different voices?"
The five-year-old twisted his mouth, as if that helped him think. "No. Oh, Mrs. Daughtery has a different car. A big, new minivan. Green. It's neat. I got to sit in it.” He quickly looked at his mother. "But we didn't go anywhere. Me and Willy just sat in it."
"Willy and I.”
Luis laughed again.
Crystal leaned forward, getting closer to Luis. "You said Eddie Ray was in a mood. What did you mean by that?"
The little boy looked up at his mother. She nodded an assurance. He looked back at Crystal. "Well, sometimes he gets kind of——ah, I don't know. His eyes get grumbly. And his face wiggles. And he don't—.” He cut his eyes toward Mark. “Ah, he doesn't want you to talk to him or bother him or ask questions."
"His face wiggles?"
Luis nodded several times.
JT patted her son on the head. "Sometimes, when things aren't going too good, Eddie Ray grinds his teeth and gets a little twitch in his jaw muscle."
Crystal looked back to Luis. "Was he in a mood when you got home from school?"
"No. He was happy when I got home. We played ball for a little bit. I asked for some milk and he said sure. He only got in his mood when he came in and told me to go over to Mrs. Daughtery's and play. Inside. He told me to play inside."
"How do you get to Mrs. Daughtery’s house?"
Luis stuck his arm straight out and pointed. JT answered. "She lives just behind us. Luis climbs through a hole in the hedge. Willy is just a year older than Luis and they play together sometimes."
Crystal was still leaning forward, close to Luis, talking very softly. "Does Eddie Ray send you over to play with Willy very often?"
"No. Almost never."
#
JT took Luis to his room. When she returned, Crystal and Mark were whispering.
“I gave him a puzzle to put together,” JT told them.
“We’re just trying to make sense of this, JT,” said Crystal.
"There's no sign of a struggle,” Mark said. “His truck is gone.” He leaned back, but it wasn't a very comfortable chair and no matter which way he sat, it hurt his back.
JT shook her head. "If they came in with a gun, he wouldn't have struggled. And they could have taken his truck."
Crystal tried to sound as sympathetic as she could, while presenting another possibility. "He has gone off before. You said he did just a few weeks ago."
"That was different. We had a fight—an argument. I knew he was going. We weren't fighting this time. And he didn't leave when I was here. He left Luis. And he made him go over to Mrs. Daughtery's.” She looked straight into Crystal’s eyes. “They took him.” Then she looked at Mark. “They took Eddie Ray."
She said it calmly, with no aggression, no disrespect, no challenge. It was the calmness that told Crystal JT had her mind made up. They wouldn’t change it.
Mark leaned toward JT. "Could he have gone off drinking? He likes to go to bars.”
She was shaking her head before he even finished. "Same thing. He wouldn't leave Luis."
"Did Eddie take any of his things? Shaving gear, clothes?" Crystal asked.
Without saying a word, JT got up and left the room. In less than a minute, she returned. "No. Everything is still here. They didn't give him time to get anything. Maybe they didn't think he'd need anything.” Her lower lip began to tremble. "I'm scared, Dr. O'Malley. Can we call the police?"
Mark leaned over and rested his head in his hands for a few moments. When he raised his head, JT was looking at him intently. "It's too soon,” he said. “Eddie Ray is a responsible adult who's been missing for, what, an hour, maybe two? Unless we have concrete evidence that he's been kidnapped, they won't do anything for at least twenty-four hours."
JT swallowed dryly. "That will be too late.” Her voice, an octave higher than usual, reinforced the panic in her eyes.
Crystal looked at the terrified woman. "I've got a friend in the police department. Let me give him a call and explain what we know—or think we know. See what he says.”
“The phone’s in here,” said JT, heading into the hall.
Crystal’s discussion with Tom Hawkins confirmed what Mark had told JT. They couldn't do anything for twenty-four hours. But Tom said he’d spread the word when his shift started at midnight. If they spotted a black car with flames painted on the hood, they'd stop the car and investigate. And they’d keep an eye out for the rust-colored 4x4 Sierra. Crystal told Tom she would phone him with the license plate number in about thirty minutes.
Crystal repeated the information to JT. No tears c
ame, but her eyes revealed her despair. "He's the only one who can identify them. They've got him. They won't let him go."
Chapter 35
OUTSIDE, Crystal and Mark talked for a few minutes before getting in their cars. Mark said he believed Eddie Ray was on the run. His only question was why. Did he run because he was afraid of Joe and Al, or because he was afraid of the police? Was he more involved with the arson and Bessie's death than he admitted?
“I don’t know,” Crystal said. “Looks like he left awfully fast. If he’d left for any of those reasons, he could have waited and talked to JT first. And surely he would have taken some clothes.” She pushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. “From what Luis said, it sounds like a spur of the moment thing.”
“What little contact I’ve had with him, I have to agree with JT: he wouldn’t have left Luis unless he had no other choice.”
#
On the way home, Mark stopped at Ninfa's for dinner. Usually, an empanada could coax him out of a poor mood. Tonight, it didn't help at all. Even the peace and quiet of his house didn't lift the gloom. The more he thought about it, the more he felt Crystal's logic was on target. But why now?
It hit him like a charging bull. Somehow, Joe and Al must have seen Mark with Eddie Ray last night, or at least heard about it. Maybe they thought Mark was a policeman. Whatever they thought, they picked Eddie Ray up to get some answers. If he gave them the right answers, they'd probably let him go. If not, well, they'd killed one person already.
#
It was after ten when he opened the thick packet of notes JT had given him. One thing became clear immediately: she kept careful records. The detail amazed and pleased him.
She had searched for every mention of gold in the entire database. The number would have discouraged most people. She eliminated over half by discarding any that talked about trains. Then she limited the stories further, demanding some mention of a wagon. Eventually, she had the list down to thirty-one.
Next, she had the computer analyze each story to determine its major characteristics. The computer produced a list of five that matched closely enough that it concluded they had their roots in the same incident—the same piece of folklore.
One version suggested the gold may have been part of the treasure the notorious gentleman pirate Jean Lafitte took from Spanish ships. A full page of JT's notes indicated she had researched some of the historical accounts of Lafitte. Highlighted in yellow was a sentence about the pirate capturing a sizable shipment of gold. Fearing that the Mexican army would come after it, he sent it to St. Louis for safekeeping. At the end of the account JT had printed in capital letters, "IT NEVER ARRIVED IN ST. LOUIS."
Mark shook his head. It was amazing she had gotten any IRS work done at all. At the end of this section of notes, Mark found a page listing nearly two-dozen characteristics. Beside each one was a number. It took only a few moments for Mark to decipher these. The computer had listed every feature mentioned, then tallied up how many stories referenced each. Lake led the group with six. Strange. He thought she had cut the list to only five stories. He checked back. Only five. Where did the sixth instance come from?
A small hill or cliff overlooking the lake rated a five. Cliff by itself got two credits. A long and narrow lake received four mentions, while an East/West lake rated a three, as did a lake on high ground, and a lake in the middle of a thick pine forest.
From those, it looked like JT had compiled a list of fifteen attributes.
Mark leaned back and rubbed his neck. She'd done a good job of pinning down the facts. In spite of himself, Mark began to wonder if out there somewhere, deep in a lake in East Texas, probably covered in silt, there just might be a wagonload of gold.
He looked at the clock over his desk. It was nearly 12:30—time for sleep. He walked into the kitchen and poured half a glass of Dr Pepper.
Mark remembered reading that the National Forests of East Texas covered more than a thousand square miles. The area they called the piney woods must cover ten thousand square miles. A huge area to consider, or search. Eight states had total areas smaller than that.
Of all the lakes in an area that size, how had JT picked out Eula's? Coincidence? Blind luck? Mark believed in luck. If JT had managed to pick Eula’s out of only ten lakes, he’d give it to luckbad luck. But in this case, the odds were just too great.
Mark bypassed his bedroom and walked back to his office. Maybe he'd take just a quick look at how she started eliminating thousands of lakes.
Her notes on selecting a particular lake must have weighed two pounds. The first section wandered around, showing clearly that JT didn’t know how to take the minuscule description she had managed to distill from the folk tales and apply it to such a vast number of lakes.
He flipped a page and found a copy of a program she had written. A quick scan brought a grin to his face.
“Very good, JT,” he said aloud.
The program eliminated all man-made lakes. One hundred and fifty years ago, Texans weren’t managing water. Dams hadn’t been built to store water. Flood control meant, don’t build too close to the river. Still, it amazed Mark how many lakes were removed from the list.
A second program removed all lakes of more than one hundred acres. From there, JT had let the computer assign probabilities to the remaining lakes, using the attributes winnowed from the folk tales. Several pages of notes brought in other considerations. One caused him to shake his head in wonder. It contained her calculations, based on what appeared to be extensive reading, on how far a heavily laden wagon might travel across East Texas in a day back in the early 1800’s.
Where did she get the time to do that reading? The answer turned up on the next page. The computer had searched out a number of articles that discussed the distance wagons covered in a time period. JT had to read only a few pages to gather a lot of information.
The last page contained the locations of six lakes. A red line encircled one. The location was a legal description, but Mark had no doubt it was the same lake he’d seen from the veranda of Eula’s house. And where someone had shot Crystal.
Chapter 36
“YOU know, this is one of the reasons I moved here.” Brandi finished shifting clothes from the washer to a dryer. “A nice, neat, bright laundry, in the same building. And only seventy-five cents a load.”
Crystal smiled, but her mind was on other things. She was doing her laundry on autopilot. “Mark wants me to go with him to UT to hear Dr. Krupe give a talk.” She had tried to say it casually, but the ripples in her voice betrayed her.
“Take tomatoes. Rotten ones.”
“Why are men like that? Dr. Krupe blackballed me because I wouldn’t go to bed with him. Phil stole my idea—”
“Hoooold it.” Brandi held her hand up. “Phil did what?”
“He presented my idea for a new project as if he had developed it.”
“What did Mark say when you told him?” Brandi was all seriousness now.
“I haven’t told him.”
“Well, come on, gal. This isn’t your advisor. This is a coworker. You march in and tell Mark there’s a little intelligent thievery going on.”
“Intellectual thievery.”
“Whatever. The point is, you have to claim what’s yours. If I go off and leave my jeans in the dryer, I don’t expect to find them there next week.”
“Why not?”
Brandi cocked her head to one side and sang, “Finders keepers, losers weepers. Didn’t you learn anything as a kid?”
“My idea wasn’t lost.”
“Sounds like it’s lost to you,” Brandi said pointedly. “Look, I don’t know about computers. I was terrible at math, history, chemistry, and only so-so in English. But I know this. If you want to keep something, you got to hold on to it. I don’t lay my purse down in the mall. And if I had an original idea, which is highly unlikely, I’d damn sure protect it.”
She paused and when Crystal didn’t say anything, Brandi continued.
“And all men aren’t that way. Is Mark? Tom? Your grandfather? Bobby Don? Anyway, if it isn’t worth protecting, it isn’t worth having. Don’t trash all men because you let a few flakos take advantage of you.”
Crystal’s eyes opened wide and she glared at her housemate. “Let them?”
“Let them. Crystal, you’re strong in so many areas. Why are you so willy-nilly about others? Decide what’s important to you and go for it. And ask the famous Brandi question: Will they shoot me, or even hit me?”
Without thinking, Crystal reached up and touched the wound on her left arm.
#
Deep in her dream, Crystal could hear a bell clanging, but she didn’t know what it was. Was it a railroad crossing? Or a fire alarm? She needed to do something. But what? And then it stopped. Suddenly there was a blinding light shining in her eyes, and someone was yelling at her.
“Crystal. Wake up, Crystal. Tom’s on the phone. He needs to talk to you.”
Slowly, Crystal became conscious and opened her eyes to see Brandi standing in the door. “Pick up the phone. Tom needs to talk to you.”
With an effort, Crystal turned over and reached for the telephone beside her bed. “Hello.”
“Crystal, this is Tom Hawkins. There’s been a fire at Intelligent Retrieval Systems. There’s no emergency number posted. So I called you.”
His second sentence jarred her to full consciousness. “A fire? Is it bad?”
“The place is still here. Not as bad as it might have been. Can you call the appropriate person, or give me a name?”
“I’ll call him.”
#
Mark felt like he had barely closed his eyes when the phone beside his bed rang. He groped in the dark for the lamp switch, almost knocking over the glass of Dr Pepper that sat on the bedside table. By the fourth ring, he had the light on and his hand on the receiver. At that point, the answering machine picked up. He waited to see who was calling at this hour before deciding whether to take the call or not.
A Ton of Gold (Crystal Moore Suspense Book 1) Page 16