by Vivien Sparx
Stone shook his head. “Dodd is involved, and I am going after him. But there is another man involved here. Someone we don’t know. Someone who is holding the girls. He is the one behind the whole kidnapping. Dodd just kept the buyers at his property because it was quiet and isolated from townsfolk. That’s why I couldn’t find the SUV.”
“So who are we looking for?”
“We?”
Lilley made a face. “I am involved in this now Jack, whether I want to be or not.”
Stone nodded. “And I’m sorry about that,” he said sincerely. “I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.”
“I’m not upset about it,” Lilley shook her head with a gesture of defiance. “I want those girls found. Now – tell me. Who are we looking for?”
“A guy,” Stone shrugged. “Someone who knows Hank Dodd, obviously.”
“Well that narrows it down to a couple of thousand people.”
Stone frowned. Thought hard. “He would have to be someone who didn’t live right here in town. I couldn’t imagine anyone being able to smuggle two young girls into their home and keep them hostage for days without neighbors noticing. There doesn’t seem to be a lot happening in Windswept. Anything suspicious in a local street would be noticed and commented on. So it would have to be someone who has a place that’s quiet and discreet.”
“Like Hank Dodd.”
Stone nodded.
Lilley sighed. “That doesn’t help much. It narrows it down to a few hundred people, at least.”
Stone shrugged. Kept thinking. “It would have to be someone who could keep an eye on the girls. If he has them in his house, or in a barn or a shed, he would need to keep them doped up constantly with drugs to make sure they stay pliant. He’s probably training them as sex slaves, and that means he would need to be around them a lot, either to give them drugs, or to manhandle them until they learn to obey instructions. That’s why they’re still here somewhere. They haven’t reached the point of no-resistance. It’s why those two guys were frustrated. They’ve been waiting for the man we are after to get the girls to the point where they could take them.”
Lilley hugged her arms around her chest as if she was suddenly cold. “Jack, I don’t know…,” she sounded hesitant. “Maybe it’s time you called the police about this.”
Stone frowned. “Those deputies? Lilley, they’re kids. And they wouldn’t have the nerve to confront Hank Dodd.”
“Then call the sheriff.”
Stone thought about that. “The police station will be closed. And tomorrow might be too late.”
Lilley shook her head. “If you phone the station the call will ring out and then be diverted to the sheriff’s home.”
Stone paused, and then nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it. I think the sheriff is the only man who is going to be able to take on Hank Dodd. And once I tell him what I’ve discovered, Hank Dodd is going to have a lot of explaining to do.”
Twenty-Three.
Stone dialed the number for the police station. Listened. The phone rang six times, then stopped. There was an electronic buzz, like static on the line, and then the sound of three clicks. Stone looked at Lilley. She was standing silently in the kitchen, staring out of the window into the empty space of the night lost in her own thoughts.
Stone heard the phone click once more, and then the sound of a new dial tone, this one like a remote echo – like a long distance call to the far side of the world.
“It’s ringing,” he said. Lilley turned. Her face was pale. She gave him an encouraging smile but didn’t move from the window.
Stone paced around the living room, cordless phone pressed to his ear. The phone rang twice more and then the receiver was picked up abruptly and a gravelly man’s voice came on the line.
“Sheriff Cartwright.” Not a young voice. It was the voice of a middle-aged man. The tone was confident and business-like, mixed with a hint of exasperation, like the person was either hurried or irritated.
Stone said nothing. Suddenly he felt a cold chill of shock and sickening realization run up the length of his spine. He slammed down the phone. Went into the kitchen and grabbed Lilley. Shook her.
“We’ve got to get out of here. Now!”
“Why?”
“I know who the guy is. The guy we’re hunting. The man who has the girls. It’s the sheriff.”
What?
Stone was furious with himself. “The sheriff is the man who is behind this, Lilley.”
“No. That’s not possible.”
Stone nodded. “It is. When I went to Hank Dodd’s place I saw a mailbox about a mile north. The name was familiar but I couldn’t place it. It was the sheriff’s name. Cartwright. He lives on the property next to Hank Dodd, doesn’t he.”
“Yes.”
“And he’s been off work all week. That means he could keep the girls drugged. And he has an injured arm. If that’s even true, maybe he got the injury when one of the girls tried to resist. But he is on an isolated property, he is alone, and he is Hank Dodd’s brother-in-law,” Stone ticked off the points on his fingers with urgent, impatient gestures. “It makes sense now why the police never interviewed Margie Bevan’s parents about the suitcase. And it makes sense why the kidnapping is being treated as a runaway. Cartwright doesn’t want this to become a major investigation, because he is the man who has them.”
Twenty—Four.
They heard the sound of howling tires just moments later. Some instinct screamed a warning to Stone and his mind started racing. He looked towards the front of the house. He saw the window blaze bright and the living room filled with swinging lights and shadows. The light swept over the walls and the ceiling then dived low. Headlight beams. A car braking hard right outside.
He grabbed Lilley’s arm and pushed her down onto the cold tiled floor of the bathroom.
“Stay here!” he warned.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Stone hissed. “But it’s bad news.”
He went in a crouch down the hallway to the living room. He heard car doors slamming, men being deliberately loud like the noise gave them confidence. Stone crawled to the front window of the house and edged his head above the window frame.
There was an old flatbed Dodge truck parked in the middle of West Street, and two men standing in front of it. One was holding a shotgun low across his waist, and the other had some kind of a handgun. Stone recognized the men as the two guys in Dodd’s bar who had fallen in behind the out-of-towners earlier that day.
Hank Dodd’s men.
Stone watched as the big bearded guy with the shotgun hoisted the weapon onto his hip.
“Get out of town!” the guy shouted. “This is the last warning you’re gonna get!”
He fired.
The roar of the shotgun’s blast in the death-like still of the night was deafening. The man fired – didn’t aim. Just fired. The front door of the house suddenly sagged from the impact, and a dozen holes appeared through the thin timber panel.
‘Blam!’
Then the second guy raised his pistol and aimed at the window where Stone was kneeling. Stone flattened himself on the ground and a split-second later heard the sound of the shot and the glass above him shattered, covering his back with glittering shards. He rolled away – and saw Lilley Pond coming out of the bathroom.
Stone was about to shout a warning, but he saw Lilley was on her hands and knees, scrambling further into the house, going towards the bedroom.
“Good girl,” he said. “Get under the bed. You will be safe there.”
Stone got back onto his knee and stole another glance at the scene unfolding out on the street.
Problem. The men were too far away for him to get to without being seen. They were out in the middle of the road with clear ground on every side. No concealing cover apart from a twisted stump of bush, maybe still twenty feet from where they stood, and twenty feet from the front door. Even if Stone could get outside to the bush
, he would still have twenty deadly feet to cover across open ground before he could get to grips with the men.
Too far.
Stone ducked down just as the big guy raised the shotgun and fired another round into the door. Stone heard the huge roar of the gun and felt the shuddering impact vibrate through the walls. He slid down, well below the height of the window.
He looked around and thought about the side door in the kitchen. It led out to a path that ran alongside the sagging property fence. But even if he edged along the path he still had the problem of covering too much open ground. The only other option was to go over the fence and circle around. If he could cross the road unseen, further down the street, he had a chance of doubling back behind the men, and then taking them down. Hard.
He was tempted, but rejected the plan. It would take too long, These men weren’t going to wait around, They were here to deliver a message, and then get the hell away.
Stone slammed his fist against the wall in frustration. What he needed was for the two guys to get reckless and come into the house. Then he could take them out.
He ducked back down. The guy with the shotgun fired again – an eruption of wicked sound that battered the still night. The wall of the house took the brunt of the impact. Stone heard timber splintering.
Then there was a lull in the turmoil – thirty seconds where everything went eerily silent. The guy with the shotgun was re-loading. The guy with the handgun took a few steps closer to the mailbox suddenly and fired off three quick rounds aimed into the front door. Stone ducked, lay with his back against the wall below the window and tried to think of a solution.
He saw shadows of movement down the hall, coming from the bedroom, and then Lilley was coming towards him, doubled-over in a crouching run. She was carrying a shoebox in her hands. Stone’s eyes went wide in shocked disbelief.
“Get back!” he waved at her. There was another sudden roar of fire from outside and a hole the size of a fist was punched clear through the wall eight feet from where Stone was sheltering. Lilley froze for a moment, like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights. But just for a moment. Then she came to Stone in a rush, falling to the carpet, rolling onto her side and tucking her knees up under her chin as her body slammed against the wall beneath the window.
“You crazy woman!” Stone hissed. “You crazy reckless bloody idiot! I told you to stay in the bedroom. You’ll get yourself killed.”
Lilley’s face was flushed, her eyes wide and wild. Her hair was an unruly tangle across her face, and her heart was racing. She was breathing in short puffing gasps and her whole body seemed to be trembling. But she didn’t look frightened. She looked fearsome. She glared at Stone, then flipped the lid off the shoebox and pulled out a 9mm Glock pistol.
“I am a woman in my thirties and I live alone,” she said. “You think I don’t have a gun?”
She used the palm of her hand to slap a full magazine up into the handle, and pulled the slide back to rack a round. Lilley took a slow deep breath as Jack Stone just stared at her, his expression incredulous. Lilley paused, settled her racing heart and her trembling hands, exhaled slowly – and then got to one knee and aimed the pistol out through the broken glass of the window, holding the weapon in the classic two-fisted grip.
It was a snapshot Stone would never forget; an image seared into his mind. Lilley was still wearing the short silk gown. The cord around her waist had loosened. He noticed the curve of her naked breast, exposed where the silky fabric gaped. He noticed the long brown smooth flesh of her thigh. He saw the red pout of her mouth and the frown on her forehead as she aimed the gun.
She looked like a pin-up model for Jack Stone’s personal calendar of ideal women. Sexy, half-naked, and firing a weapon.
Maybe miss July. Maybe miss February.
Then she fired.
The sound was loud, ripping though the momentary silence of the night. Stone saw Lilley’s hands thrown up high by the impact of the weapons recoil, and then he heard a terrified, painful shout from somewhere outside. He rolled onto one knee and edged his head around the splintered window frame. The guy with the handgun was down on the ground, one hand clutching at his thigh, the other gripping the wooden post of the mailbox for support. His expression was a twisted mask of agony. Stone glanced at Lilley – Lilley glanced back.
And she smiled.
Stone smiled.
“You got him in the leg,” Stone marveled, his voice full of admiration.
“I was aiming for his chest.”
They exchanged another glance – and then the big guy with the shotgun screamed out. “Bastard!” He fired at the house. Lilley and Stone ducked down instinctively. When Stone risked another look the big guy was dragging his wounded partner back towards the open passenger door of the Dodge.
Lilley fired again. Stone didn’t see the shot. He heard the sound of a ricochet. The big guy returned fire, swinging the shotgun around and jamming it into his side so he could fire with one hand. Stone heard the roar of the blast, but no sound of impact. Lilley loosed off another round, this time taking careful aim, pausing to go through some kind of routine like maybe she had taken lessons sometime in the past. Stone watched her, said nothing.
The wounded guy was up in the cab of the truck now, still clutching at his leg, screaming in pain. He leaned out and pulled the door shut while the big guy rounded the truck and threw the shotgun across the bench seat. He jumped behind the wheel and gunned the engine.
Lilley fired. Stone saw the glass in the truck’s passenger window explode. Saw the wounded man duck down. Heard him scream out with fright. Then the truck was tearing off along the street, belching a cloud of choking exhaust smoke as its tail lights disappeared into the darkness of the night.
Twenty-Five.
“What do we do?”
Stone took the pistol from Lilley’s trembling hand. Made the weapon safe. Then tucked it into his jeans.
Now the danger had passed, Lilley was going through the delayed adrenalin after-shock. Her whole body shuddered like she was cold, or in the grips of a terrible fever. She was sitting on the sofa, dazed and numb. She was staring at the door, and walls that gaped from ragged splintered holes.
“We need to get you to the motel,” Stone said. “You need to be somewhere out of the way until it’s safe.”
“Safe?”
Stone nodded.
“How, Jack? How will I ever be safe? This is a small town.”
Stone sat on the sofa beside Lilley. He turned her head until she was looking into his eyes. “It is a small town,” he agreed. “That’s the advantage. Once I cut the head off this monster, the rest will lose direction. Once Hank Dodd is out of the way.”
“You’re going after Dodd?”
Stone nodded.
Lilley shook her head, confused. “But you said the man you wanted was the sheriff.”
Stone nodded again. “But I can’t get to the sheriff until I get rid of Dodd. He’s part of this too, Lilley. I’m going to destroy him, and then I’m going after the sheriff. It’s like a cancer. Every trace of it needs to be cut out, or else it might come back. And I don’t want that to happen.”
Lilley said nothing. Stone put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close against his chest. “And besides, Dodd won’t let this rest until it’s over. Now the war has started, one of us has to end it. That’s going to be me.”
Lilley pulled away from Stone. She sat up straight. Took a deep breath. “Then I’m coming with you.”
Stone shook his head. “No. You’re not. I’m taking you to the motel.”
Lilley got to her feet, her face defiant. “No. I’m coming with you. The motel is the first place Hank Dodd and the sheriff will look for me, Jack. I’m going to be in danger if I’m not with you.”
Stone shook his head again, but with less commitment. “You won’t be safe if you’re with me, Lilley.”
“I’ll be safer,” she said defiantly. Then she reached out and took his hand in hers
. “I know what you’re going to do now, Jack. You’ve got my gun. You’re going after those men – and you’re going after Hank Dodd. Aren’t you?”
Stone smiled. “No,” he said. “I’m going to get Hank Dodd to come to me.”
Twenty-Six.
They cruised into town, Stone driving slowly along Main Street. The blue SUV was gone, the street deserted. The neon sign in the window of ‘Stan’s Bar’ had been turned off. The building was dark and empty. The street was dark and empty.
But there were lights burning at the police station.
Stone drove past slowly, went all the way past the town limits and parked up on the shoulder of the road. Kept the engine idling. The Chevy gurgled and rattled as he sat there thinking.
“The police have been alerted,” Lilley said, sitting small and quiet in the passenger seat. She had her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Stone knew she was coming to terms with what had happened back at her house. The realization was setting in; she had shot a man, and the enormity of what she had done was sitting heavy on her shoulders. “Did you notice that lights were on at the police station?”
Stone nodded. “My bet is that Dodd has called the sheriff. Told him what has happened. So now he knows we’re onto him. They’re probably deciding how they can make me go away – permanently.”
Lilley said nothing. Just sat in the dark thinking. Stone was watching her. Lilley seemed unaware of his scrutiny. Her preoccupation was absolute. Stone wondered what she was thinking – wondered what dark thoughts were smoldering there.
“I didn’t see any cars out front of the station,” he said at last. “Where does the sheriff park?”
Lilley shrugged. “There is a driveway down the side of the station house.”
Stone nodded. “Would Hank Dodd use that driveway?”
“Maybe,” Lilley shrugged again. “He is the sheriff’s brother-in- law.”
Stone nodded again. Didn’t say anything else for a couple of minutes.