by Jeff Carson
Chin to the sky, he rocked back on his knees, stopped, and started falling forward.
Luke timed it right and stomp kicked the back of his head, and the man’s face bounced on the concrete.
With a grunt that sounded like it came from a demon possessing Luke’s body, she landed on his back and gripped his shaven head with both hands.
“I think he’s out,” Wolf said.
Panting through gritted teeth, she released her grip and stared at his motionless form as if daring him to move again.
“Luke.”
She looked at Wolf. Her pupils were pinpoints, her lips pulled back, her chest heaving.
Wolf rolled to his hands and knees and climbed to his feet, feeling a lance of pain in his spine and renewed ache in his thigh. Before standing, he shook his head, expecting a ringing in his ears any moment, but none came.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He sniffed. “I smell smoke.”
Luke walked to the storage unit and looked on the ground inside. “Fire.”
There was a loud clank somewhere around the corner and then a continuous squeal. “What the hell is that?”
“I think it’s the rolling gate of the entrance. A car must be coming in.” She grabbed the unconscious man’s feet and pulled, managing only to twist him. “A little help here?”
They turned the guy over and each took a foot, pulling him into the unit.
The inside was hazy with smoke rising from a scorched pile of papers on the smooth concrete floor. In the corner stood a plastic file box with the lid propped open. Other than the two anomalies, the small space was starkly empty.
Wolf kicked the pile of blackened paper and it crumbled and fluttered airborne. In the ash and debris there was a portion of a glossy photograph the size of a dollar bill that had remained unburned.
“It’s a picture,” Luke said, bending down next to him.
He blew gently on it and held it up. “Looks like grass. Weeds and wildflowers.” He dropped it and sifted through the ashes some more.
Luke stood and went to the door. “Shit. Cops are inside. They just drove by. There’s nothing in here. We’re too late. We’ve gotta move.”
She cupped her hands and put her face to the truck window. “Keys are in the ignition.”
He pushed the pile with a finger. “There were five or ten photos here. Manila folders.” He stood up and looked down at the unconscious man.
“Great, whatever. Get in the truck.”
“We have to bring this guy with us so we can question him when he wakes up.”
“Yeah, and tie him up and load him in the truck. All before the freaking cops drive up on us. Forget it. Get in the truck and get down. They’re looking for us, damn it.”
“Wait.” He patted the man’s pockets.
“I have the keys. Let’s go.”
He pulled out the man’s cell phone and then flew out the door to the truck. He heard the police radio echoing through the rows of storage units as he got in the passenger side and closed the door.
The combined tints of the rear and topper windows dimmed the scene outside like it was midnight, but he saw a Sheriff’s Department vehicle swing into view and roll toward them just as he sank to the ample floor of the passenger seat and curled into a ball.
He dared not rise from his position, but he heard a scratching police radio edge closer with each passing second.
Just when Wolf was wondering whether Luke had up and run, he heard the roll door of the storage unit close outside.
The radio lowered in volume and Wolf heard a squeak of brakes and then two thumps of car doors closing.
“Hello, ma’am.” The voice was right outside the truck.
Wolf froze, his eyes fixed on a pair of leather gloves on the floor, and the specks of dried blood on the knuckles of the right glove. Next to the gloves was a crumpled fast-food bag, stained with grease.
“Howdy, Officers. I swear I’ve paid my bill here! What? Ya’ll bustin’ me? Haha. Jus kiddin’. What can I do for ya’ll?”
Wolf pulled his eyebrows together.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” the officer asked in a more playful than official tone.
A pause. “Don’t I look okay?”
“Were you just burning something?”
“No, just putting the charcoal barbecue in. Upgraded to one of those fancy propane models.”
There was a slight movement of the truck, a jostling back and forth, and then a slap on the sidewall of the truck bed. “Have you seen a man and a woman walking through here?”
“Nope.”
There was a pause that escalated Wolf’s blood pressure, and then the voice said, “Okay, thank you. Have a good day, ma’am.”
“You got it. You too, now.”
Luke opened the door and climbed in.
When the door slammed closed, Wolf gave her appearance a double-take.
Her hair was a frizzed mess, hanging down to her shoulders. Her sweatshirt was tied around her waist, and he could not help but notice her dark nipples clearly visible underneath the thin white fabric of her T-shirt, which was smeared with dark soot.
She twisted the key in the ignition and the truck’s big diesel engine roared to life.
She smiled, revealing teeth also smeared with soot. Then she finger-waved in the rearview mirror. Add the dark streaks on her lips and cheeks, and she’d knocked herself down to the lowest tax bracket in a hurry.
“That’s a nice look on you.”
“Shut up,” she said without moving her lips. “They’re right behind us still.” She shifted into gear and moved forward.
Wolf remained silent and watched her drive. She slowed to a stop and he heard the familiar squeal of the gate outside.
Her quick glance in the rearview told him the cops were following them out.
“Back to Rocky Points,” Wolf said.
“Are you sure?” she said like an out of work ventriloquist.
“Back to Rocky Points.”
She exhaled, twisted the wheel, and hit the accelerator. After a few seconds, she deflated in her seat. “Shit. All that for a pile of ashes?”
“We got a vehicle, and we bought us some more time.”
“If we don’t get stopped in the next two minutes at the roadblock they’re undoubtedly setting up ahead.” She slapped the wheel. “Damn it! Who was that guy?”
He climbed up into the passenger seat and massaged the pain out of his hip flexor. “No match for you. Thanks, by the way. If you’d been a second later, I’d be dead.”
She scoffed. “All that and we got nothing.”
Leaning forward to stare at the receding turret lights in the side-view mirror, he fished inside his jeans pocket and pulled out the cell phone he’d lifted from the man. “We got a cell phone.”
She leaned toward him and eyed it, then sat back hard. “Ah, this guy practically drove lying down. What the hell?”
He pushed the wake button on the phone and an image of the Pope smiting a crowd of horrified people filled the screen.
Chapter 19
“No, no, no, no.” Rachette punched the wheel and the horn emitted a dog-toy like honk.
With a practiced move, he downshifted, popped the clutch and hit the gas, and the car lurched and sputtered to life.
Crisis averted.
Something was seriously wrong with the engine of this tin can he drove, and it was time to get rid of it once and for all. He had his eye on a Ford truck parked with a for-sale sign on the north end of town.
The blue pickup looked pretty worn down, but the price was right at two grand. And having four-wheel drive in the winter and no more breakdowns? That had to be worth it.
As he pulled to the curb in front of the coffee shop, he sat idling for a few seconds, then reluctantly shut off the engine, knowing that could have been the last time it ran for a while.
He got out and stepped to the curb. A flashing SBCSD vehicle sped by so fast he failed to catch a glimpse
of who was driving.
“Damn,” he whispered. He was stuck on the outside with no date set for getting back in.
His life was spent wandering through town, with coffee in the morning at the Chairlift Coffee House, lunch from a drive-thru on his kitchen table in his tiny apartment, cheap reconstituted dinners, and beers at night to forget the monotony of it all.
And when he finally did get back in, if that day ever came, what was it going to be like? If it was without Wolf, and with dicks like Deputy Sergeant Barker, it was going to be abysmal.
Then he thought of Deputy Munford’s tiny smile and knew it wouldn’t be all that bad.
“Same as always?” the stoned-looking barista asked behind the counter.
Rachette nodded. “Same as always.”
Another department SUV sped past. There must have been a development.
He decided he would go to the department and poke around, that is, if he could get by Tammy with a little sweet-talking.
With a quickened stride he walked to his car and got in.
The key turned and there was a click. The dashboard gauge needles spasmed and then went still.
“Ah!” He punched the wheel again. This time when he pressed the horn no sound came out.
After trying the key again with no result, he got out and kicked the door, leaving a tiny dent.
“Shit.”
Putting his head down, he walked away from his pile of scrap metal on wheels, vowing it would be the last time he touched it.
Chapter 20
Luke slapped the wheel again as they passed a strip of fast-food restaurants. Her stomach churned nothing but air and her general mood was murderous-angry, the former exacerbating the latter. “I really need that breakfast burrito right about now. I’m gonna come back here and beat Toby’s ass one day.”
She flexed her foot, feeling a wicked bruise welling up from her soccer kick to the guy’s face. As she watched another restaurant slide by, she wished she could kick it again.
Forcing herself out of her dark mood, she looked at Wolf. He was zoned out next to her, still pecking away at the screen of the cell phone. His face was white and shiny.
“Hey, how you feeling?”
He pointed at the screen. “Listen to these text messages, from a phone number, not a name. First one says: Wolf escaped. That was yesterday morning. Then this one that came thirty-five minutes ago: He’s on the run with an FBI agent named Kristen Luke. They found them in Gunnison just now. Where are you?”
She raised her eyebrows. “That sounds like someone in Rocky Points relaying information to this guy.”
He put the phone to his ear.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Calling the number.”
The digital trill of a ringing phone suddenly filled the cab of the truck, blaring from every speaker.
“Hello?” a deep male voice answered.
Wolf grabbed her arm and put a finger to his lips.
She nodded.
“Hello?” the voice said again.
The phone call ended with a loud click.
She reached up and turned down the volume. “Who was that?”
Wolf shook his head. “I don’t know. Did it sound like anyone you know from the FBI?”
“No.” She checked the rearview mirror for the thousandth time. Still no cops. “What about—”
Once again, the speakers erupted in sound, this time a call coming in.
Wolf raised the phone, pressed the button, and said nothing.
The speakers hissed. The person on the other end breathed into the receiver at a steady rate, but otherwise kept silent.
Wolf pressed the call-end button and the speakers went silent again.
“We’re almost at Crested Butte. I’m going to say this one more time. I’m hungry, currently braless in a scuffed-up T-shirt, have charcoal on my face and a knotted bird’s nest for hair, and haven’t showered in days. But you, my friend, look like shit. You need to eat.”
Wolf twirled the phone in his hand, then rummaged around at his feet. He produced a pair of leather gloves and handed them to her.
“Thanks?” She dropped them in the center console.
Then he fished out a fast-food bag and held it up in the light. He opened it and dove his face inside.
Teeth-clenching frustration rushed through her. Jamming on the brakes, she pulled into a supermarket lot and parked. “Screw it. I’m going in to get food. Fried chicken? Great. Fried chicken.” She opened the door.
Wolf put his hand inside the greasy bag.
“Hey, are you deaf? I’m going to go get food.”
“Look at the blood on those gloves. The right hand.”
She climbed back in the seat and picked up the right glove with her index finger and thumb. There was blood spatter on the knuckles. She dropped it back in the cup holder. “Ugh.”
“Looks pretty fresh, right?”
“Yeah, sure, I don’t know.”
Wolf pulled a piece of paper from the fast-food bag and held it out. “Look at the date, time, and location on this receipt.”
“Two days ago … Tuesday afternoon … Colorado Boulevard, Denver. 2:24 p.m.”
Wolf held up the bag. “And this.”
There was a smudge of blood on the outside of the fast-food bag. “Shit,” she said, putting the puzzle together.
“When did you say that family was killed?”
“We went to the scene Wednesday morning. It was dark still. 4:30 a.m.”
“He got this food bag Tuesday afternoon in Denver, then smudged it sometime between then and today.”
She flinched as the vision of the two dead children sandwiched between their dead parents flashed across her mind. She eyed the gloves again, suddenly wanting them out of this truck. She wanted to get out of the seat where the man had sat.
“It was that guy who murdered the family.” She leaned back and exhaled. “Damn it. I should have kicked him again.”
“I have to make some phone calls,” Wolf said. “Go get us some food.”
She watched as he dialed a phone number from memory and pressed it to his ear.
“I hope you’re not calling Patterson or Rachette, or anyone else that the Bureau’s going to be monitoring. Remember, they had to have gotten to us through Margaret and her sister.”
Wolf ignored her, completely oblivious to her presence. His free hand clenched into a fist and his eyes were wildly darting around.
She swallowed, remembering the last time she’d seen him like this, which had been in a bar room back office, the moment he’d realized his son was in mortal danger.
“Is Harold Burton there? Put him on … now!”
She got out and closed the door.
Chapter 21
Patterson sat inside the quiet cab of the SUV and watched Lancaster’s profile in the side-view mirror as he stood outside with a cell phone pressed to his ear.
The silence was absolute, but she still heard nothing.
The guy was officially giving her the creeps.
He’d just received a phone call and said hello twice into the receiver. Apparently, nobody had answered him because he’d hung up. After ignoring her questions about it, he’d simply stopped the car, gotten out, and put his phone to his ear.
Now Patterson watched the reflection of him stand on the sidewalk and make calls.
Lancaster’s lips hadn’t moved yet. Not only that, it was like he’d never intended to say anything with the person on the other end of the call he was making.
He pocketed his phone and walked back to the SUV.
Before he climbed back inside she flipped the radio volume back up and brought her hand to her lap.
The big man eyed her as he got in and she stared back.
“Who was that?”
Lancaster answered with pushing the ignition button and shifting to drive.
“Because I watched your call, and it looked like you just dialed a number and stared into another dimensio
n. What? You calling the weather hotline?”
He pulled out onto Main Street.
A few tourists with backpacks and ski poles stood outside the coffee shop, and some clearly high-on-marijuana twenty-somethings played hacky sack in the grass field near Town Square.
“Hey, pull over here. I want to talk to these kids.” Three teenaged boys wrestled at the next intersection.
Lancaster ignored her.
She flicked the lock and pushed open the door. “It wasn’t a request.”
He slowed to a stop and she got out.
“Excuse me.”
The three teenaged boys stopped and faced her.
“Oh, yes, Officer,” one of them said with a fading laugh.
“Do you three know Jack Wolf?”
They looked at one another.
“It’s a simple question. You know him?”
“Yeah,” the short one said. “We know him. He’s in the grade above us.”
“Why are you three out of school right now?”
The tallest took a defensive posture. “We all have fourth period off, and then it’s lunch. So we’re on lunch.”
She held her hands up. “Okay, okay. I was just wondering if there was some sort of short day at school or something. So, what is it now? Like, fourth period?” She looked at her watch.
They relaxed. “Yeah, like middle of fourth. It ends at twelve, and then it’s lunch.”
She nodded. “Thanks, boys. Have a good day. Stay out of trouble.”
“Bye,” they said in unison.
She walked back to the SUV, ignoring the catcall and whistle from one of them, and got inside.
Lancaster stared at her with half-closed eyelids. “You mind filling me in?”
She strapped her seatbelt on. “I want to go to the school and find Jack Wolf.”
“And why’s that?”
“Wolf’s son has a right to know what’s going on, and I want him to hear the news from me, not an FBI agent, or you, or anyone like you.”
Lancaster raised a corner of his mouth. “Anyone like me?”
She glared at him. “Yeah, people like you, who think he’s guilty until proven innocent, when you have no clue what a good man Wolf really is. His son needs to know that not everyone is like you and the people chasing after his dad. That the rest of us still believe Wolf’s innocent and we’re getting to the bottom of everything. However slow that might be.” She pointed out the windshield. “Go up to 4th and take a right.”