“Eden,” Tate qualified, but then nodded, “and yeah, okay. Isaiah too. But mostly Eden.” Because she keeps screaming in my head.
“I am not. I’m just… squealing. It’s different.”
“How long have you been talking to them?” Tucker asked as one brow spiked, “and why aren’t they talking to me?”
Tate shrugged, not admitting to more, not with Eden giggling like a little girl somewhere in D.C. Damned if Isaiah didn’t come through like a good boy scout though. “He’s a natural blocker, boss. Want to learn a new skill?”
Damned if Tucker didn’t tip that big chin of his to the ceiling and roar. “You son-of-a-bitch, you’re just like the rest of us. I knew it! Hell yeah, I want to learn. Teach me, Tate.”
Didn’t that make a guy want to get his head examined.
“See?” Isaiah murmured inside Tate’s head. Privately. “That wasn’t so bad.”
Every mile farther away from Tate stretched at Winslow’s heart like a rubber band pulled too far, too hard. Frayed and ready to break, she stayed to her side of their latest stolen car, her heart broken at her deceit. After all he’d done to help her, even risked his life, she’d betrayed him. Tate had taken three bullets for her, yet off she’d gone into the sunset with her lying—driver. Not her mother. Not even a friend. Winslow didn’t trust a thing that came out of Hattie’s mouth, but oddly...
She was beginning to understand the crazy woman at the wheel, enough that she’d felt safe enough and she’d hidden Tate’s knife under the seat. Winslow hadn’t seen any sign of the hypo since they’d left Virginia, either. There was no need to defend herself from Hattie. The more states they sped through, the more she came to realize that the family of twelve snot-nosed kids was Hattie’s. Not Winslow’s. Which meant her parents probably weren’t potheads either. She still hadn’t gotten their names out of Hattie yet.
Hattie wasn’t entirely mean. She wasn’t completely insane, either. But she was emotionally starved for affection, maybe even warped by the complete lack of it in her childhood. And she was calculating.
“Your mother beat you?” Winslow asked, not certain she’d heard right.
Hattie nodded, her eyes on the road. “Oh, yeah, sure. You had it easy, trust me. Me and my sisters got beat on a regular basis. Mostly we deserved it, but mostly we didn’t. I hated that self-righteous bitch. So’d the rest of us girls. ’Specially little Bet.”
Generations of hard-taught and well-learned physical abuse defined Hattie and, by the sounds of it, her mother before her, like the wind and freezing rain defined the Grand Canyon. Like erosion ate into sand and stone until the design overcame the raw material, and all that was left was—scars.
For the moment, Hattie seemed content to share. She’d been born in the swamps of Alabama to the most bizarre family Winslow had ever heard of, one where the boys ate at the dinner table while the girls waited on them and ate their scraps when they were done. Talk about ignorant backwoods parents. Dysfunctional didn’t begin to describe the woman who’d physically whipped, beaten, and even caged her daughters while her sons ran free and reckless. Stole cars. Ran drugs and moonshine. And worse.
Or else Hattie was lying.
“Ma liked her boys, didn’t have much use for us girls though.”
“Why’d she have so many kids then?”
“’Cuz she was a God-fearing woman, that’s why.” The farther from D.C. she drove, the more Hattie’s words took on a southern inflection, not so much a drawl as a twang.
“Sounds more like the witch in Hansel and Gretel to me.”
Hattie shot Winslow a sideways glare. “Might be right.”
“So why’d you steal me?” An innocent baby? Then tell me I had cancer and try to kill me?
“‘Cuz I wanted you, and I knew I couldn’t have a baby as cute as you ’cuz…” Hattie raked a hand over her head, upsetting the spikes she’d moussed to perfection earlier that morning at the motel. “‘Cuz I couldn’t have children any more.”
“Why not?”
Her jaw clenched as if that subject was closed, but then she said, “‘Cuz of the abortions.”
Winslow’s breath caught. “A-abortions? You had abortions?” As in more than one of those awful things?
Hattie’s face twisted into a devilish smile. “Like I said, Ma liked her boys best.”
Winslow blinked at that sideways answer? Was Hattie implying incest? Did her mother encourage incest? How much worse could this story get? “H-how many?”
Hattie grunted, one hand batting the air beside her head. “It doesn’t matter. One’s all it takes when it’s done wrong. The first chance I got, I ran away from home, and I never looked back. I wasn’t having another one of them. I found a good job in Texas working as a nanny. The day I saw you laying there in your bassinette, all pink and pretty, I decided I could finally have what I wanted for once in my life.”
She shrugged as if she’d merely shoplifted something she’d coveted, like a pair of sunglasses or candy instead of a living child. “So I sneaked out of there with you. Then I called Sue Ellen. Wish I could’ve called Bet too. That was a mistake.”
There was longing in that voice. Somewhere deep inside, Hattie had wanted a family enough to steal a baby. Twisted longing, yes, but it was hard to hate someone who’d survived a nightmarish childhood, then sought comfort from an infant.
Winslow shifted the subject. “Did you live in town or on a farm?” Were you one of those cotton-picking trailer trash kids you said I was?
“On the river. No grass, just mud and dirt most of the year until the saw grass took over when the weather got hot. Alligators. Snakes. Possums and coons. It wasn’t all bad. Every once in a while, one of the boys would find a dog or a cat.” It was interesting how Hattie never called her brothers by name. Just boys. “They’d tie it out by the gator slide, you know, the muddy riverbank where the gators slip into the water without making a sound when they’re hunting.”
Winslow ran her fingers over her brow, shocked at how forthcoming Hattie was, but worried where this wasn’t-all-bad-story was headed.
“Then they’d start tormenting whatever they’d caught. They’d take potshots at it, or set its tail on fire. Us girls would hang around and watch the fun. Old Henry was the biggest gator on our stretch of the Mobile River. He was usually first to show ’cuz he was the granddaddy of all the rest.”
Oh, my God. “W-why?”
“‘Cuz he liked white meat, what’d you think?”
Winslow shut her eyes, bile climbing up the back of her throat. White meat, as in cats and dogs, as in someone else’s sweet little Honey Munchkin. She was afraid to ask. “T-tell me about Bet, M-m…” She snapped her mouth shut. She’d almost called Hattie, Mom. That had to stop. “Was she older or younger than you?”
“Younger. Prettier.” A sigh escaped Hattie. “Smarter, but not fast enough.”
“Why didn’t she move in with you or Sue Ellen then?” Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?
Hattie turned to the side window. “‘Cuz she got out of her cage one day, and Ma accidentally beat her too hard when she caught her. Now shut up. Once we get through Oklahoma, we’ll almost be there.”
“She k-killed her?” Just when Winslow thought the Beauregard story couldn’t get any worse—it did.
Hattie grunted. “I don’t wanna talk ’bout it no more.”
Winslow faced the side window again. It made sense in a creepy way what Hattie had done to her. Hattie was her mother’s daughter, just doing what had been done to her. That was all she knew. Lesson learned.
Winslow wanted to ask more about Bet, why she was in a cage if she was smarter. Heavens, why she was in a cage at all. At least Hattie hadn’t done that to her. Only she had. In a way. All those drugs and poisons were an invisible cage, and don’t forget the years of mental torment. The years of not being allowed to make friends. No school. All those lies.
It was better to shut up then and look out the window, but all Winslow could
see was a younger, gentler version of Hattie trapped in a wire cage. Crying for someone to help, while the person who should have loved her the most—killed her.
Chapter Thirty-Five
After long-term parking the Challenger at Adams Field, the airport in Little Rock, Tate and his boss hopped a private jet in their race to get a jump on Hattie. They landed in Amarillo, grabbed a rental, then checked into a pricey motel off the airport to catch some much needed shut-eye.
“Amarillo by morning.” The George Strait song almost sounded romantic until you got into Amarillo in the wee, I’m-so-tired-I-couldn’t-give-a-shit-less hours of zero-dark-thirty. They ordered breakfast, showered and ate, not necessarily in that order. By noon, Tate was flat on his back on the cool sheets of queen-size-bliss. The anesthetic in his thigh had worn off and he’d popped enough ibuprofen to slow the pain. The only way the drive could’ve ended better would have been if Winslow was in that room with him instead of Tucker.
Their wake-up call rang at five p.m., then dinner. Tate was hammered, but ready to roll. The sky was full of stars when they headed out. Isaiah’s voice came through the moment Tate sank into the passenger seat of their bright red rental, a Chrysler 300. Leave it to Tucker to rent a nondescript car to get from Point A: Amarillo, to Point B: the Lockette Ranch.
“More intel, guys,” Isaiah murmured from D.C.
“Go ahead,” Tucker ordered as he maneuvered out of hotel parking and into Texas traffic, which was mostly pick-ups, and, well, more pick-ups. An occasional Mercedes or a limo rolled past the Chrysler 300, but yeah. Texans liked their trucks. Go figure.
The entire Deuces Wild Team was tuned psychically to each other now. Chagrinned, Tate realized he’d been the only reason they’d used earpieces. Not anymore.
“Ike Pitt’s real name was Beauregard.”
“You’re shitting me,” Tucker hissed. “Hattie’s brother?”
“And Janice, Hattie’s friend from Land’s End?” Tate asked. “Is she related to Hattie, too?”
“Not sure, but I don’t like what we’re finding on the Beauregard family.”
“Really creepy,” Eden added. “Like you-can’t-believe, American-Horror-Story creepy. Most of the children ended up in jail or dead.”
“I can believe that,” Tate said.
“And?” Tucker again.
“And one of the girls disappeared when she was eight, Boss. There’s a birth certificate on file with the County Health Department, but I can’t find where she ever attended school. Her name was Betsy.”
“Any missing person report filed?” Tate asked.
“Any follow up from son-of-a-bitchin’ Family Services?” Tucker bit out.
Whoa, that came out of nowhere. Tate cast a sideways glance at his boss, wondering when he’d clashed with Family Services. Over his son Deuce, maybe?
“Nothing that I can find, but this family’s had more accidental deaths than you can believe,” Eden breathed, “and no one’s challenged them. Not one teacher, priest, or relative, least not that I can find. I’ve got a call into Alabama’s governor for an assist. Someone needs to do something to help these people.”
“At least to help their kids,” Isaiah added.
“One more thing.” Eden once more. “Hattie’s got an ex. Bubba Ackerman from Florida.”
“Let me guess,” Tucker drawled. “He died from an accidental death?”
“I’m not sure how accidental it was, but he fell out of his hovercraft while hunting alligators. At least that’s what Hattie told the sheriff.”
“You want to bet she killed him?” Tate asked.
“You two be careful,” Isaiah warned. “Hattie’s not stupid. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s persuaded some of her family to join her in Amarillo. Watch your backs.”
“How’s Winslow?” Tate needed to know.
“She’s fearful, but she’s holding her own. Mostly she thinks she let you down, that she deserted you,” Eden replied. “The good thing is that now she knows about the fake blood. She knows you’re alive.”
That was good to know. “But she’s okay? Hattie’s not hurting her?”
“No, Winslow went voluntarily on this road trip. You know that.”
I do, but I wish I could talk to her, Tate thought to himself, but he pushed, “Copy that. Let us know what else you find.”
“Will do,” Eden answered.
They drove in silence until Tucker turned the Chrysler onto an asphalt road that looked like it went on forever over the Texas prairie. A rustic crossbeam supported by two rough-hewn logs marked the way to the Lockette ranch.
“Will you look at that,” Tucker exclaimed. “They named their driveway after her.”
“You call this road with no end in sight a driveway?” Tate peered up through the windshield. Lost Angel Drive had been carved between two Texas stars on the overhead beam. It was a blatant, heartrending declaration of love and loss for the world to see. In a matter of hours, Winslow would pass along this same road. She’d see that sign, and if she knew all that Tate now knew, it would break her heart. He ached to be with her.
“You still think we should let Hattie go through with this?” he asked. The plan was simply to arrive at the Lockette ranch before Hattie, let her spring her news, demand the reward, then arrest her once she had the cash in her hands.
For now, Booker and Emma Lockette had no idea what was coming their way, but Isaiah had assured Tate and Tucker what kind of people they were. Hard working. Driven. The salt of the earth kind of people who just wanted their baby back.
“Look around. This is a natural trap. Long drive in. Long drive out. Don’t worry. We’ll have Ms. Beauregard by midnight. Besides we’ve got time.”
“If you say so.”
Tucker bumped a fist to Tate’s shoulder. “You worry too much.”
Not exactly. Tate knew how ferociously a grizzly sow would fight for her cub. He didn’t want Winslow anywhere near Hattie when everything went down. He hunkered into his seat to think. To use the talent he’d suppressed for years. It was time to open the floodgate and be all he could be. He rolled his window down and let Texas in.
“Winslow,” he projected, knowing she might not be able to hear him, but sending her what he could. Strength. Hope.
He pictured her smiling, her head out the car window and the sun in her face. He pictured her smiling in her real mother’s arms, at peace. Content. Home. He summoned his rarely used imagination and pictured Winslow as a happy baby girl, her green eyes bright with wonder and a loving family around her. She had brothers. They must’ve loved their baby sister. He willed her to be that happy child again. Somewhere deep inside of her, that little girl still existed. Tate knew it did.
Slowing his breathing—I can’t believe I’m doing this—he stilled the ache in his mind. Tate had always found great power in silence. What sniper didn’t know that? Internal silence centered a man’s soul, but it also zeroed the universe down on him. It shut people and the noise they seemed to thrive on—out. It magnified simple things like the desert wind sifting over his brow, the silvery light of a dim moon in winter, and the shadows that came with it. The breath of an opposing sniper. The heartbeat...
“Winslow,” he reached into the universe. “You’re not alone, baby. I’m coming for you. Breathe. Just breathe. Pretty soon this will all be over.”
It came to him like a shadow from a great distance that grew clearer and more distinct the nearer it drew. Hattie. All alone. Her teeth clenched. A weapon in her right hand. A revolver. Smith and Wesson. Her arm extended. Where was Winslow?
“It’s all up to you, son.”
Wait, what? Someone else had just spoken. Had to be Tucker, only it didn’t sound right. The inflection was wrong. Not brash and bossy, but…
“Dad?” Tate’s pulse slowed to a standstill as the vision continued. It was a scene from his past. One he remembered well. He’d been on a mountain in Alaska, surrounded by green, and high above the clouds of mosquitoes and no-see-ums. He
and his father had waited out an injured grizzly, one shot by sport hunters who couldn’t be bothered to track what they’d missed.
“Let her come to you, son,” Shane Higgins had said quietly. There was that word again, the one that opened a world of pain to the man deserted by his father. It meant so much to hear it again. “Have faith in your God-given talent, son.”
Three times, his father called him son as if he needed to reinforce the tie between them. Three times. The vision cleared and Tate knew exactly what he had to do.
“Look at that?” Hattie exclaimed, pointing at the heavy wooden sign over the entrance to what Winslow now knew was her grandfather’s ranch. The morning’s sunrise had tinted everything a warm shade of rose gold. Even the carved letters above her head were bathed in it.
Lost Angel Drive. That’s me, Winslow thought, a pang ripping into her heart like the blade of a well-honed knife. How sad. I’m that lost angel.
This trip couldn’t end soon enough. The last leg of the mother/daughter road trip had ended up being more of a game of trivial pursuit with a bipolar woman who seriously needed to take her meds. On schedule.
One moment Hattie seemed willing to chat and share everything; the next she turned petty and argumentative, calling names and dragging up every humiliating thing Winslow had ever done. Who needed that when you were trapped with a crazy person in yet another stolen car, this one a Ford Taurus out of Oklahoma City.
Winslow only hoped her parents would believe what Hattie planned to tell them, that maybe, they’d recognize her, even though she had no hair and no looks. That maybe they’d want her.
“Ha. That can’t be right.” Hattie slowed the Taurus to a crawl as she passed a collection of empty buildings, a boarded-up ranch house and a gray, weathered barn.
“Do you recognize this place?”
Hattie’s nose wrinkled as she stretched her neck to peer past Winslow. “Yeah. That’s where they lived when I found you.”
Found as in kidnapped, you mean. “What are their names?” Winslow asked, staring at the lifeless wooden corpses, scared she’d come all this way for nothing.
Joker Joker (The Deuces Wild Series Book 2) Page 29