by Diane Capri
Flint felt the instant irritation that always triggered when he learned someone like Leo was taking unfair advantage of a girl like Laura. If that’s what happened. He forced the annoyance from his voice. “What kind of crazy stuff was Leo involved in with John David?”
“People here in Wolf Bend tend to be Christians. I am. Laura certainly was. And so was Leo. John David comes along and says he’s a Satan worshipper, which Leo found exciting, he said. Something different. Another way to rebel, I guess. Piss off our parents.” She shrugged and took a deep breath. “And by that time, Laura would do anything Leo wanted. So they started doing stuff with John David.”
“Stuff like what?”
“Dumb crap. Dancing naked in the moonlight. Getting high. All that crazy stuff you’d see in old horror movies.” Her voice was stronger as she recounted each outrage. “When they started killing animals, I told Leo to stay away from John David, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“And Laura?”
“Laura wouldn’t listen to me either. I begged her to stop. To get Leo to stop. She followed Leo around like he had her on a leash.”
Flint’s voice was quieter. “I see.”
Teresa heard the anger in his tone. She began trembling again. “But it was John David that did all the leading. He was the one who stole the car and blamed it on Leo. He said they wouldn’t put Leo in jail, but he was wrong about that, too, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, I’m afraid he was. Grand theft auto is a felony everywhere.”
“Damn straight.” She stuck her chin out.
“Where did they go, Teresa?” He lightly squeezed her forearm again.
Some of her spirit seemed to collapse. “Some camp. A place John David knew about called Clovis Ranch. They said they were going to live there for a while. Not far from where Leo . . . died.”
“Did you tell that to the police?”
She nodded. “’Course I told the police back then. They said they already knew. They figured Leo had been hanging there before he . . . died. They went out to that camp a few times, but John David wasn’t there. And the creeps said Leo and Laura hadn’t been there, either.”
“Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they actually went somewhere else.”
She didn’t respond for a moment, and then she whispered, “They’d be alive now if they’d stayed in Wolf Bend.”
“Maybe so.” He couldn’t argue about what might have been. He released his hold on her arm. “How about the other two guys who were here asking about Laura? The ones who frightened you. Did you tell them about John David and Clovis Ranch?”
“Hell, no. They didn’t even ask about Leo. Those jerks thought they could intimidate me. Well, the hell with that. They came to my house and I let my dog after them. He bit one in the ass and took a good chunk out of the other one’s ear.” She smiled, satisfied. “They haven’t been back.”
Flint smiled, too. Paxton and Trevor weren’t having much luck so far, but they wouldn’t give up. They had to be getting desperate. The finder’s fee Crane promised them was too high to simply give up. “I need to find Laura. She’s due a lot of money. Those two guys are looking for her, too. If they find her first . . .” He let his voice trail off.
Teresa’s eyes widened and her mouth formed a little O. She shook her head. “I’d help you if I could. I haven’t seen or heard from Laura since she left here. I swear.”
“Do you know what happened to John David? Where can I find him?”
“He’s dead, I hope.” She glared and then shrugged. “Cops said he was at that convenience store where Leo . . . died. They were looking for him. I’ve never seen him since he left here. And don’t want to.”
“Do you think he could be with Laura?”
“Not likely. He was a creep.” Teresa shook her head and chewed her lower lip. “John David tried to put the moves on both of us a few times. Laura punched him right in the face. Left him with a big black eye for a week.”
He watched her face a bit longer. He believed her. “Okay. How about this. Do you know a guy named Jeremy Reed?”
“No.”
“He’s squatting at the Oakwood ranch. He says he has a deed and everything.”
“Well, that’s a lie. I have no idea who that guy is. And if he was from Wolf Bend, I’d know.” She took a deep breath. “I knew Richard Oakwood. He was a mean son of a bitch. He wouldn’t have given anybody anything. Not willingly, anyway.”
“Reed says he’s living out there with a girlfriend who works in town. Any idea who that girlfriend might be?”
“In this town?” She shook her head. “Are you sure he didn’t mean Mount Warren? That’s over in the next county. Lots of folks around here work in Mount Warren. Richard Oakwood worked over there. Lots of oil field money available in good times. Plenty of jobs. You might find her over there.”
From the kitchen Joey called, “Order up!” Flint suspected he was worried about Teresa, because no one could have ordered anything since she sat down at Flint’s table.
“I need to go.” She pushed her chair back. “Joey didn’t really call the police before. But he will if he thinks you’re going to be a problem.”
“Just bring me my check. I’ll get out of your way.” Flint smiled at her. “And thanks for recommending the meatloaf. It really was great.”
“If I hear from Laura, I’ll let you know. But I don’t think I will. She hasn’t contacted me in twenty-eight years. No reason to think she’ll call now. She’s never coming back here.” She stood up and puffed up her chest and stuck out her chin a little. “Nobody wants her here either. Far as I’m concerned, she killed my brother. I’ll never forgive her for that. You find her, you tell her that for me, okay?”
“I will.” He touched her hand again and softened his tone. “But you were Laura’s best friend.”
“That was a long time ago.”
For a moment he considered telling her about her brother’s child. Her niece, Selma. But the girl could be dead by now if his suspicions about her health proved out. And he didn’t know where she was or have the time to find her at the moment. He didn’t have it in him to bring Teresa more heartache. Instead, he suggested, “You might change your mind, Teresa.”
“Why? Because she’ll be rich now or something? I seem like the kind who would forgive her because of that?” Teresa pulled her hand away. “She didn’t shoot Leo. But she didn’t help me keep him here in Wolf Bend, either. She could have. He’d have stayed for her. And I’d still have a brother.”
“Don’t make up your mind yet.” He heard the Sikorsky headed in toward the school parking lot across the street. “Wait and see.”
Teresa folded her hands over her chest. “I’ll be right back with your change.”
She took his twenty, turned, and walked toward the cash register. Before she returned, he polished off the meatloaf and headed out to meet Phillips for the trip back to Houston.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Sikorsky landed with the same ear-splitting volume. Only a dead man could fail to hear it. Litter and dust took flight, washing away from the downdraft. Flint crossed the street and waited for the air to clear before hurrying to the high school parking lot.
He climbed up into the passenger seat, donned his headset, and gave a thumbs-up. Phillips pointed to the seat belt. “You might need it.” He shrugged. “You never know.”
Phillips had been a decent pilot so far, but Flint latched the four-point harness as requested.
Phillips ran through a series of checks. The engine spooled up. A long, slow increase in the jet engine’s whining pitch. The giant blades beat the air. The big helo rocked for a moment before easing off the ground.
A gentle lift, ten feet, before Phillips tilted the craft forward, nose down, tail up. The big blades caught the air, pulling the helo forward. As they gained speed and altitude, Phillips brought the helo almost level. The Sikorsky left Wolf Bend as efficiently as it had arrived.
Couldn’t have done it better myself.
“Sorry I’m late. Harder to find fuel than I’d expected,” Phillips said.
“No problem. How’s our passenger?” Flint turned in his seat to look for himself. Reed was no longer lying on his left side on the floor where Flint had plopped him. Phillips had moved him into one of the backseats and strapped him in.
Reed’s wrists and ankles were still hog-tied with the extension cord. The paper first aid tape covered his mouth, but it had curled at the edges. Reed’s head rested on the back of the seat. Angry eyes narrowed and watched Flint like a predator in the wild.
“Quiet as a baby,” Phillips said, grinning.
The Sikorsky leveled off. Flint checked the map. They were spot-on the blue line, heading east toward the turn and on to Houston. A number in the top corner of the display showed that the flight time should be under three hours, but that was three hours too long.
Flint pulled out a disposable cell phone and fired it up.
“It’s illegal to make cell phone calls in flight. Fines are huge. Stiff penalties,” Phillips said.
Flint wasn’t worried about fines and penalties. He had bigger problems.
A call from the Sikorsky would be worse than broadcasting on live radio. The signal could reach towers fifteen miles away. Anyone could listen in. The other option was to wait the almost three hours until he reached Houston. Far from ideal.
Paxton and Trevor already had a significant head start. An additional three-hour lead might be too great an advantage to overcome. But they weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, either.
So far, Flint’s ace in the hole was that everyone who came into contact with Paxton and Trevor was pissed off and all too happy to strike back. It wasn’t much of an advantage, but now that he knew it existed, he could exploit it.
Flint was starting to feel like a quarterback who’d elected to run with the ball. Everybody on the field was trying to tackle him.
He pulled off his headset and dialed the cell phone as soon as it registered a signal. Scarlett’s phone rang three times before she picked up the unrecognized number. “Yes?”
Cryptic conversation was all they could manage over the noise and vibration of the Sikorsky. “Did you get the package?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on my way.”
“ETA?”
“165.” One hundred and sixty-five minutes.
“Everything okay?” She sounded a bit worried.
“Excellent. Any progress to report?”
“Not much. We found—”
The call dropped. He considered calling back, but the altimeter showed the Sikorsky passing through six thousand feet. Too high for a good cell phone connection, perhaps. They were traveling faster than they had on the two inbound flights earlier. The Sikorsky’s RPM and engine temps were still higher than normal.
Phillips was pushing it, and the flight time had dropped ten minutes. Flint wasn’t about to complain. The sooner he reached Houston, the better.
Texas lay below. Mostly wide and empty. Long, straight roads connected small towns that had the same sunbaked tan color as the wilderness around them. One road looked like the next. One patch of sunbaked earth the same as the rest. Patches of green were sparse.
The Sikorsky’s engine droned on. Phillips stared ahead, turning his head every minute or so to scan the horizon for any sign of errant aircraft.
Flint adjusted a rearview mirror to see the passenger without craning his neck. Reed simply glowered, his eyes narrowed to focus his anger on Flint.
The towns grew even more sparse. Roads took right-angle bends at the corners of property lines. Many simply ended at a small cluster of buildings, likely a house and a couple of barns. Nothing but blacktop over what had once been gravel farm-to-market paths.
Flint leaned back in the copilot’s seat, folded his hands across his lap, and closed his eyes. A nap wasn’t a bad idea. Once the helo set down in Houston, he wouldn’t have much time for sleep. The clock was ticking.
The helo nosed down a fraction. Flint raised his head and looked as Phillips pointed to the flat-panel display. “We’re running a little hot.”
The temperature gauge had definitely risen since they left Wolf Bend. The needle was bordering on the red zone. The altitude scale showed they were just over six thousand feet.
They could increase altitude, where the air was cooler, but that would also be slower and consume more fuel. The current altitude was a reasonable compromise.
Flint checked the map. They were approaching the turn in the blue travel line. Halfway. He watched the temperature gauge, willing it to go down.
A buzzer sounded. He looked at Phillips. The pilot was busy finessing the flight path, keeping the nose of the helo angled down slightly. He pressed a button and the buzzer stopped.
Flint glanced back at Reed, who was still staring. Still as angry as ever. Reed couldn’t hear any of what was happening because he wasn’t wearing a headset. His anger was fueled not by the buzzer but by Flint.
Too bad. Flint wasn’t all that thrilled with him either.
Another buzzer sounded. Louder and angrier than the first. The engine’s whine stuttered. The helo shook, solid thumps as if it had traveled over a speed bump.
Phillips was pressing buttons. He cinched his four-point harness tighter. Flint followed his lead, tightening himself to his seat.
A bell joined the buzzer.
Large red symbols flashed on the display. The temperature gauge was well into the red.
The altitude scale showed fifty-nine hundred feet. They were dropping.
The engine coughed.
Flint knew what was coming next.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Flint had experienced helicopter free fall before. A trained pilot should be able to get things under control. Flint didn’t interfere. Phillips was familiar with the aircraft, and Flint had never flown this particular Sikorsky before. Smart money was on the pilot, who knew the particular machine inside and out.
He would give Phillips as much time as possible to handle the big bird before taking over.
He might die today. But not because he failed to save himself.
Phillips twisted the throttle. The engine made a plaintive attempt to spool up before slowly winding down. There was a feeble whump sound, and the engine’s whine was gone.
A bell sounded, regular, insistent. A female voice came over the headset. “Flameout. Flameout.”
It was the automatic warning system. Redundant. They already knew the engine had stalled; the flame needed to keep it running was somehow gone.
Phillips was leaning forward. Scanning the ground.
The helo was traveling forward.
Momentum. Nothing more.
Then it wasn’t.
Flint’s stomach shot up into his mouth. His body lurched up against his harness as the helo dropped away below him.
Reed’s harness was not as tight as it could have been. He plopped up in the air and slammed down on the seat. His angry glare was replaced with wide-eyed shock. His head was pushed sideways by the impact, and the curled edges of the tape over his mouth caught in the harness and were ripped off his face.
“We’re falling! We’re going to crash!” Reed screamed.
The bell rang on.
“Restart, restart,” said the woman’s voice, calmly.
Phillips was straining to see over the helo’s nose, looking for a landing spot.
Read’s screaming continued, but Flint couldn’t reach him to shut him up.
“Restart,” Flint said.
Phillips shook his head. “Too hot.”
Flint pointed to the temperature gauge, rapidly dropping out of the red. “It’s cooling.” He pointed to the RPM dial. “And the air is spooling up the engine.”
“Landing,” Phillips said, angling the helo forward and down.
Reed’s frantic yelling from the backseat was loud enough to be heard over the noise. “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!”
Flint and Phillips ignored him.
Below, the ground was not flat. The roads and buildings that had dotted the route since they’d left Wolf Bend had vanished.
Flint gripped a handhold beside his seat. The engine’s noise had been replaced by a howling gale of rushing air and the grinding of metal. The helo’s blades were back-driving the giant gearbox and jet engine.
Reed’s screams continued. “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!”
Flint blocked the screaming out of his mind.
Phillips pressed the “Push to Talk” button and recited the helo’s tail number into the ether. He added the words, “Flameout. Going down. Request assistance.”
Phillips’s voice was calm, but Flint had no doubt the radio tower could hear Reed’s panicked screams in the background.
Flint’s nostrils twitched with the assault of hot metal and oil odors. And something else—urine. Reed had pissed himself.
The helo rocked from side to side. Phillips battled with the cyclic to keep the flying brick upright. The blades were a blur, seeming to spin just as fast as if they had been powered by the engine.
The helo was on a slow, curving descent. The meager lift from the spinning blades and the big bird’s momentum helped to keep it flying.
Only it wasn’t flying.
It was falling.
“Caxton tower,” said the voice of an air traffic controller from their headsets. “Do you see a clear place to put down, sir?” The controller’s voice sounded more tense than Phillips’s.