by Mary Burton
Seconds later she blacked out.
While Santos worked the radio, Brody drove as if the devil bit at his heels. They’d called in every available gun and badge to back them up.
Dirt kicked up around the car as he raced off the highway onto a rural route. Candace’s directions had been frighteningly clear.
“You’re betting the whole game on one hand,” Santos said.
Brody tightened his hands on the wheel. “It’s the only hand I’ve got to play.”
“God, I hope you’re right.”
Santos’s phone rang, and he answered it immediately. “Santos.” And then after a moment’s pause. “Shit. Yeah, I’ll tell him.”
“What is it?”
“Austin police found Connors. Shot dead in a seedy motel along with a prostitute.”
“Damn.” Brody couldn’t think about the consequences of him being wrong or too late.
When Jo awoke, she sucked in a deep breath. Lying on her back, her throat ached as she searched the darkness for Tim. Instinct had her reaching for the manacle clamped around her leg. But a thick rope bound around her hands and body, making it impossible for her to move her arms. She tried to sit up, digging deep into her core muscles. She’d made it up several inches before Tim pushed her back against the dirt and smiled. “Jo, you don’t want to leave yet. We’re just getting started.”
Bands of panic tightened around her chest as she surveyed her surroundings and realized she was now in the grave. “Tim, don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”
He knelt beside the grave, trickling a handful of dirt onto her belly. She flinched.
“But it’s what I’ve dreamed of doing for a long, long time. Harvey loved you so much but he feared if he reached out to you, you’d reject him. He didn’t want his baby girl looking at him as if he were a monster.”
“Harvey was my father.”
“Yes. He took great pride in your successes.”
Her thudding heart all but drowned out his words. “And you are his son.”
His brow knotted. “Not his real son. Foster son.”
“But he loved you.”
“Not like he loved you. As hard as I tried or as hard as I worked I’d never had that biological connection you two shared.” He scooped up another handful of dirt and scattered it on her body. “Did you know we actually met twenty years ago? Harvey spotted your mother by accident in a drugstore. She was buying hairspray. We followed her into a nearby hotel. He was nervous and angry all at once. I wasn’t sure what he’d do, and then he saw you come out on stage, in that blue sparkly dress and teased hair. It took his breath away, seeing you. Said you were the spitting image of his own mother.”
Keep him talking. Keep him talking. Maybe she could forge a connection and get through to him. “Tell me.”
He scooped up more dirt but held it in his hand. “You walked around that stage, ankles all wobbly in those heels. Pitiful sight. I sniggered and Harvey jabbed me hard in the ribs.”
That day remained a blur. She’d been unhappy about being in the pageant, and she didn’t notice much. “My mother wasn’t happy with me.”
“She was real happy when you tossed that flaming baton in the air. She stood up and clapped.”
Jo struggled to make some kind of connection with Tim so that he saw her as human and not an object. “I was the worst beauty pageant contestant, and she wanted me to be the best.”
“Harvey was pleased you didn’t perform well. He said you were suited for an intellectual life like his.”
“I don’t remember seeing you two there.”
“We had to be careful. Harvey didn’t want trouble. He saw your mother and called her his failed apprentice.” He shook his head. “Something made her turn around as we were leaving. She saw Harvey, and I thought she’d faint. We left right away.”
His opening to talk gave her hope of a connection.
“I didn’t realize my mother knew Harvey until recently. Did he ever talk about her?”
Tim trickled bits of dirt on her belly. Her muscles flinched, which coaxed a smile from him. “Not much. He kept pictures of her, and sometimes he looked at them. I looked at them when he wasn’t home. After that day at the pageant he kept pictures of you, too.”
She twisted her hands against her bindings, managing only to dig the rope deeper into her wrists and arms. “How did you meet Harvey?”
Tim’s body had relaxed and he welcomed talk. “Harvey came into my mother’s life when she was in her late twenties. She sold herself to him many times. And then he killed her.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.” Tim raised his gaze toward the moon. “The day she died was the best day of my life. He saved me from a wretched life. I doubt I’d be alive today if it weren’t for Harvey.”
“He became your father.”
“More than a father. My guide. My maker.” Dirt trickled out of his fisted hand beside her grave. “He took me out of foster care. He knew I needed a real, permanent parent.”
There was a soft side to Harvey Smith. Evil had the capacity for kindness when it suited. “Did he adopt you?”
“No. Nothing formal. But he couldn’t have been a better parent.” His gaze grew wistful as he scooped up another handful of dirt. “He often said he wanted a son in his own image.”
“I can tell you’re educated. You’re smart.”
“Harvey homeschooled me. He didn’t like schools. He thought they were prisons. But my education was a better education than anyone in a school could have received. He was patient.”
“Many of the schools where he subbed gave him high marks.”
“He was a gifted teacher.”
“When I spoke to him, he called you Robbie.”
Tim’s eyes brightened. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time. It’s good to hear again.”
Where she’d been twisting her hands, blood bloomed from the worn flesh.
“He dreamed of us meeting.” He frowned. “That’s why he pulled you into this case. He knew we’d have to finally meet.”
“He didn’t know that you’d already made contact with me—that you’d coaxed me into the Find Christa! search.”
“There’s a lot he didn’t know. He didn’t know I sold you your house. That I kept a key. You know I was in your house when Dayton poked around outside. He couldn’t see me. I remembered you’d mentioned someone was bothering you. But I took care of him.”
When she stared at him, unable to speak, he added, “I killed him. Nothing fancy. Didn’t have time for that. Three bullets to the chest.”
She struggled to hold on to her shredding composure. “Harvey would have liked that you looked after me.”
“I know. He’d have hated it if that Dayton man had gotten hold of you.”
“When did Harvey find out you were back?”
“When he saw the ad in the paper. I knew he’d seen the ad when he sent you and the cops to find Christa. I knew he understood that I’d finally stepped up.”
“Stepped up?”
“Killed. Become a man. Ten years ago he gave me that chance, and I couldn’t do it.”
Killing women was a rite of passage for them. She swallowed anger and fear. “Christa was your first?”
“Yes. It’s why I couldn’t kill her right away. It took time to build up my nerve after I took her.”
“Why organize the search?”
A smile tweaked the edge of his lips. “What better way to hide in plain sight? To hear what the cops knew or didn’t know. And Scott. Well, the more I got to know him the more I knew he’d be of use.”
“What do you mean?”
Terror rose up from the cold earth and saturated her bones. Brody and the others must know she was missing by now. But they were chasing the wrong man. “Where is Scott?”
“Dead in a motel in Austin.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I told him a prostitute had information on Christa’s killer. I told him to pick her
up and meet me. Once they arrived, it was pop pop and problem solved.” He shook his head. “The cops will be searching for him for days.”
Jo swallowed her panic. “You set him up.”
“It really was too easy.”
Keep him talking. Build a bond. Find a way out of this mess. “When Harvey spoke about you I heard pride in his voice,” she lied. “He said there was no smarter man than his Robbie.”
“Really?” For a moment he paused, tears glistening in his eyes. “It’s good that in the end there was at least that.” He raised his gaze to her and the look of pain reminded her so much of the patients she’d counseled. “You know, we were together for eleven years. I thought he’d love me no matter what. But I failed him that one time, and he tossed me away like I was nothing.”
As much as she wanted to scream and rail, she kept her voice level. “You must have been upset.”
“I was heartbroken.”
“What did you do?”
“I adapted, as he taught me. I reinvented myself. I wanted to kill to prove to him I could do it, but I couldn’t. And he was arrested. I came to Austin after he was convicted. I prayed for the courage to kill but I couldn’t. It wasn’t until I heard he was sick that I knew I had to act. I was running out of time.”
Fear tightened her throat. “And Hanna?”
“Poor little Hanna. Confused to the end.”
“Do you know I was able to convince Scott that she had information on Christa? He picked her up in my car. Right in front of surveillance cameras. Took her to a motel room but found out she didn’t know much. I sent him to see Dusty, Hanna’s friend. Those two were always tight when I picked up Hanna. Made sense to clean up two loose ends at once.”
She swallowed unshed tears. “Have there been others?”
“I don’t think anyone has missed poor Sadie yet.”
Her throat tightened. “I know a girl named Sadie.”
“I know you do. Fitting that I hunt in your backyard. Makes this more of a family enterprise.”
“You killed the girls in my group?”
“You didn’t know Christa but I thought it was fitting that you join the search for her.” He leaned forward. “Want to know where Sadie is?”
Tears welled in Jo’s eyes. She did not want to know. But needed to ask for Sadie’s sake.
He grinned. “Is that a yes or a no?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Tim rose and moved several feet to her right. He scraped away the dirt until pale skin caught the light of the moon. Soon he’d unearthed Sadie’s face.
Jo shook her head, tears running down her cheeks. “She was only seventeen.”
Tim scrambled back toward her. “She was a hard one to coax. Want to know how I got her in my car?” When she didn’t answer he smiled. “I told her you sent me to her. I told her you said she could help me find my missing sister.”
Misery raked across her heart. As much as she wanted to let the sadness wash over and take her, she didn’t. “Tim, you don’t have to do this. You don’t. Harvey stayed away from me all those years for a reason. He doesn’t want me to join him.”
“You’re wrong, Jo. So wrong.”
An odd contentment burned in his gaze as he stared at her. He rose, reached for the shovel and scooped up a mound of dirt. He dumped it on her legs.
She flinched. “Tim . . . Robbie, don’t do this! Talk to me.”
“I’m glad we had this time to talk, Jo. I really am. But the time for words is over.”
He dumped more dirt on her chest. This time her composure shattered and she screamed.
“Scream all you want, Jo. No one is gonna hear you. Except Sadie, and . . . well, she’s not gonna do much about it.”
Brody and Santos arrived at the trailer at the end of the country road. The structure was set back off a dirt road a good mile from Rural Route 12. It was lit up as he and the other officers parked, drew guns and converged on the house. Brody motioned for DPS officers to flank the house’s left and right sides while he and Santos banged on the front door.
Brody hadn’t expected an answer. He tried the doorknob, and when he discovered it was locked he rammed the door with his shoulder. Pain shot through him as the wood splintered. He hit the door again and this time it banged open.
A search of the house turned up empty. No Tim. No Jo. Out back they found the red pickup truck along with two other well-maintained older cars.
“No GPS in the cars,” Santos said.
“No.” Brody scanned the land around the house. “He buries his victims like Harvey.”
“The other victims were off property, away from his house.”
Fear scraped at Brody. “I’m betting he’s here. He wants to keep Jo close forever.”
They moved through the house and out the back door. The other officers had circled around the house and had converged.
On the darkened landscape Brody spotted the distant glow of headlights. “He’s out there. About a half mile from here.”
Brody considered driving the distance but worried an approach via vehicle would alert Tim and give him time to kill Jo. He glanced at Santos, and the two took off running, the path illuminated by the light of the full moon.
As they hustled down the narrowing path, brush tore at Brody’s pants and arms. Once he tripped but righted himself as he focused on the headlights ahead. When they pushed through the brush they found Tim standing, moving a mound of dirt. Shit.
Brody aimed his gun. “Get away from her.”
Tim studied Brody and then raised his shovel as if to crush it on her head.
The mound of dirt shifted.
Brody fired, his bullet hitting Tim under his right arm. The impact knocked him sideways and he staggered but he didn’t let loose of the shovel. He righted himself and lurched forward as if to make one last attempt to kill Jo. Brody fired once, twice more. Each bullet hit Tim in the chest and dropped him cold.
“Cover me!” Brody shouted to Santos as he holstered his gun, ran to the dirt mound and dropped to his knees. He scraped at the dirt around her face, digging furiously.
“Jo! Jo!” He cleared the dirt from her nose and mouth so she could breathe. “Don’t open your eyes. There’s too much dirt. Just breathe.”
She sucked in a breath and screamed.
It took him several minutes to excavate the earth and when he pulled her out of the ground, she clung to him.
“I know, baby. I know.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the dirt from her eyes. “You’re safe now.”
Seconds passed and finally Jo opened her eyes. She cupped his face with a muddy hand and kissed him.
He banded his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”
Epilogue
Five months later
“God, I am so hungry,” Pepper said.
Jo glanced up from the kindling that had smoked briefly and gone out. She’d been striking the flints, hoping to catch a spark and for a brief moment had thought she’d won. Then the fire had gone out.
How the devil had she ended up in the woods with a bunch of cranky, hungry girls trying to start a fire? Because she’d lost what she’d thought had been a sure bet.
The wager had been simple. If the girls in the group all made B’s or better she’d take them camping. In all honesty she thought she was safe. But they’d all made B’s. Some just barely, but they’d all made the grade.
And so here she was in the middle of nowhere trying to nurse a campfire so they could cook the hot dogs she’d packed.
“The fire will catch, and we will eat soon.”
Pepper shook her head. “If that Ranger was here, we’d have a fire.”
“He’s working.” Truth was Jo had not had the heart to ask him to come along. Camping with a half-dozen, streetwise girls was a challenge for her, and she didn’t have the heart to ask him to give up one of his rare weekends off. Toss in the fact that the Cowboys were playing the Steelers. Nope,
that was asking too much.
“Too bad,” Pepper said. “I bet he could have gotten the fire going.”
Amber nodded. “I am kinda starving, Jo.” She surveyed the open horizon. “Camping looks a lot more fun on television when you’re sitting on the couch eating chips.”
Jo’s stomach grumbled. “Hey, I will get this fire burning, and we will eat. Soon.”
“Like when soon?” Pepper said.
“Like any minute.”
Amber and the other girls grumbled and rifled through a bag of groceries Jo had packed. Despite their grousing now, they’d all had a great day. The hikes through the hill country had been stunning. They’d seen wildlife. Several girls had picked flowers. They’d enjoyed the day and done something rare and precious: acted like kids.
All the girls from the spring class had delivered their babies. A couple had opted to keep their babies whereas Amber and Pepper had chosen to make an adoption plan for their children. Both paths had been riddled with tough emotional decisions, something that came up often in their group meetings. But all were making it. Moving forward. And that, in Jo’s book, was a win.
The crunch of gravel had Pepper straightening. “I hear something in the woods.”
Amber straightened. “Do you think it’s a bear?”
Jo struck the flints together one last time and rose, frustrated. She’d been told this area was a safe place to bring the girls, but safe was a term she never took for granted anymore. She reached in her back pocket for her cell. She’d call the cops in a heartbeat if trouble showed up.
The sound of footsteps on the path grew louder and louder. The girls huddled around her, and she clung to her phone.
“Who’s out there?” Jo called.
“Jo, where the hell are you?” Brody’s voice was clear, deep and full of relief. He emerged at the mouth of the woods. He surveyed Jo and her girls, taking in the unlit fire and raw food. “You girls aren’t so easy to find.”
She released the breath she was holding and moved from the girls to him. She kissed him on the lips, not caring that the girls giggled and cooed. “What are you doing here?”