Desolation Point

by Lisa Phillips

  A strong man. One who made her feel safe.

  Ellie didn’t remember the last time she felt that way. Years. Maybe not since she’d been a child. The strong man part and the horse part. Which made her want to talk to her father.

  She’d have to call him later. See how he was. “Ask him about this.”

  “What was that?” Drew glanced at her.

  She blinked, realizing she’d spoken aloud. He’d jumped on the first snippet of a conversation, desperate to break the silence. Hopefully he wasn’t one of those people who thought quiet was peaceful. That would be terrifying.

  “My dad.” She tried to resurrect her train of thought and coax it to move again. “I should ask him about this holding company and see if he knows anything. He was the sheriff here for three decades. If something was going on, surely he’d have heard about it.”

  Drew nodded. “Good idea.”

  “But I literally didn’t even think about you needing to file a report about your tires.” Before he could ask her why, she said, “I’m just…out of it. Off my game.”

  “Today, or lately in general?”

  She thought for a moment. “Just today, really. But I don’t want to explain it away with an excuse.”

  “Wrapped in the skin of a lie.”

  “Where did you hear that?” She wouldn’t be lying outright, but an excuse didn’t tell the whole truth. It only tried to justify things.

  He shrugged.

  It was her father who said that. He was also the one who’d instilled in her the need to continually move forward. But how could she do that when she felt like she was stuck? So stuck that everything had begun to go bad. Was her mental state today just another symptom of her life being stagnant for too long?

  It wasn’t like she had the time to figure that out right now. Not when bullets were flying, and Drew’s tires had been slashed. She needed to clock in, talk to the sheriff, and then get out on the streets. Find the real estate agent.

  They climbed the steps to the sheriff’s department second floor office. Ellie led the way. Inside, their receptionist waved, on a phone call.

  “Yes, thank you.” Barbara hung up. “Afternoon, Deputy.”

  “Barb.”

  Drew stopped at her desk and told her he needed to report a crime. Ellie flipped the latch on the hip-height gate at the center of the counter and let herself into the office. The two holding cells were empty.

  She knocked on the frame beside the door to the sheriff’s office.

  “He isn’t here.”

  She spun to see Coughlan standing behind her. “Will he be in?”

  Coughlan shrugged, a file in his hands. He’d given up on the fight against male pattern baldness and now completely shaved off his thinning hair. Today a ball cap covered his shiny head, and he overcompensated for his lack of hair by working out like a crazy man. His muscles stretched the short sleeves of his shirt to bursting. Not a look Ellie had ever favored.

  “What about the guy who was in holding? Warren Shade.”

  “Told me to cut him loose.”

  “He shot at me last night.”

  “Sheriff said you’d say that, so he told me to tell you that it wasn’t him trying to kill you.” Coughlan glanced at Drew, who was listening and not writing his report on the form Barbara had given him. “You guys got the wrong guy. But if it makes you feel better, the sheriff is going to fine him for hunting without a license.”

  Ellie pinched the bridge of her nose. That wasn’t what had happened. “He fought Drew.”

  Coughlan turned away. Like she’d said nothing. “And you’ve got patrol.”

  Of course she did. Because if the sheriff showed back up at the office today, it was best for him that she be out driving around and responding to calls. She shook her head, vaguely convinced that these sarcastic thoughts might be the beginning of a serious mental problem.

  Ellie didn’t even sit. She poured black coffee into a travel mug she kept on her desk and got a set of keys for a sheriff’s department vehicle. She’d parked her own car in the lot behind this building before she met Drew for coffee. “I’m out.”

  She walked back to the front desk. “You need a ride home, Drew?”

  “Actually to the tire store.”

  She nodded. “Turns out it’s on my way.”

  Drew’s gaze softened. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  It wasn’t just because she wanted to spend more time with him. There was plenty of this mess they could continue talking about. Hopefully they’d be able to unravel it enough to figure out what on earth was happening, because she felt like she was going crazy. Was there actually a corporation in town involved in a land grab?

  Drew called Frank and had him tow the truck to the tire store while he finished filling out his report, and then they headed to the garage. Two miles into the three-mile journey, a truck pulled out from a side street doing sixty in a thirty-five.

  “Sorry.” She flipped on the lights and sirens.

  “No worries,” Drew said from the passenger seat. “You still need to do your job.” Like that was something to be proud of.

  It was, but she’d learned through experience that not many people agreed with that sentiment.

  A quarter mile later she pulled to a stop behind the truck and glanced at Drew before opening her door. She had thought that she knew him, but maybe she had no idea who he was. What kind of man—and what kind of friend—he would be.

  She really wanted to know.

  . . .

  Drew opened the email app on his phone and read through what Mark had sent him. Everything he’d been able to find on Northcorp Inland Holdings and the apparently fake names, with the exception of the real estate agent, listed all over the paperwork. Except for Simon Mills’ name, the others were worthless. Mark had tracked them down as stolen identities.

  Who was Simon Mills in all this? And how had he gotten involved in forcing people from their homes? Could be he was the mastermind, but not when he hadn’t lived in town all that long. So who was behind it? How did this guy wind up listed on the company directory?

  Soon as he got new tires and was mobile again, Drew was going to find out.

  He glanced up and saw Ellie having a conversation through the window on the passenger side of the truck. Two men sat inside the cab. At least, he thought they were men. He might be wrong about that.

  Her body language was stiff. Drew took a second to just observe. What was wrong; what was making her uncomfortable?

  Ellie nodded, and he saw a smile. Maybe she was all right. Looked like she had enough of a handle on it. Or she was just a cautious cop, one with senses that had been affected last night in the woods. A situation like that would throw anyone off. He’d seen it happen with the feds he’d worked with, undercover agents who got shaken by something overwhelming. An event they couldn’t control.

  Drew pulled out his phone. He called Eric before he remembered it was Tuesday, and that meant he’d be playing golf.

  “Hey there, son. How are ya?”

  “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “Nah,” the old man said, a glint of humor in his voice. “I was losin’ anyway.”

  Drew felt the pull of a smile on his lips. “How are you?”

  “You really wanna hear about all that?” Before Drew could answer, Eric said, “Me and the old girl are fine.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Still comin’ down in a couple of weeks?”

  “That’s the plan.” Drew tried to figure out how to ask the question in any other way than to just ask. So he said, “You ever hear of a company called Northcorp Inland Holdings? Seems like they’ve been buying up property around town. Maybe for years.”

  Eric made a noise in his throat. One Drew had heard anytime the man was disappointed, or when he didn’t want to talk about something. Which considering they’d taken in a grieving fifteen-year-old with a streak of wild running right through him, had been often.r />
  But Eric and Alma had kept their promise. They’d supported him. They’d given him love, and a home. Neither of which he could’ve said he’d had before his father committed suicide. Not that his dad had been abusive. Plenty of people had it worse than Drew did for those fifteen years. But the home he’d found with Eric and Alma? Light years away from that dank nine-hundred square foot rundown cabin and the worn and smelly recliner his dad practically lived in.

  “So you’ve heard of them.” Drew let it hang out there, then he waited. Eric only ever did anything in his own time.

  Considering Drew was equally as stubborn—and determined—had made for some interesting battles waged. Mostly over the fact Drew needed to make something of his life.

  “Son.” The word was long and slow.

  “Whatever this is, it’s too late to warn me off, Eric. They shot at me and Ellie last night.” He still didn’t know which of them had been the target, but he had a pretty good idea. “Today they slashed my tires.”

  “Ellie?”

  Drew wasn’t going to respond to the hopeful tone there. “Sheriff Maxwell’s daughter.”

  “Caught their attention.” Eric sighed. “Nothing good will come of this.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Not much more than rumors. People being paid off, pushed out of their land for one reason or another. Folks who lived ‘round there for generations, suddenly pulling up stakes looking for a better life.” Eric paused. “I didn’t believe it.”

  “Neither do I.” Drew ran a hand down his face. “I found an eviction notice. In my father’s things.” He’d never referred to him as “dad.” Now Eric held that place in his life. He was the one who’d taught Drew how to be a man. Honest and hardworking. Someone who put the people he cared about first.

  Drew didn’t have anyone like that in his life except for Eric and Alma. No one else in town had ever taken the time to get to know him, gotten past what they all believed he was. He’d given up on finding a woman who would look at him the way Alma still looked at Eric, even after all these years. That wasn’t the marriage most people had. He knew himself well enough to know it wasn’t going to happen for him.

  “He was losing his house?”

  “The whole property had been sold by the bank and they wanted him out,” Drew said. “Forty acres and the house. It was bought by Northcorp in another transaction that happened after he died.” After the sheriff, Ellie’s father, had dropped Drew and all his belongings off at Eric and Alma’s.

  He shook his head just remembering the way he’d treated them in those first few weeks.

  “Hmm.”

  “They could’ve forced him out. Pressured him until he broke.” And then he’d committed suicide, leaving Drew with no family.

  Except the one God in His grace had given him.

  Beauty coming from ashes. The kind of blessing that God was really good at.

  “Can’t say I heard anything like that, but we didn’t run in the same circles.”

  Drew nodded to himself. “I know.” The two men couldn’t have been more different. “Thanks for talking to me.”

  “Ah.” Eric chuckled. It was amazing what he could convey through non-words. “Never a problem. You know that.”

  “Tell Alma I love her.” He glanced up to see if Ellie was done with her traffic stop yet. She had one hand raised.

  The driver walked around the vehicle toward her, while the passenger climbed out. There was nothing good about her body language now. Not one thing about the expression on her face or the way she stood, completely straight, made him want to remain in this truck.

  She took a step back, arm still out straight. Hand, palm out, toward the men. A clear signal to stop.

  One that neither man obeyed.

  “Gotta go.” Drew hung up and dropped the phone in the cup holder. What on earth were they—

  The two men advanced on her, determined to crowd her backward. Ellie stood her ground, chin raised. Every bit the cop. She reached for her weapon.

  Drew flung the door open. “Hey!”

  One of the men swung around to see him. The other shifted his hand, and Drew saw the glint.

  He had a knife.

  Chapter 5

  Ellie reached for her weapon. The man lunged. His knife flashed as it reflected the sun overhead. She twisted as it came, then shoved at the man’s wrist. The knife nicked her sleeve and she hissed.

  Balled her fist and punched the man in the stomach.

  He didn’t go down.

  To her left she could hear the staccato thuds of two people in a vicious fight. Drew and the other guy. He’d gotten out of her vehicle and come over to help.

  So she wasn’t outnumbered.

  So she wasn’t overpowered.

  The man swung his arm again. His knife came back in for another swipe. No training, just a guy looking to make someone bleed. Little more than a hacking motion, his awkwardness suddenly stuck out to her, but she was forced to push aside the thought and make another move to defend herself.

  She stepped back.

  The knife sliced the air between them.

  Ellie swung off her jacket. Cold air hit the back of her sheriff’s department tan shirt, but she ignored it and flung the coat in a swirl to make it wrap around her hand and arm. It would do double-duty; protect her from getting cut and at the same time, if she could time it right, cover the blade.

  She swung it at the knife hand and got it around the blade.

  Ellie grabbed the man’s arm with her other hand, twisted her body so her back was to Drew and the other man, and kicked out. Her driving kick planted in the man’s sternum.

  He tried to grab her foot, his other hand incapacitated. She hopped a couple of steps and then used her left fist to punch. Not as powerful as her right, but it successfully dazed him. She really wanted to head butt the guy. Bad idea though, considering it would hurt her as much as it would hurt him.

  Ellie said, “Drop the knife.”

  She kicked his legs out from under him, rolled him to his stomach and grabbed his free hand. She twisted it up his back and said again, “Let go of the knife.”

  It shifted in his grip, so she moved the coat out of the way. Then she grabbed and tossed the knife, pulled cuffs from her belt, and secured the man’s hand. Finally, she could pull her gun out.

  A thud to her left brought her attention around. Drew had his guy on his face, one knee in the man’s back.

  He pulled the guy’s arms back in a move curiously similar to what she had just done. Holding the wrists, he glanced at her. “Cuffs?”

  “There’s a second pair in the truck. Keep an eye on this one, and I’ll get them.” She motioned to the man on the ground before her.

  At the truck, Ellie called in and updated Barbara on what was going on. She left the anger out of her voice, though. Too many locals had police scanners. This would be all over Malvern County before tomorrow morning, and she extremely disliked being famous.

  Ellie tossed Drew the second pair of cuffs. She realized this was probably what it felt like to have a partner, like one of those city cops. Malvern didn’t have the money for them to ride out in pairs after their training was over. The department was made up of only two deputies and a sheriff. They went together when they knew they’d need backup—like a takedown, or serving a search warrant.

  Drew stepped back and hauled the other guy to his feet, then turned him toward her vehicle.

  Ellie had a thought. “Hold up a second.”

  Drew shoved the man against the side panel of the truck bed. Both he and the man they’d secured turned their heads to look at her. Ellie yanked her guy up. “Let’s go.”

  She walked him to stand beside his friend, then pulled the wallets out of their back pockets. Read their names aloud.

  “Shouldn’t we be taking them in?” Not a straight question from Drew, more like he was feeling her out. Seeing what her intention was here. Letting the two guys know she was in charge, and they were
going to jail no matter what happened.

  Frustration burned in her. The bleed off of adrenaline left her breath coming fast enough she had to work to slow it down. There was also a distinct sting on the outside of her arm. She’d been cut?

  Ellie pushed that aside and said, “We will soon enough.”

  She needed answers before the sheriff just cut them loose with a slap on the wrist. Maybe he won’t get the chance to do that this time.

  If the sheriff had actually been at the office that morning, she’d have been able to talk all this out with him. Convince him there was something going on here. Instead, it seemed like he was doing his best to avoid her right now.

  “Okay then.” Drew turned to the two men. “Start talking.”

  The guy in front of Ellie said, “My favorite color is yellow.”

  The friend snickered.

  “You just assaulted a sheriff’s deputy with a deadly weapon.” Ellie paused. “Why?”

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” yellow man said.

  “And when I find out your friend here—” She motioned to the guy in front of Drew. “—has two strikes against him already, what then? Both of you go to jail for a long time. No more truck. No more good times.”

  The muscle in his jaw twitched.

  “Bet your girl wouldn’t like that much.” Just a guess, but it usually worked. While he thought about that, she studied the other one. Tried to figure out which of them was the alpha and which was just along for the ride.

  Drew said, “Talk.”

  “We were paid.” Yellow man made a face. “Hundred bucks to get your attention.”

  “And then?”

  “Have some fun. Whatever. Didn’t matter.” His eyes darkened.

  Drew said, “So you brought a knife to the party? Because you enjoy going to jail?” It was pretty clear he thought the whole thing was a bad idea.

  Ellie kind of wanted to know if he was indignant on her behalf, because he didn’t like the idea of her getting hurt, or if he just didn’t like that these guys were dumb?

  She said, “Who paid you?”