Dead and Gone

by Jack Patterson

  “Whoa there, big fella. Is there a fire down the hall?” Cashman asked after the collision.

  “Sorry, Cashman. Just wasn’t paying attention.”

  Cashman broke into a wry smile. “I hope you’re paying more attention tomorrow when I school your young driver on the ins and outs of big league driving. This ain’t the kiddie circuit.”

  “Oh, we’ll be ready. Don’t you worry.”

  “So will I, but that’s probably a shock to you since you think I don’t prepare like a real racecar driver.”

  Burns was taken aback by the accusation. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “Oh, that little article in Racing Weekly a few months back. I read it all right. You said that Cashman’s having a good year, but it’s due to the fact that he’s avoided any of the major accidents that have taken out race teams this season and not because he’s more prepared than everyone else.”

  “Hey, that was taken out of context. That’s not what I meant.”

  Cashman nodded. “Fair enough, tubby. We’ll find out who’s done their homework tomorrow. I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed after I leave winner’s circle drenched in champagne and coated with confetti.”

  Burns held his tongue, wondering if this was the moment to broach the subject he needed to talk to Cashman about.

  Screw it. I’m going for it.

  “Look, Cashman. I know we’ve had our moments over the years, but I do have a favor to ask of you.”

  “A favor?” Cashman pointed at his own chest. “From me?”

  Burns let out a long breath. “Yeah. And you’re the only one who can help me.”

  “How’s that?”

  “If I recall correctly, in Texas your hauler was set up with a clear view of the garage across from our car.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “And your hauler is rigged with a security surveillance system, right?”

  Cashman furrowed his brow and tapped his foot. “What are you gettin’ at, Burns?”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors that someone supposedly sabotaged Tanner’s car last week. And if the story I’ve heard is true, whoever fiddled with the return spring that caused the accident would be on your security video feed.”

  “You want me to give you my security tapes?”

  Burns nodded.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Come on, Cashman. What’s it gonna hurt?”

  “My reputation, for one. Everybody’s gonna say that the only reason I’m in the championship race is because someone sabotaged Carson Tanner’s car. And then how do I know you won’t try to tie your little weasel to me?”

  “You know we’d never do that. We’ve got enough problems of our own.”

  Cashman chuckled. “You sure do. That starts with tryin’ to figure out how to beat me tomorrow.” He jabbed his finger into Burns’ chest. “Better bring your A game, loser.”

  Cashman spun and walked away.

  “Really? You’re just gonna walk away like that?”

  Cashman raised his fist in the air defiantly, refusing to turn around as he continued down the hall. “I’m not gonna taint my title, porky.”

  Burns seethed. “You’re not gonna win one either, punk.”

  Burns took a deep breath. Convincing Cashman to give up the tape was the easiest path to revealing the saboteur—if there truly was one.

  Guess I’ll have to do it the hard way.

  CHAPTER 34

  CAL REAWOKE IN THE TRUNK of a car bounding over rises and bottoming out in large holes. Whoever had taken him held no regard for his personal comfort. A jack jabbed him in the back every time the car sank into a depression over the rocky terrain. He could tell it was still light outside through the porous holes in the trunk, but he couldn’t guess what time it was—or if it was even still Saturday. He hoped it was, but that was far down on his list of wishes at the moment. He wouldn’t care what day it was if he could escape the thugs holding him hostage.

  Since he’d already failed to elude his assailants, he chose to shift his mental energy toward figuring out where he was. Faint traces of dust leaked into the trunk through the various holes. From the sound of the tires, Cal deduced they were traveling on a poorly kept dirt road—if it was even a road at all. His exercise did little to help him deduce his location.

  After another fifteen minutes, the brakes squealed as the vehicle lurched forward and came to a stop.

  Finally!

  Cal heard two doors open and slam shut before the rattling of keys gave way to a mechanical click. The trunk flew open, revealing a dusky Arizona evening. Cal tried to climb out before one of the men yanked him out with one hand and slung him to the ground.

  “Get up,” the man snapped.

  Cal rose to his feet slowly, dusting off the dirt that caked his clothes.

  “I’m gonna make this simple for you,” the man said as he opened up a laptop computer. “Look at this.”

  Cal’s jaw dropped as he stared at the image on the screen.

  “Recognize her?”

  Cal nodded. It was Kelly.

  “This is a live feed—and I’m sure you wouldn’t want anything to happen to your dear wife, would you?”

  Cal glared at the man. “Leave her out of this. She had nothing to do with anything. Just tell me what you want.”

  “We want you to get on a plane and go home, never to show your face around a racetrack again. Got it?”

  “What did I do?” Cal asked.

  “I think you know exactly what you’ve done. And it’s time for you to leave.”

  Cal didn’t flinch. “Who are you working for?”

  The man pulled out his gun and jammed it underneath Cal’s throat. “I ask the questions around here now. It’s time for you to go.” He whipped Cal in the head with the butt of his gun while the other man put a sack on Cal’s head and heaved him back into the trunk.

  ***

  AN HOUR LATER, Cal awoke in his own car to a black sky. On the passenger seat was a ticket for a flight home, scheduled to depart in ninety minutes.

  He reached for his phone. As he was dialing, a text message appeared on his screen:

  We’re watching you.

  Cal glanced around in every direction, searching for whoever might be watching him. Then he saw a pair of headlights flash at him.

  Great.

  Instead of calling Kelly, he decided to text her. At best, they’d bugged his car. At worst, his phone. He had to take a chance on getting in touch with her somehow.

  He started to type when another message flashed up on his screen.

  Quit texting and drive … or we’ll make your life miserable again.

  Cal put down his phone and fired up the engine. He eased onto the accelerator and headed toward the airport.

  A pair of headlights on high beams glared in his rearview mirror.

  CHAPTER 35

  JESSICA TANNER TRIED to take a deep breath but failed. With each passing second, she recognized the necessity to do so, even without the nurse’s constant reminders. After a minute, she succeeded and leaned back in her bed.”

  I need to call Cal.

  She picked up her phone and started dialing his number.

  A nurse entered the room and rushed over to her bedside. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Mrs. Tanner. You need to rest,” she said as she wrangled the phone away from Jessica. “You can call people later.”

  Jessica sat up. “How dare you? I need to make a phone call right now. You can’t tell me what—”

  Jessica’s vitals spiked as she turned her focus on trying to regain control of her breathing. No sooner had she stopped hyperventilating than her face contorted and she began to grunt.

  “This is why you need to listen to me,” the nurse said, seizing control of the phone from Jessica’s limp hand. She put the phone on Jessica’s bedside table.

  “I think I’m—I’m having a contraction,” Jessica stammered.

  “Sure you are.” The nurse fluff
ed up Jessica’s pillows and propped her up in the bed. “Those are stress induced, which is why you don’t need visitors or to be talking to anyone right now. You need to rest.”

  “I know, but this is really important.” Jessica let out a long sigh and relaxed.

  “Nothing is more important than that little baby in your body right now. Whatever it is, it can wait. It’s not life or death.”

  “But it is.”

  The nurse rolled her eyes. “What? Your husband didn’t bring you the right shade of mascara for your hospital visit? You are having second thoughts about the color you painted the nursery? Relax. It’ll be all right.”

  Jessica clenched her fists and seethed. Based on how she felt, she wanted nothing more than to plant a punch between the nurse’s eyes. She thought better of it, relaxed her hands and nodded. “You’re right. It’ll be all right.” She closed her eyes and waited.

  The moment she heard the door latch, she opened her eyes to find the nurse gone. She grabbed her phone and dialed Cal’s number.

  “This is Cal Murphy.”

  “Cal, it’s me—Jessica. I need your help.”

  “Now’s not a good time.”

  She felt her heart rate rising, attesting to the increased pace of beeps on her monitor. “I really need your help. I’m here in Phoenix now, and things have spiraled out of control since we last spoke.”

  “Seriously—it’s not a good time.”

  She ignored him. “I got a call from some random guys threatening me if I didn’t pay them a half-million dollar debt that they are saying Tanner racked up. I passed out in the parking lot at the track and woke up in the hospital, where Ned Davis visited me. He offered me what amounts to hush money if I drop the investigation and renounce the findings. I just don’t know what to do.” She began to cry.

  “Look, Jessica. I’m sorry—I really am. I want to help, but I can’t right now. In fact, I’m done. I’ve got my own problems I’m dealing with now, starting with the fact that I no longer have a job. But even worse, somebody has threatened my wife. And that’s the end of that. I won’t be pursuing this story any longer.”

  “But you have to. You can’t just—”

  “I can and I have, Jessica. I’ve got a wife and a daughter to worry about. And no story is so big that it trumps my family’s safety. I’m really sorry, but I wish you the best of luck.”

  “Cal Murphy, I swear to God—” she said before the line went dead.

  She threw her phone across the room and seethed, trying to ignore her increased heart rate. It was all she could think about.

  The nurse stormed into the room and noticed the phone missing from the bedside table. “What did you do?”

  “I think I’m having another contraction.”

  “What happened to get you so worked up? This isn’t normal.”

  Jessica said nothing before she turned pale and fainted.

  CHAPTER 36

  KELLY MURPHY PRESSED the redial button again and muttered under her breath. It wasn’t like Cal to ignore her calls and fail to call her back unless something was wrong. More often than she’d like to remember, things had gone wrong for Cal while investigating various stories. It wasn’t a nightmare she wanted to relive again, but her stomach sank when her latest attempt to reach him ended in a direct-to-voicemail answer.

  “Come on, Cal. Pick up your phone,” she said aloud before tossing her phone onto the couch.

  She paced around the living room and pondered what other way she might be able to reach him. Never one to assume the worst, she wondered if maybe her deep-seated fears were being realized once again.

  As she paced around the room, she glanced out of the window. She’d noticed a car parked along the road in her neighborhood. She wasn’t watching it that closely, but her intermittent glances was enough to tell her it had been there at least three hours without moving. While she couldn’t be certain, she would’ve almost sworn the driver never got out. Now, she wanted to know why he was there.

  Am I paranoid or what?

  She meandered to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. She needed to think—and relax.

  Earlier in the day, her mother came over and volunteered to take Maddie for the weekend. Not that Kelly really needed the alone time. She preferred to have something to keep her busy when Cal was traveling, and taking care of Maddie provided the best diversion possible. However, she’d managed to keep herself occupied with examining the pictures Cal sent her.

  It didn’t take her long to realize they were fakes. She would never admit to Cal that a tinge of doubt crept into her mind. Yet she almost dismissed the thought as it first came to her. Cal? At a strip club? She chuckled at the thought. He’d probably have no idea what to do.

  She was tempted to call Folsom and give him a piece of her mind, but she thought better of it. Let Cal fight his battles. You just need to give him the ammo.

  Five minutes sitting down was all she could take before she grabbed her phone and dialed his number again. And again—nothing.

  She peered out the window and the car was still there, parked in the same place. Only this time, she saw a flash of something.

  What was that?

  She turned off the lights and walked up the stairs. If someone was watching, she didn’t want to make them think she was onto them. She turned on the bedroom light and then the bathroom light, both visible from the side of the house. But then she crept into Maddie’s room. Aside from a thin ray of light streaming into the room from the hallway, it was dark. Kelly poked her head above the windowsill, just high enough to glimpse the car. The streetlight illuminated the front license plate numbers, which she typed into her phone.

  She slumped down against the wall and called a friend at the FBI. Cal had made plenty of FBI contacts during his investigations, and they proved invaluable during times like this.

  “Hey, Harry. This is Kelly Murphy. How are ya?”

  “Good, Kelly. To what do I owe the pleasure of this call tonight?”

  “I’ve got a tag I want you to run for me.”

  He laughed. “Do I look like a website?”

  “If I could Google it, I would.”

  “Well, all right. If it’s for you, Kelly, I’ll do it.”

  “Thanks.”

  She gave him the numbers and letters—and waited. In the meantime, she poked her head above the windowsill to check again. Still there.

  “You still there?” he asked.

  “Yep. What’ve you got?”

  “That car is registered to a Collin Langdon Beaumont of Matthews, North Carolina.”

  “Great. Thanks, Harry.”

  “Anything else I can do for you? You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  “Not right now, but that might change. I’ll call you if I need something else.”

  “You know where to find me.”

  Kelly ended the call. “Collin Beaumont?” A quick web search revealed that Collin Beaumont was J.T. Beaumont’s cousin. Collin raced dirt tracks in North Carolina and all over the South. He was also passed over for a driver gig on one of the lower circuits in favor of J.T. But according to one article she read, J.T. and Collin remained close friends.

  What is he doing outside my house?

  Without allowing for any plausible explanation, Kelly went to the worst place possible: Collin Beaumont was there to harm her. She began to review the protocol Cal helped establish for her in the event of such an emergency. He created a panic room for her underneath the stairs, equipped with cameras displaying all the rooms in the house. They could even be activated in the dark using infrared mode. It was something Cal did as a safety measure, but Kelly suspected he did it just so they could check on Maddie while she was sleeping—or to see if she was sleeping at all.

  She dialed Cal’s number again.

  “Come on, come on. Pick up your phone,” she muttered.

  Straight to voice mail.

  She growled before burying her face in her hands.

  “W
hat is going on?”

  Kelly spun around and peered through the window again at Collin’s car. It was still there—but he wasn’t.

  She jumped up and raced downstairs toward the panic room at the bottom of the stairs. She typed in the code on the keypad and slipped inside. Firing up the monitors, she waited as the TVs came to life and displayed the images in and around the house. Nothing.

  Where’d he go?

  She called Cal again. “Will you please pick up your phone?”

  Nothing.

  She texted him. And waited.

  Still nothing.

  Kelly decided she needed to determine what was happening right outside her house first and put her phone down. She studied the monitors transmitting images of the perimeter of the house.

  The man was nowhere to be found.

  CHAPTER 37

  CAL DROPPED HIS CAR off at the Phoenix airport rental site and boarded a shuttle bus for the airport. He kept his head down and cut his eyes in both directions. While he hadn’t gathered definitive proof, he felt someone was watching him. And he had to lose whoever it was.

  Cal decided to resist the urge to join the race to the check-in stand, hoping to shorten the list of potential assailants following him. Instead of a busload, he narrowed it to three men, as everyone else thundered ahead of him to secure their tickets.

  One of the men peeled off toward the restroom, leaving Cal to determine which of the two men it was. He spotted a trashcan that provided a clear enough reflection. He made his way toward it before stopping a few feet short of it. Cal dug out his ticket from his bag and glanced at the reflection. One of the men kept moving, while the other stopped and made a phone call on his cell phone over a hundred feet behind him. Cal glanced over his shoulder to see the man pacing about as he chatted on the phone. It was either a phone call to report on Cal’s whereabouts or a ruse to avoid being noticed. Either way, it didn’t work.

  Cal seared the image of the man into his memory—about six-foot-one, two hundred pounds, goatee, black sweatshirt, red baseball cap, jeans.