Brett had said something that he missed, so he concentrated on the man’s monologue. If the man wanted to talk, he’d keep his mouth shut and listen.
“Then Daddy went to Mississippi with Missy or Misty or Christy or…I can’t even remember what her name was. Haven’t seen him since.”
He sucked in a long shuddery breath. “Grandpa was a hard man to live with. Daddy knew that, but he left us with the old man anyway.”
Every sentence Brett uttered clarified another bit of Chelsea’s fractured psychology.
“When I left town… I just wanted out of here. I should have never left her here by herself. I should have taken her with me, but she was still a minor, and Grandpa was still her legal guardian.” He sighed. “He would have had me arrested for kidnapping her. My own sister.”
Jordan understood a little better what motivated Chelsea. What made her stronger. Or weaker. Depending on the situation. Made her fearless and fearful. Made her aggressive and submissive, all rolled up into one unpredictable bundle. The only stability she’d ever had in her life had been dysfunctional at its best, abusive at its worst.
At one time or another, Chelsea had been abandoned by everyone she’d ever cared about. And now she was probably being hit with a dual whammy of survivor’s guilt and Stockholm syndrome. Jordan had the awful idea that perhaps Chelsea was grieving the loss of James Standridge. Another thought that made him sick at his stomach.
He had to change the subject fast before he allowed his shaky emotions to show on his face. “Are you sure Jake would bring them here?”
Brett nodded. “He can’t take them to the house on Chelsea Lane, and he can’t let Haskins know they’ve run away. He’s gonna need someplace to keep them until he figures out what to do. My guess is he’s going to look for someone who knows how to cook the stuff without blowing himself and half the county up.”
Chelsea had told Brett just enough to give him a few ideas where not to look. Brett didn’t know the whole story, but he knew enough.
“And I’m gonna offer him my services.”
That got Jordan’s undivided attention. “You know how to cook meth?”
Brett hesitated and then nodded. “Haven’t done that for awhile, but I bet I still know how its done.”
“I don’t want to know, do I?”
Brett shifted his gaze from the view out the windshield toward Jordan. “Nope.”
“Great.” He muttered under his breath. Nothing like depending on criminals to fight criminals.
“I know what you’re thinking, cop. I stopped doing that when I saw… Someone I cared about died. I couldn’t cook the stuff anymore.” He wiped his hand across his face. “I keep out of trouble now… Well, except for the bar fights. But I don’t do anything else illegal. Not that I haven’t wanted to. No one around here will hire me, knowing my past like they do.”
“So why do you stick around here?”
How did Duncan make a living?
“When I heard she was missing, I came back. I had to stay in case Cherish came home.”
Like he had moved to Arkansas just in case there was a new lead on where his sister had gone. Jordan let the conversation go. It might lead him to thinking about his sister again, and those thoughts always twisted his guts into knots. For this task, he had to keep a clear head and stay focused.
Soon he would have to check in with Shaw. He’d be expecting that, and if Jordan didn’t, Shaw would come looking for him again. The last time Shaw came looking for him he’d needed the rescue. Well, sort of. Chelsea, or Cherish, or whatever name she went by, had knocked him out and locked him in a shed out behind Cooley’s house. She’d gotten the jump on him, but she’d also talked Jake Richards out of killing him.
He didn’t really see her as a threat, but Jake Richards? Yeah, if she hadn’t talked him out of it, Jake might have killed Jordan that night. The incident made him wonder why Jake had trusted her enough to let her go. Why hadn’t he grabbed her then and dragged her away with him? Something about the scenario at Cooley’s place didn’t make sense.
Maybe it was her odd way of protecting him from Jake. A very odd way. She had wanted Jordan to live, but why? Maybe that’s why she’d done what she’d done. To make Jake think she had Jordan under control.
Brett broke into his tangled thoughts. “How’d you find…how did she find you?”
“Where do I start that story?” He wasn’t putting Brett off. It really was a long story. “My partner and I were investigating a homicide in the house at Laurel Heights. That night…”
He couldn’t tell Brett why he really went back to the house. Enough people already knew about his unusual gift. Until recently, he’d told no one about his ability to sense the supernatural undercurrents in a location. He’d felt strong light and dark vibes at Laurel Heights, and he’d wanted to do his own investigation there. The house had drawn him back.
He began again, hoping to keep his tone neutral. “That night, I was thinking about the investigation and some things didn’t make sense to me, so I went back to the house.” There, that should sound reasonable. He glanced at Brett. “You know they say the place is haunted.”
Brett laughed. “Yeah, I’ve heard that story all my life.” He paused. “You aren’t one of those ghost hunters, are you? Is that why you went back?”
The man was more perceptive than his rough and tumble, good ole country boy appearance would suggest. He hid his intellect well. Jordan was well aware there were many sharp people who lived in the country, but this guy tried to come across as someone of limited intelligence. It was a ploy, and Jordan wondered what had caused the man to resort to such deception.
He answered the man’s question. “No, but my partner is. He and another guy came out to the house to do their ghost-hunting thing. They almost caught me there…”
“Caught you? You mean you weren’t supposed to be there?”
Okay, that was a slip.
“No, not really.” He struggled for the right words. “The scene had been sealed. I shouldn’t have gone back there without another officer.”
“Nice. So you aren’t quite the good guy Cherish thinks you are.”
He leaned back in his seat and lowered the binoculars. “I don’t really know what she thinks of me.”
No, he really didn’t, but it occurred to him that he wouldn’t mind hearing her opinion of him. She was depending on him, but that didn’t mean she liked him. Did he want her to have a positive opinion of him…as a person? An unsettled feeling began in the pit of his stomach. The briefest anticipation of indulging in something that was forbidden.
The woman was a material witness, might even be a suspect. Ethically, he should keep his emotional distance from her. Too much misplaced sympathy could lead him to a lapse in judgment where she was concerned.
Yet…the thought of getting closer to her appealed to him.
He shook off the weird moment. What was he thinking? Don’t be stupid, Jordan. “What she thinks of me is besides the point. And that wasn’t your question. You wanted to know how she found me.”
“Yeah, so go ahead. Finish your story. This should be good.”
The guy didn’t have to be sarcastic. The attitude wasn’t necessary.
“She was already in the house. When she saw me trying to sneak out, she showed me how to get out without being seen by them.”
“Now, why would she do that for you? If she’d never met you before?”
Good question. “I asked her that.”
“And what did she say?”
He raised the lenses back to his face. “She wouldn’t give me a straight answer.”
Brett smirked. “I bet she didn’t. Now, I want the truth from you.”
The expression on Brett’s face informed him lies wouldn’t be tolerated without physical consequences. Jordan had certain “tells”. Shaw Bennett had pointed them out to him often enough. Would Brett be able to discern if Jordan told less than the absolute God-honest truth?
“What do
you want to know?” He asked against his better judgment.
“Is there something…you know…going on between the two of you?”
The question shocked him because he’d just been trying desperately to reject the idea of beginning something. What? He wasn’t sure. “No. We haven’t known each other long enough for anything like that.” Did his immediate response sound too defensive?”
“But you won’t deny you’ve thought about it.”
An unsettled feeling heaved in the pit of his stomach and raged into an anxious thought storm. He couldn’t help recall the strong first impression she’d made on him when she was leading him through Laurel Heights…against his better judgment.
He grunted and refocused on the shack down the road. “I think we’re wasting our time here.”
Just as the words left his mouth, a white panel van came up the road from the other direction and parked on the grass in front of the house.
Jordan nudged Brett. “I spoke too soon. We have company.”
****
Brett and Jordan hung back and watched as two men exited the van and headed into the house. Jordan nodded at him and they advanced toward the vehicle. From their spot down the road, it took them a couple of minutes to reach the van. Still, the men who had been driving it remained in the house.
As they neared the shack, the roar of an argument drifted out the screen door that barely hung on two hinges. While the men inside were distracted, Jordan slipped along the side of the van away from view of the front door. Brett trailed him by a foot or so, his shotgun loaded and ready. Jordan motioned for him to stay by the driver’s side door. The cop moved around to the back of the vehicle that was angled away from view of the house.
After a moment, Jordan returned and cocked his thumb toward the van, mouthing the words, “Three women inside.”
Brett nodded his understanding.
Jordan eased around Brett and slowly opened the driver’s side door. He pointed at the keys still in the ignition. Once again he mouthed his instructions. “I’ll drive. Get in the back.”
Just as Jordan climbed into the driver’s seat, sliding down low, hopefully out of view of the men in the shack, Brett opened the back door of the van just enough to crawl inside.
His first sight of the three women made him gasp. Ragged clothes. Hollow eyes. Scared-to-death expressions. Obvious signs of malnourishment and drug abuse. They all appeared as if they had one foot in the grave. He knew the physical signs well. The three were suffering from chemical poisoning, a hazard of cooking meth without protective clothing.
Three pairs of frightened eyes glowed at him in the semi-dark. One of the women began to speak, and he quickly placed a finger over her lips, shook his head. What was the phrase for good guy Mexican?
He pointed to his chest. “Buenos.” He scratched his head, searching his mind for another word that might wipe the fear off their faces. He patted his chest. “Muy buenos.”
The women crowded as far toward the front and away from him as they could get. Was he really that scary looking?
Glancing at the doors on the rear, he realized why the women couldn’t make an escape while the men were inside. There were no door releases. The women had been trapped inside the vehicle until their captors decided to let them out. The temperature inside the poorly ventilated cargo area of the van was insufferably hot. Beads of sweat had already formed on his brow. He cursed himself for not leaving the door cracked open.
Just as he settled into a seated position, the van jerked into forward motion, shifting the passengers in the back. He grabbed a hook in the side and held on tight. Shouted voices followed the van for a ways before they died.
So their departure had been noted.
He glanced at the women again. “Speak English?”
One of the women shook her head in the negative.
The van was not the most comfortable ride. It bounced and swayed, and a couple of times Brett banged his head against the side. Of course, Jordan was probably pushing the vehicle as fast as it could go.
A thud rattled the door next to him. Were they being fired at? He closed his eyes and cradled the shotgun in the crook of his arm, glad that he’d insisted on bringing it along.
One of the women began babbling incoherently in Mexican Spanish. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Brett moved toward her, and the other two women cringed, pushing their thin arms out in front of them.
He laid the gun on the floor of the van with the barrel pointed toward the doors and raised his hands. It occurred to him that he might have to shoot the lock to get them out.
“I’m not going to hurt her.” He tried again when they appeared even more frightened of him. He pointed at his chest again. “No mal.”
A concerned frown spread across the face of the woman sitting next to the babbling woman. In another moment, the first woman had passed out. The woman’s friend scooted back and nodded at him, waved at him as if she wanted him to examine the unconscious woman. He pressed his fingertips against the woman’s carotid, felt a slight pulse, and then released the breath he’d been holding.
“Alive.”
The other two women seemed to understand that and offered him weak smiles.
How freaked out would these women get if one of them died right in front of them?
The van bounced again, and he nearly fell into them. They shrieked as if he was about to attack them. He righted himself, raised his hands to show them he meant no harm, and sat back. After that, it was a long, miserable ride. Without a way to communicate with Jordan or ask him where the hell they were going, Brett could only wait it out until Jordan stopped.
Chapter Five
Jordan punched the speed dial for Shaw Bennett. He couldn’t put off the inevitable a second longer. As it was, he had probably waited longer than he should have to check in. Bennett would not be a happy partner.
After three rings, Shaw answered with a growl in his voice. “Where have you been? It seems I’m always looking for you when I should be…doing what I should doing.”
No doubt, Shaw had spent the last few hours getting more acquainted with Courtney Jepson. Getting interrupted was probably enough to make the man cranky. He’d heard Bennett say the two of them were headed out to Laurel Heights to house sit for the owners. Perhaps, Shaw had already found Zeke Richards’s beat up Crown Vic under the sycamore tree. He would probably spend some time imagining all the various ways it could have ended up there. Jordan smiled when he pictured Bennett entering the house with his gun drawn, keeping Courtney behind him.
The man was protective of his witness and more than a little hung up on her. He didn’t get the man’s attraction to Courtney.
At least if Jordan got more acquainted with Chelsea, Bennett couldn’t say a word about it. Oh my God, I’ve got to stop thinking like that.
He dragged his mind back to the question and away from Bennett’s questionable love life. “Never mind where I’ve been. I’m coming into Fairview with two guys on my tail, and they are not shy about firing at me.”
“What the crap, Clark? How did—”
“Forget how. I need backup. Now! I’m coming in hot in a white panel van. I have no idea what the plate number is, but you can’t miss me. I’ll be the one speeding and running red lights. I have three women in the back of this van that need medical attention right now.”
“Hang up. I’m calling for backup.”
“No, wait. Don’t call the locals—”
Bennett had disconnected the call before Jordan could warn him off the Hill County cops. He’d hoped that Bennett would meet him coming into town. He jammed his cellphone into the cupholder in the console next to him and pressed the gas a bit harder. Another ping rocked the van as the tires squealed off the dirt track onto the main highway. Once the van hit smooth pavement, it jerked forward at an even faster speed.
Jordan’s cell rang, and he glanced at the Caller ID. His gaze riveted on the name. Mesmerized by what he saw. It couldn’t be.
&nb
sp; When a car honked, he tore his eyes away from the phone. The phone ceased its demand for his attention, but then resumed its clanging ring within a few seconds. That wasn’t one of his ringtones. Never had been. He couldn’t answer the call. His hands wouldn’t cooperate. His mind rebelled at the possibility.
He refocused his gaze on the road ahead, occasionally glancing at the rearview to see how far behind the two men trailed him in his own car. He’d left the keys in the ignition in case he and Brett had needed to make a swift getaway. A crucial mistake. The car had it all over the van, built for speed. The van, on the other hand, was built for business.
Unless he got some backup, the idiots behind him would soon overtake him. He resigned himself to answering tough questions once the local sheriff’s deputies got involved, passing all the potential questions through his head and forming possible answers that made sense without revealing too much.
The road ahead was curvy as it wove through a gap in the mountains. It wouldn’t take much effort to bump the van off the side of the road. Another quick glance at the mirror informed him the car was gaining on him.
He swore under his breath, words his mother would have clobbered him for uttering.
His phone rang again, the same obnoxiously irritating ringtone. He couldn’t look this time. His heart couldn’t take the stress if the Caller ID once again read Kristie.
Jordan beat his hand on the steering wheel before mashing the accelerator all the way to the floorboard. How much more speed could he pull out of the van? Just as the car came within about fifty yards of him, a Hill County patrol unit pulled out from behind a group of bushes with its lights flashing and its siren screaming.
Once again, he peeked in the mirror at the car behind him. The car swerved as if missing something in the road, but there had been nothing for the driver to avoid. Were the two men fighting each other…in his car? The car veered toward the shoulder barricade and then jerked back over the centerline.
Chelsea Lane (Haunted Hearts Series Book 5) Page 5