Frank walked toward him and the sheriff took out his gun and let it hang by his side.
The minister came forward and stood between Frank and the sheriff. “Leland, what are you doing? A gun? On church property? This is God’s place, even out here. Look what you are doing to our church. Is this what it’s come to?”
“It’s my job to keep the law, and I will as long as I’m sheriff. Now, the two of you just back off,” he said to the minister and Frank. He reholstered his gun.
Diane laid a hand on Frank’s arm. “I’ll go with him.”
Frank didn’t let go.
“I need you out here,” she said.
“I’ll follow in the car,” he whispered in her ear.
“Sheriff,” said Frank, “you had better not let any harm come to her.”
“Are you threatening me?” Conrad said.
“Why, no,” said Frank. “No more than your people threatened the Watsons. Surely you see that.”
The sheriff scowled at Frank. “I know you’re a peace officer, so I’m going to let that slide, out of professional courtesy.”
“It is out of professional courtesy that I tell you-do not let a hair on her head come to harm,” said Frank.
“It’s all right,” said Diane.
“You and I need to have a long talk, missy,” the sheriff said.
The sheriff put Diane’s hands behind her and put on the cuffs. He grabbed her arm and started to drag her off. Diane saw that even Maud and Earl looked a little startled. Sometimes it’s good to see consequences, Diane thought.
“You need to talk with me also,” said Liam. He had stepped out of the crowd.
The sheriff turned to look him up and down. “And why would that be? I don’t know you,” he said, but squinted his eyes, as if there were something familiar about him and perhaps they had met.
“I was in the woods the night Dr. Fallon was there running for her life,” he said.
The sheriff stopped and stared. “So, you that guy in the woods?” he said.
“Yes,” said Liam.
“Then I guess you need to come too,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Liam Dugal,” he said.
“Where do I know that name?” Conrad said, unlocking one of Diane’s wrists and cuffing Liam to her.
Andie looked from one to the other, alarm on her face.
Before Liam answered, Izzy spoke up.
“Is this what you do? Cuff people you want to talk to?” he said. “ ’Cause I can show you a better way of doing business.”
“I don’t know who you are,” Conrad began.
“Another peace officer,” said Izzy. “You know this isn’t right. You know that. It’s going to come back to haunt you. And all the bravado and righteousness you are feeling right now is going to feel silly later on, and you’ll wish you’d done things differently. Now why don’t you do yourself a favor and talk about this here? These people at this church are good hosts. I’m sure they won’t mind your using their fellowship hall to get your questions answered without taking them away in your car.”
Diane was surprised. That was one of Izzy’s longer speeches. But it wouldn’t work. Izzy thought he was talking peace officer to peace officer. It sounded more like Izzy was sweet-talking a perp out of shooting hostages-at least, that was the way she’d bet the sheriff would take it. And he wouldn’t be talked down, or talked down to, in front of the people he felt he had authority over.
Sheriff Conrad didn’t answer. He pulled Diane and Liam with him and pushed them into the backseat of his SUV, not bothering to hold their heads so they wouldn’t bump them getting in. Which was okay. The two of them ducked their heads down anyway.
The backseat of the sheriff’s vehicle smelled like pine freshener and tobacco. The tan leather seat was slick with age and wear. Neither she nor Liam said anything. For the most part, Diane had a policy of not aggravating someone with a gun.
Liam’s gaze, she noticed, roamed the interior. She wondered for a moment if he were planning an escape-which would be strange, since he put himself here. She wanted to ask him why, but didn’t speak. Liam was also silent. He did grasp her hand for a brief moment, squeezed, and let go. She realized he had revealed himself to the sheriff in order to go with her. She felt grateful.
“Awfully quiet back there. Better not be planning something,” said the sheriff.
Neither of them said anything.
“At least you’re learning to keep your mouth shut,” he said.
Neither Diane nor Liam spoke.
The sheriff kept his own mouth shut for the rest of the ride.
In the beginning, it crossed Diane’s mind that he might not take them to his office, but to some other location, and let them walk back. In which case she would really regret wearing heels. Then more sinister fears started creeping into her mind. But when he turned onto the hardtop, she knew they were headed to Renfrew, the county seat of Rendell County. She would like to have relaxed, but dared not. Instead, she occupied her thoughts trying to figure out why the sheriff was taking this course of action. Was it bravado, as Izzy suggested? Was he so accustomed to getting his way, he never stopped to think about his actions? Probably.
Renfrew wasn’t big, and it was Sunday. It didn’t take them long to drive through downtown and past the courthouse square. They arrived at the sheriff’s office off one of the cross streets on the far edge of town. The sheriff pulled into the parking lot and stopped suddenly, jerking Diane and Liam forward.
He got out and opened the back door, took Diane by the arm, and pulled her out. Liam was pulled along with them. Diane didn’t give him the satisfaction of a complaint. But she was getting angry. At least he could pretend to be a professional.
Jason jumped up off the edge of the desk when the sheriff came in. Bob came through one of the doors. They both recognized Diane.
“Empty your pockets out here on the desk,” the sheriff said to Liam. “Your belt too.” He motioned toward Liam’s waist.
Liam complied without comment while the sheriff patted the pockets of Diane’s jacket. Apparently satisfied that they were carrying nothing dangerous, he shoved Diane and Liam toward a set of double doors.
“What’s going on, Sheriff?” asked Jason.
“Just teaching a Sunday-school lesson,” said the sheriff.
He must go to a Sunday school from hell, thought Diane, as they were manhandled through the doors and down two flights of stairs. Her upper arm was hurting under his heavy grip. They arrived at the block of three cells in a row. At first glance, they looked fairly clean. Each had two sets of bunk beds and a toilet and sink in the corner. Two cells were empty and one had three men who looked like they might have been pulled in off the street for being drunk and disorderly after a long Saturday night. The sheriff put Liam in the cell next to the drunks. Then he unlocked the cell with the three men in it and, before she realized what he was doing, shoved Diane inside.
Chapter 42
Diane grabbed the bars as the cell door slammed shut. She glared at the sheriff.
“Are you out of your mind?” she said. Diane was tired of being scared. She’d felt the nauseating sting of it too many times in the last few days. Damn him. She wasn’t going to be sick with fear again. But she was. Fear churned in her stomach and through her body. Her mouth was dry and she wanted to cry.
“I told you not to come into my county,” he said, hitching up his pants and straightening his tie.
Diane hadn’t noticed before what an ugly man he was. His face looked as if malevolence were oozing out of his pores.
“This is among the worst human rights violations in the world. I never expected to see it here in my country or my state,” said Diane. She was holding the bars so tight her hands were aching. “You’re the devil, Leland Conrad, and you can’t dress yourself up as anything good, decent, or clean. You’re a dirty sheriff and a dirty man.”
He glared at her, moved his mouth, but a retort seemed unable to pass his lips.
“Sheriff, don’t do this,” said Liam. “Switch us. At least put me in the cell with her. This is wrong. You know this is wrong. Why are you doing this?”
“I want you out of my way.” Conrad found his voice. He ignored Liam and spoke to Diane, spitting out his words. “You wouldn’t listen. Maybe now you’ll know I mean business.”
He walked away. Liam called after him.
“Sheriff, you can’t expect to get away with this.”
Diane heard the doors closing as Conrad walked up the stairs.
“Well, what’s this?”
The voice behind her was slurred. She only now really noticed the drunken, urine stench of the place. Her mind immediately started going over her inventory of weapons-her high heels, her hands, her knowledge of anatomy.
She turned to find the three men watching her, their stares set behind drooping eyelids, their faces colored by bad habits of long standing. The one who spoke was a thin guy not much taller than Diane’s five-nine. He was red faced and had stringy hair and yellow teeth. Diane didn’t want to know what his clothes were stained with. The three of them gaped at her. They were everything her worst fears might conjure up for images of backwoods, small-town drunks in lockup. The man behind the talker was huge. He had a heavy padding of blubber over his entire upper body, most of it in a substantial beer belly. He had a scraggly red beard, a shaved head, and a leering grin. The last man stood off from the other three. He was tall and thin and grinned broadly. He was rubbing his crotch, tilting it toward Diane.
“What you in for, honey? Honey?” said the first man.
They all laughed at his joke and started coming toward Diane in a slow sashay.
“Elbows are sharp, heel of hand is strong,” said Liam, talking fast. “You know where the pain points are. Throats and noses are vulnerable. Solar plexus on the thin guys.”
The first guy was almost to Diane. She was shaking and he laughed at her.
“Throat or nasal,” said Liam.
The guy’s breath was disgusting. He reached his arms in a circle as if to embrace Diane. She punched him straight up under the chin with more strength than she thought she possessed. The man staggered back.
“Then again, an uppercut is good,” said Liam.
Diane’s heart was pumping so hard she could barely hear what Liam was saying from the blood rushing in her ears, but she knew he was trying to give her instructions. The rush of adrenaline through her system flooded out some of her fear. The guy was still staggering and shaking his head, disoriented. With all her strength, Diane punched him hard twice, a double tap, in his brachial plexus, a branch of nerves in the shoulder that power the arm.
He let out a howl and staggered back, clutching his right shoulder. The other two watched him flop down on the bottom bunk, whimpering.
His hurt was temporary and Diane was afraid she was going to run out of strength if she had to fight all of them twice. But for now, she could still feel the adrenaline surging through her.
“Thorax punches won’t work on the big guy,” said Liam.
“What the hell are you talking about?” the guy who had been rubbing his crotch asked Liam, marching up to the bars, glaring at him.
Liam reached suddenly through the bars, grabbed the waist of the guy’s jeans, and jerked him into the bars. The guy hit his head on the cell bar and collapsed. Liam held on as the man slid to the floor. Liam grabbed his feet and pulled them through the bars, and with two quick, devastatingly crushing kicks, broke both the man’s ankles across the bars.
“He’s out,” said Liam.
The big guy looked around wide-eyed at his other friend. “Shit, whad’ya do that for?” he said. “Ya could of just laid back and watched the show. Little honey missy here’s going to pay for that.”
He looked back at Diane, who was trying to stay out of his reach. She’d taken off her four-inch heels and held one in each hand. She’d thought of pulling one of the bunk beds out to try to keep it between her and him, but they were bolted to the floor. He eased toward her. She guessed he was playing cat to her mouse, wanting to draw out her fear. It was working.
He was too big and he had a layer of fat covering all the vulnerable places on his torso she could use to disable him. Right now his head was the only vulnerable part of him. But she would have to get through his beefy arms, and his arms were longer and stronger than hers.
He eased closer.
“I’m going to get you, missy. You got your honey pot ready for me?” he taunted.
“Keep away from me or I’ll hurt you,” said Diane.
“Hurt me?” He laughed loudly, derisively. “I ain’t one of these skinny boys you can hurt, missy. Your boyfriend over there knows that. He knows all he can do is watch me fill that honey pot of yours.”
Diane eased away, trying to figure out how to get across the cell to where Liam was. He could help if she could get there, but the big man had the way blocked. He stepped back and forth. He knew what she was trying to do.
Diane kept her eyes on him, always moving in the opposite direction every time he moved. He would get tired of the game soon, she knew. He stepped to the left and Diane made a break to his right, trying to get to the opposite side of the cell. He was quicker on his feet than she imagined an overweight drunk would be. He lunged toward her and grabbed her arm. She swung at his eye with the heel of her shoe, missed, and grazed his nose. He pulled at her clothing as she tried to get away from him. The sleeve of her jacket ripped as Diane struck his hand with the other shoe. He let go of her and she fell backward to the floor.
He rubbed his hand where the heel of her shoe had struck. She knew it must have hurt him.
“You bitch,” he said, spitting on the floor. “You fucking bitch.”
He stepped toward her. Diane started to rise.
“No. Stay,” said Liam, and he yelled out a series of words: “Dorsal left foot calf plantar right foot patella leverage.”
Keywords, Diane’s mind flashed to her. But what? her conscious mind asked. Her subconscious seemed to know what to do. When his right leg was close enough, his weight resting on it as he leaned toward her, she hooked her left foot around his calf. He looked down at her foot and then into her eyes and smirked at her. There was drool dangling from his open mouth.
His hesitation was just enough. She pulled hard against his calf with her left foot and kicked his knee-cap with her right heel as hard as she could. It took a fraction of a second for the pain to register; then he screamed and crumpled to the floor, trying to hold his ruined knee, but he couldn’t get the joint to work and the pain wouldn’t stop.
“Oh God, oh God, I’m hurt. Jackie, help me. She’s hurt me. Oh, God. Les, she’s killed me.”
The guy on the bed looked up and started to speak, but grabbed his jaw instead. He looked over at Diane and she cast him a don’t-mess-with-me look. Her adrenaline was still pumping and she was angry. She got up and fetched her heel. The big man on the floor grabbed at her foot. Diane slapped him in the head with her shoe and he howled.
“Leave me alone, you son of a bitch,” she yelled at him.
“Well,” said Liam. “I stand corrected. You could have hurt me.”
“They were drunk,” said Diane. She looked over at him. “This is the second time you’ve helped me out when I badly needed it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Come and stand over here,” he said. “If the guy on the bed tries anything, I can help.”
“I ain’t got no more truck with you,” the skinny guy on the bed mumbled. “I can’t move my arm. What’d you do?” he said.
“You should regain the use of it,” said Diane. “Just lie down on the bed and stay there.”
Diane dragged the unconscious third guy away from Liam’s cell. She pulled a blanket off the bunk, wet it in the sink, and washed the bottom of her feet before putting her shoes back on, all the while watching the three men for signs one of them might be going to try something.
Liam laughed.
>
Diane smiled at him. “No telling what’s on this floor,” she said.
She stood near Liam and waited, wondering what the sheriff was going to do when he came back.
“Those were beautiful flowers you gave Andie,” she said.
“She seemed to like them. She’s still angry. I suppose I don’t blame her,” he said.
“What did you find out at the church today?” she asked.
“People are scared. Some don’t trust the sheriff-” he began, but stopped when he heard the door open.
“Damn,” whispered Diane. Liam reached through the bars and took her hand.
Chapter 43
Diane squeezed Liam’s hand and listened for the footfalls. More than one person. Several. The sheriff and his deputies, she thought. Would Travis Conrad be with them? Would he defy his father and help her? Her heart thumped in her chest. She felt the adrenaline leaving her. She couldn’t fight again.
“You have strong hands,” whispered Liam.
“Sorry,” said Diane. “Having a little anxiety.”
“Don’t blame you,” he said. “I’m a little anxious myself.”
The first person she saw was the sheriff, then Frank rushing past him. Diane thought she would faint with relief. She raced over to meet him at the cell door, reaching her arms through the bars for him. Agent Gil Mathews of the GBI was with them. So was Colin Prehoda, her lawyer, and David. How did they all get there so fast? David, thought Diane. Of course. Dear, paranoid David, who planned for all disastrous contingencies.
Frank reached for her, then looked, startled, at the moaning men behind her. He looked back at Diane, his expression going from surprise, to worry, to anger. He turned to the sheriff and in a flash had him by the collar of his suit, pushed up against the cell bars.
“What kind of piece of garbage are you that you would do this?” Frank pulled him forward a few inches and slammed him against the bars again. “Get her out now!”
“You can’t. .” the sheriff sputtered.
“I can and I will,” said Frank. “Get her out. Now.” He let go. “Now, you sorry son of a bitch.”
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