By Dog Alone: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 2

by Charles Wendt

  “I want to buy your truck.”

  “Well, I mean I hadn’t really been planning…”

  Marcelo looked around for a table or other suitable piece of furniture and was at a loss to find one. He settled for the Formica bar countertop between the kitchen and the tiny dining room, setting on it the briefcase.

  “I offer $100,000. Cash,” he said as he opened the latches.

  Air whistled across Larry’s lips as he looked at the neatly bound bundles of bills in assorted denominations. He reached in to thumb a packet of hundreds like a deck of cards, verifying it was really cash and not play money or patiently cut pieces of newspaper. The man didn’t interrupt him satisfying himself, but got back to business once Larry had gotten his head around the contents of the briefcase.

  “Forget buying. This is more of a rental agreement. Think of this as me buying insurance along with a one-day rental fee. If I don’t return it within twenty-four hours, call and report it stolen.”

  Larry shrugged to himself. Why not? Sure, it was shady, but so was construction contracting most of the time. He couldn’t take it direct to the bank and buy a new truck with a briefcase of cash. But he could buy a truck with his next construction job draw and pay his workers in cash instead. He’d be able to upgrade from a few years old to brand new, and still have a nice bonus leftover.

  “Okay,” he agreed. He suspected there may be consequences to saying no.

  He fetched the keys from the dresser top in the bedroom and then some papers on the truck’s front seat. He threw in the chains, shovels and other equipment in the back for free. Then he watched his truck gently make its way out of the neighborhood with a black stretch Lincoln Town Car following. Larry hefted the case, and decided the only additional work he needed to do at this time was to go back to sleep.

  Esteban followed Mr. Armesto out to Main Street and then into the parking lot of Full Cry Market on the east side of town. A state trooper came west bound along State Route 715, blue lights flashing, and turned north on to Full Cry Road without heeding the red traffic signal. The thick trees and rainy night made it impossible to see very far to the north, but reflecting off the clouds in that general direction was a glowing aurora. Every light in the school was on, and the parking lot was filled with an entire range of emergency vehicles with their own flashers and strobes contributing to the region’s most dazzling display outside of the Christmas season.

  The market’s lot was deserted, although the store and pumps were open. Mr. Armesto did a three-point turn with the truck at the back of the lot and pulled alongside Esteban’s open window. An oily smell was on the air. Thankfully it was currently only sprinkling but a rumble made clear that torrents were coming. The Ford, running on a lifted suspension and thirty-five inch tires, towered over the luxury car.

  “If they call, grab them and scoot because if they aren’t dragged down nothing is going to happen to me. Let Diego call the shots, but be patient with him. He’s bound to be tired and strung out. You might stop in and get some coffee and snacks for them just in case. Then go down the road a mile or two and wait for a call.”

  “How do you know they will come out that way?” asked Esteban. He wanted a sense of certainty in the swirl of chaos about him.

  “There’s no major roads to the north or east inside a full day’s walk. If they’re still out there then,” said Mr. Armesto shaking his head, “they won’t get out. Either I get them, or they’re done for. I can also get them if they go west. They obviously can’t go south back to the school. That only leaves southeast, and you are their savior. And mine. Any questions?”

  Esteban shook his head. Another state trooper arrived where State Route 715 cut across Full Cry Road. He turned like the first, but instead of continuing on north toward the school he turned his car to cut off the road.

  “If you’ve not heard from anyone by seven AM, get the hell out. Sometime after that, they’ll have the Lincoln’s plate number and be looking for it. Don’t go back toward the district. There’s too many highway cameras to pick you up and they’re going to have choppers all over the air. Go around the bypass here,” he said gesturing at the traffic light, “and head west somewhere. No matter where you go, after two hours, ditch the car. There’s another briefcase of cash in the trunk. Take it. You’re still clean and I won’t rat you out if you give them until 7 AM. Deal?”

  Esteban nodded, and Mr. Armesto rolled up the window and roared away. He looked at the state cop in his rain gear on Full Cry Road, lighting road flares. He started down the road just like Mr. Armesto had said. Looking eastward on State Route 715, head-on, he could see more flickering blue lights on the horizon. The odometer passed a mile, then two, then ten. He came upon a major looking southbound road and took it.

  Marcelo didn’t worry about his driver following through. He’d offered him a low risk good deal. Or at least he hoped Esteban saw it that way and would hang out, thinking he’d done nothing but drive the car, not realizing he could be subject to federal conspiracy charges. He didn’t have time to dwell on it. The noose was starting to close, and the brandy stubbornly refused to let go. Frankly, the men getting out on their own was their best chance.

  Just because he employed a driver, didn’t mean Marcelo didn’t pay attention. They might be starting to seal off the school, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get out to the fixture. He tore back down Main Street, knowing any possible cop was at the school, and hung a right at the flashing yellow light in front of the bank. In minutes, he’d made it through that kinked turn and onto the gravel Gone Something or Other Lane. He passed the dark farmhouse with the realtor sign. The giant excavator was still there in the old pasture on the left side of the road, surrounded by sodden mounds of earth.

  Had they found Bruno? That would be unfortunate, but not game changing. It would take them a long time to run that back to him. A lot longer than if they captured Diego and the crew. He turned the wheel hard to the right.

  There was an old cattle fence on this side of the road with well-rotted wood posts tangled in rusty barbed wire, choked in the summer’s green vines and brown ones of yesteryear. He steered so that a post was right in the middle of the hood and let the truck come forward until the grill guard rested against the post. He reached down to the floor and pulled the lever to put it in four-wheel drive. The hubs were already locked; Larry Turner drove on too many construction sites to climb in and out all the time.

  Marcelo mashed the gas, the tires turning wet ground into flying muddy slop. The high suspension and the tall tires put the truck’s contact on the post toward the top, providing leverage. It readily snapped off at ground level, rotted pieces crumbling away. He drove over it, the thick treads more than a match for the dull rusty barbs of the fence wire on soft ground.

  He took out his phone and dialed Diego. It was hard to hear the ringing with the background rumble of the big diesel engine idling, and the pounding sheets of rain on the windshield and metal roof.

  “Diego, it’s me. Where…”

  Marcelo hung up as he realized it was just Diego’s voice mail greeting. He stopped the truck and hunted for the volume adjustment on his phone. It was already cranked to maximum. He hit the green button to redial, turning down the truck’s fan to try and hear better, and then the wipers. He took his foot off the brake to creep across the field. Again it went to voice mail. With all the humidity in the air, the windshield began to fog so he stood on the brake pedal again. And dialed Diego again.

  Diego answered, “Hey, Boss.”

  Marcelo felt the tension in his shoulders melt away as he slouched in the seat.

  CHAPTER—27

  Holly Healy shivered and felt her nose run down her chin despite the pounding rain. With free hands, she’d thankfully been able to remove the duct tape over her mouth. The thin cotton fabric of her nightshirt, the only clothing she had, clung tightly to her lean frame. She’d given up sniffling; there was too much drainage. The only relief came from a deep breath in through
her mouth, followed by blowing so hard it also came out her tear ducts. They tried once to reapply the tape over her mouth, but with all the snot it wouldn’t stick and they’d opted to make better speed instead.

  She sat against a tree, her bare feet numb with cold and oblivious to the small cuts and tiny plant bits assaulting her flesh. A man sat on either side of her while the third stood shouting into a phone trying to be heard over the storm. He seemed frustrated that the touch screen wasn’t working with the raindrops on the glass, and he possessed nothing unsodden in which to wipe it off.

  Holly was outright scared, just when she felt like life might be turning around. She’d been invited to the Saturday night barn party to ride. Elizabeth said there were always school horses who hadn’t been ridden that day that Helmut would let them borrow. Vicky knew Ollie needed an exercise rider while the master convalesced. And if neither of those worked out, Kate said they could share Chumpy. Then evil had carried her away in the night.

  The two men needed the rest, cradling their rifles and breathing hard. One slipped off a loafer and tried to manipulate his wet stinky sock so it wouldn’t rub the developing blisters underneath. A lightening flash over the cattle field let her catch a glimpse of the police uniform the man on the other side was wearing. It gave her a hopeless feeling, that no help would be coming, because even the authorities were conspiring against her.

  Then she remembered the flashing blue lights slamming into their getaway cars and the officer heroically emerging gun blazing. Then another had come. And then one more who hung back, but could really shoot. A stream of flashing lights in all types of colors had been racing up Full Cry Road before she lost sight being dragged into the trees. But even over the heavy rain she could still hear the sirens. Her parents might not care, but clearly the cops did. She rallied.

  Slowly she raised a hand and pushed aside the long blond hair clinging to her face and tried to size the men up without looking at them. It was dark, but getting away from the lights of campus had let her eyes adjust. They were grownups to her. But as a teen, she put them as more “middle-aged” grownups. They were all thicker around the waist. Especially the one in uniform, and he was the only one in boots instead of dress shoes. Even in bare feet, she’d outrun them easily. They wouldn’t dare shoot her. They were on the run. Gunshots would just bring the pursuit.

  She’d have to pick her moment. A grabbing hand was quick, and they were plenty strong. That would stop her in her tracks. Right now they were keeping a close eye and staying tight beside her. But as they got tired, they’d get careless. She hoped it would come soon. Like a stumble when she could easily shove one over. Her bare leg muscles were cramping from the cold.

  “I don’t know where we are! It’s dark. There’s no street signs. It’s only trees and cows out here,” he shouted into the phone while he paced.

  And they don’t know the territory at all she thought. She didn’t either, really. They’d gone way past where she’d ride her bike. Vicky and the other horse riders knew the land, but not the stupid hockey girl. Holly shook her head. She wasn’t stupid. Her housemates had a tutor for geometry and she’d figured it out on her own. She’d figure this out, too.

  Her problem wasn’t finding her way out, like theirs. If she broke free, just heading back in the general direction from which they’d come would be good enough. There’d be a wide line of rescuers she couldn’t help running into. And she felt her odds of breaking free were pretty good if nothing changed, like being tied up.

  If she couldn’t break free, the problem was how to make herself easier to find. Just flip it around she thought. She’d already determined they probably wouldn’t shoot her because of the noise, so making noise was a good idea. Screaming wouldn’t do it right now. The guy on the phone was screaming without a care, voice getting lost in the wind and rustling leaves. But a gun was much louder, and if someone got careless she had a chance at one.

  Holly dismissed it. She knew almost nothing about guns other than the movies. She’d heard of a safety switch that wouldn’t let it fire. She was confident she could eventually figure it out. The bullet would come out the end with the hole in it. There weren’t many controls. But as soon as she took it she’d need to be running away and the extra weight would only slow her down.

  The lights on the end of the rifles might be a better idea. She could pretend to stumble and grab the end of the barrel. It looked like there was a little press button on its base to turn it on. If everyone was out looking for her and saw a flash, they might move in that direction. But the rescue team might not see it either. And these men would be really mad. They might do something like start carrying her or tie her up and that would take other options away.

  “Hold on, I’m trying to bring up the map thing. I’m touching at the icon but it’s not doing nothing!”

  “No! … Got nothing dry to wipe it off with… We walked for about an hour... I didn’t time it… Maybe, but it was really windy going around trees and finding spots to get over fences.”

  She knew the fixture was a big place, especially if you weren’t on a horse. They’d use dogs to help find her. Kate told her last night about the tutor’s dog, and how Azrael had finally let her pet his chest the night before and how Azrael had tracked Ollie when they all found the lost master on Sunday. Could dogs even track her in the rain? How could she help all those rescue dogs find her easier and not have her captors know it?

  As Holly pondered that, she realized how tight her lower body was. Not only was she cold and crampy, legs and bare backside sitting in the rainwater at the base of the tree, she’d never gotten the chance to relieve herself before they hauled her off. What had started as a simple pizza dinner, had kind of turned into a late-night hen party. Late for teenagers on a school night, anyway. They’d been interested in her opinion. She’d been curious to understand how they saw some things. Parents, boys and relationships. Glass after glass of soda had fueled their wagging tongues. She really needed to pee.

  She could ask to get up and go, but that would put them on their guard to her running off. And one big relief wasn’t what she was looking for. Holly tried to relax, concentrating to start the flow, and then gritted her teeth to stop after a good splashing of the warm urine escaped. Even she could smell it, before it diluted with rain water. She pulled her knees to her chest, to put her heels in the puddle. Then she turned her gaping mouth toward the sky, capturing every sweet falling drop she could, to be able to scent her feet at every opportunity.

  Diego finally got the map application to load on the phone. But it was optimized for road travel, and there weren’t any of those close by out here. And it was hard to zoom in and out given the challenges with the touchscreen.

  “Find the school,” Mr. Armesto’s voice instructed.

  Diego could barely hear over the weather. After four tries, he managed to put the phone on speaker. It took a half dozen tries to get back to the map application, the sensors confused by the water droplets on the screen.

  “Take me off speaker. I can’t hear a damn thing you say with the wind going over the microphone.”

  He left the browser once again for the phone application, frustrated to have to fight the phone’s controls to get back there, as well as giving up the crucial map page he’d just gotten to.

  “Did you find it?”

  The voice was feint and garbled, and he didn’t understand it. Without being on speaker, he needed to hold the phone to his cheek to hear his boss’s instructions. But when he was holding it to his cheek, he couldn’t work the mapping application what his boss was telling him to do. It took a few frustrating iterations for them to find the required rhythm.

  “Okay, I got it. The school is to the southwest of us, just a little over a mile.”

  “That’s all the ground you’ve covered? Christ! Head northwest. If you see headlights out that way, call me. I’ll flash them so you’re sure it’s me. You can answer by flashing back with the tactical lights on your rifles. Unders
tand?”

  Diego nodded as he spoke, “Yeah, Boss. We got it. Try you in an hour.”

  He spun himself in place while looking at the phone screen, making sure he’d be leading them in the correct direction. There were no landmarks to be had in the rain and dark. A gross general direction with the hopes of seeing headlights would have to be good enough. He’d err against not walking back toward the school.

  “Listen, the boss has got an off-road truck and is coming to get us. We’re going that way,” Diego said gesturing. “Let me know if you see any headlights.”

  In the dark, with all the frustration, fatigue and urgency, Diego failed to pick up the carbine he’d set aside to use his phone.

  Abriella Harper watched the emergency personnel slowly but methodically instill calm and order to the chaos. She’d made it to the locker room stairwell okay, and with the help of the flashlight built into her phone found the three pieces of brass after a search of nearly twenty minutes. It wasn’t a big area in square footage, and well contained by the surrounding walls, but dirt and pine needles washed down the stairs by the storm had made for a murky bog to sift through. Not knowing what to do with them, or whether Kelton wanted them back, she placed them in her pocket.

  But by then, she was trapped. The locker room door was locked up tight at this hour, and all types of responders were around the second police cruiser with the dead patrolman inside. There was no way to slip away to her car and not be seen. She took a deep breath, and came up the stairs like she was supposed to be there and rounded the building toward where she’d parked.

  “Hey, all students to the dining hall!” called a trooper in a gray uniform wearing a “Smoky the Bear” hat protected from the elements with a clear plastic cover.

  “This door was locked so I’m just walking around,” she yelled back.

  “Use the back main entrance. The back main entrance. Stay off the road up here. This is a crime scene!”