Desolation Point

by Lisa Phillips

Her guy said, “Some guy at O’Doul’s.”

  “You don’t know who he was, just walked up to you at a bar, gave you cash and told you to commit a felony?”

  When neither said anything, Drew asked, “Was it the real estate agent?”

  The man in front of him frowned. Shook his head. “I’d never seen the guy before. Don’t know who he was, and he didn’t exactly show me ID.”

  Great. “So I can go ask the bartender if I can take a look at his tapes, get the man’s picture? ID him that way? Then you can all be named in these charges and everyone will know you told us who hired you.”

  “Come on,” the guy in front of Drew shifted and looked at his dusty boots.

  “Not fair?” she asked. “Like it’s not fair that I pull you over for driving crazy and you cut me? That kind of not fair?”

  He made a face. Drew’s head whipped around, as though he needed to assess the veracity of her statement—or the damage done to her with the knife. Or both. But she couldn’t let that distract her. Care had no place here, and he wasn’t her partner despite how it felt to do this together with him instead of alone for once.

  She tugged her attacker away from the truck and walked him to her sheriff’s department vehicle. “Let’s go.”

  . . .

  Drew wiped his napkin on his mouth. “So what’s the plan for later?”

  He’d been trying to draw her out of her funk since they’d taken those two guys into the sheriff’s office. They were on the west end of town now. Close enough to the garage that he could walk over and pick up his car in…he checked his watch. Half an hour to go.

  Ellie swallowed a bite of the chicken sandwich she’d ordered for her dinner break. “I’ll go back to the office. Maybe the bartender has sent me those surveillance tapes by now. I can also see what else I can find out about the people who’ve moved away from here in the last few years. And I’ll try to locate the real estate agent. Simon needs to answer some questions about his business antics.”

  And what those antics might have to do with everything that’d happened since Ellie walked up to him at Lookout Point.

  Not something either of them said, but it hung between them nonetheless.

  She still had a few hours left on her shift, and he wanted to go out to the property his father had owned before his death. See what was there now that it was owned by Northcorp Inland Holdings. What could have possibly been worth forcing Drew’s father out of his home…and to his death?

  “This is for when you’re ready.” The waitress laid the pleather book containing the check and a cheap pen between them. “No rush.” She wandered off.

  Drew grabbed it before Ellie could, her hand two inches from doing the same thing. “I got it.”

  She eyed him.

  “Because I’m nice like that.” This wasn’t a date. After all, he had better taste than the town diner—though their finger steaks were good. If this were a date, he’d have taken her to the steakhouse one town over. “Just a normal, everyday nice guy.”

  She cracked a smile, then took a sip of her drink. “I believe you.”

  He’d succeeded with that much at least. Enough he saw her let that dark cloud of whatever had been hanging over her slide off for just a moment. He felt the smile curl up his lips. “Of course you do. Because you’d never make a face-value judgment about someone.”

  Not like the rest of them.

  “Maybe I should.” She shrugged. “Then I’d have known earlier that those two guys intended…whatever it was they planned to do with that knife.”

  He didn’t even want to think about that. About what would’ve happened if he hadn’t been there? Would she be dead?

  Or she might have wished she was.

  He had no idea what they’d had planned to “get her attention.”

  Then he had to remind himself who she was. The fact she’d had a gun on her, though she hadn’t felt the need to use it. “You took him down. A guy came at you with a knife, and you defended yourself.”

  “I got cut.” She motioned to the torn sleeve, under which was a bandaged slice that she’d decided wasn’t going to stop her from finishing her shift. It was barely an inch long, and not deep. Small enough she’d patched it up with stuff from the first aid kit in the bathroom at the office.

  Drew shook his head. “If I hadn’t been there, you’d have pulled your gun earlier right?” He had no problem with the idea she might have needed to shoot one of them in order to defend herself.

  She sighed.

  “Ellie.” When she lifted her gaze, he said, “You’re a good cop.”

  “I was scared.”

  “That’s why you’re a good cop. The ones who aren’t scared are either lying to themselves, or worse. They make reckless decisions and the fallout from that is far more devastating. To innocent people and to their own careers.”

  “And how is it that you know this?”

  He fingered his empty iced tea glass. “I take federal contracts. I have friends who are agents with the FBI, DEA. Even the US Marshals.”

  “Federal contracts?”

  He nodded. “When they need someone to go in, get information for them. Someone whose identity is clean.”

  “Ever want to be one of them?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I don’t fit with the culture.” The phrase, “doesn’t play well with others” came to mind. Like that was a bad thing.

  She cracked a smile. “I thought you were supposed to be convincing me you aren’t still the high school bad boy who drove his motorcycle into the mayor’s pool.”

  He chuckled aloud. “That story. It flew around so fast that by the time it got back to me I thought they were all talking about something completely different. That had nothing to do with me.”

  “Hot topic.”

  He hadn’t wanted to be talking about history—though they shared a good amount if he thought about it. And if it put this smile on her face? He would do it. “Honestly, I have no idea why.”

  “Um.” She let out a chuckle herself, one that smoothed out the lines of pain on her face. “Because you were the best looking guy in high school? I believe one of my friends even described you as not ‘hot’ but so hot that you were hawt.”

  He laughed. “I’m not sure I want to know about that.”

  “Deny it all you want,” she said. “But you had enough girlfriends back then it can’t have escaped your knowledge.”

  “Yet more stories that ended up out of hand.” He took a sip. “There were a couple of girls who just wanted a ride on my motorcycle. Aside from that…” He shrugged.

  “Really?”

  He nodded, eyeing her. “People said what they wanted. Never mind the truth.” What he’d like to know was how she felt about him back then. “And then there was you.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “What about me?”

  “The untouchable sheriff’s daughter.”

  “Is that better, or worse, than being the preacher’s kid?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But I could visit the county jail and ask him if you want.”

  “Don’t mention my name.” She widened her eyes at his mention of the preacher’s kid. “I’m the one who arrested him.”

  “I didn’t know that.” He wondered at it now. “High school feels like a million years ago. We’re all totally different people.”

  “I am.” She studied him. “But…maybe not so much you.”

  He waited.

  “Maybe you’re who you always were, but this is the first time I’ve noticed.”

  Drew took a sip, thinking that over. Who you always were. “A hot-headed punk?”

  “Or not.”

  He shook his head. “You might be right about that.”

  Considering he did his best thinking in his truck, she had him at a disadvantage right now. He needed time to think this through. Both what she’d said, and that it was her who said it. Truth be told, he’d always known who she was. But, like he said, she’d been untouchable.


  Especially for the kid he’d been—a hot-headed, motorcycle-riding teen boy. Talk about a recipe for disaster. It was a wonder he hadn’t killed himself.

  Alma and Eric had helped him figure out how to settle. Then they’d introduced him to Eric’s brother, Uncle Merrick. The skip tracer. It had been the perfect outlet for his more risk-taking tendencies. Not to mention gainful employment right out of high school.

  “For the record,” he said, “the motorcycle never went into the mayor’s pool.”

  She laughed. “I should get back to work.”

  “Be careful.”

  Her expression sobered and she nodded. “I will.”

  “I’m going to head out to the property my father owned. Talk to the current homeowners and see if they know anything.”

  She nodded. “Good idea. I’ll patrol over there and come with you to take a look.”

  Maybe she was as reluctant for them to split up as he was. Every minute or so the mental image of her getting cut with that knife replayed through his brain. Never mind that he hadn’t even seen it happen. His brain managed to come up with the image anyway.

  Drew said, “We can meet there.” As he walked over to get his truck, which had brand new tires now.

  Once he got on the road he felt better. Halfway there he spotted her behind him and slowed a little so she could catch up. They pulled onto the forty-acre property together. Drew pulled up to a stop in front of the wreckage of the house he had lived in the first part of his life.

  A house that should have been torn down and built over with something new years ago, at least according to the county assessor’s records.

  What was going on here?

  Chapter 6

  Ellie slammed the door to her department vehicle and stared. From across the hood of his truck, Drew said, “That was my house.”

  Broken windows. The roof had caved in, and the whole right side of the house had collapsed under the weight of a tree that had fallen over. Debris from some storm. The roots of the tree had long since withered. Maybe that big storm they had six years ago?

  Had no one come up here in all that time?

  She crossed what would’ve been the yard. Close enough she could see water on the floor inside the open door. Wood splintered around the handle, the door lay askew. Floorboards inside were missing.

  A cold breeze whipped through the trees. Ellie pulled out her gloves and tugged them on. The drive over had given her some time to think, but not nearly enough. She’d come up with nothing at the office before they headed out here.

  She needed another shot at digging up information on the whereabouts of people who had moved away recently, and suddenly. Few of them had come up on any of her searches. The one man she’d managed to track down, she’d called and left a message. Then there was the police report she’d found—and a death certificate—for a woman who’d been killed in a car accident two weeks after signing on the sale of her house.

  Ellie pulled out her phone and went onto the county assessor’s website. She typed in the address. It listed the current homeowner, Rupert Smithson. One of the Northcorp Inland Holdings board members—a stolen identity. The assessed value of the house that should have been standing on this property was close to three hundred thousand, a mid-sized family house in this area.

  She glanced around, scanning the area. Forty acres plus the house.

  But there was no house here. Just the dilapidated ruins of something that once resembled a house.

  “What on earth is going on?”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” He stood about six feet away, to her right. Beyond arm’s reach if she was inclined to move her injured arm. Which she wasn’t.

  “Want to look around?”

  He winced. “We’d probably just end up falling through the floor or something.”

  Ellie circled the outside of the house. More of a cabin really, or at least it had been at one time. Back when his father was alive, and Drew had lived here. She remembered him even from those days before his father died. He’d had that streak of wild in him back then. Now she knew kids like that. Ran into them on her shifts. Caught with spray paint, tagging someone’s barn. Stealing candy bars or sodas from the store in town.

  Couple of them she even checked on every few weeks, just to make sure they were sticking to the promise they’d made her to clean up their lives.

  Because they reminded her of the boy Drew had been? Maybe.

  He met up with her at the back side of the cabin. “Anything?”

  She glanced at the wreckage. “Sure you don’t want to go inside?”

  “What’s there to see? There should be a new house here, and there isn’t. This was supposed to have been torn down years ago, but it wasn’t.”

  “It’s a pretty big property. We should walk through it.” She was on shift, so she couldn’t do that right now. But it would be prudent to check all of the forty acres and make sure there wasn’t something here they were missing.

  “We can.”

  “Maybe tomorrow morning? I don’t have a shift.” She would have to call Laney and let her know she couldn’t help out in the store tomorrow, but she could make it work.

  He nodded, his gaze distant as though his thoughts were far away. She took a moment to study him. Contradictions. Maybe that was why she felt so confused right now. He was wild, but steady. Unpredictable, but so solid. Someone she could rely on. And yet, she would never be able to control him. Nor would she try.

  Some women wanted a man they could train. One they could manipulate into their way of thinking, even if that wasn’t their intention. Ellie wanted nothing to do with that. If pressed, she’d have said she wanted someone strong who would stand beside her.

  But the reality was, that thought scared her more than a man who was…malleable. She had no idea what she would even do if she had a friendship that developed into more. How could she go into something like that without making a mess of it the way she had done with every other relationship in her life so far?

  It wasn’t worth the pain of trying.

  After the disastrous end to her college experience, Ellie had determined that she was going to lay low. Work was enough of a distraction. She regularly took the Christmas and Thanksgiving shifts so the other deputy and the sheriff could be with their families. She hung out with her dad after the holidays, or he would come by the office and bring her a slice of pie from the diner.

  Her dad.

  Ellie slid out her phone. She pulled up his number from her recent calls and waited for it to ring. He never picked up lately. She was getting tired of him ducking her calls. Of him forcing her to figure this out herself when she really needed his help.

  When it went to voicemail, she said, “Dad, it’s me. When you get this message call me immediately.”

  Drew said, “You think the sheriff can help?”

  Former sheriff, but a lot of people still referred to him that way. Interesting that Drew did also. Usually it meant they’d met him in his official capacity—as the sheriff of this county from before she was born, all the way to after she left for college.

  “I guess not?”

  “What?” She focused on him and realized she’d been seriously drifting.

  “Your dad.”

  “Oh. I was thinking about something else.”

  “Related to all this?” He pointed at the cabin.

  “No. Just a…hard time I had.” Mistakes. Things she never should have done. And then, the devastating consequences.

  To say she’d been scarred by it was probably an understatement. Clear indication that she definitely shouldn’t be looking at Drew and thinking about relationships at the same time. There was no way that would ever end up a good thing for her.

  He started to say something else, but his phone rang. “I need to take this.”

  She waved him off. It wasn’t like he needed to babysit her and her fractured state of mind. She’d been shot at, had run for her life, fought for her life, and been c
ut with a knife. It was like everything that could have gone wrong in one day had gone wrong.

  She let out a heavy sigh and kept walking. To the field, where crops had grown years ago. A ramshackle barn. Empty now and littered with leaves that had blown in the open door. Void of life. Like the decision she’d made to steer clear of relationships other than what she had with her father and Laney.

  Was this what she had decided?

  . . .

  “From what I found,” Mark said on the other end of the line, “Brad and Sheila Traveston are in Acapulco.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, I did some digging. Pulled our tech support in on it. They left two weeks ago, return flights booked for another week from now. Also, incidentally, the techs found an account in one of the biggest banks in Mexico.”

  “Money?” Drew saw Ellie glance over at him, but couldn’t explain when he himself didn’t even know the extent of what Mark had found yet. “And a vacation?”

  “A hundred thousand dollars. The account is in their names, and they accessed it yesterday. Pulled out ten thousand in cash.”

  “Way to vacation.”

  Mark chuckled. “Right?”

  The last vacation Drew had been on, Mark had convinced him that they should go deep-sea fishing off the coast of Washington. Four days of freezing cold, pouring rain, and fish.

  Fishing with a pole on the side of the lake in summer was one of his favorite things. That vacation with Mark? Not so much. Fishing as a teen was where Uncle Merrick had told him all about his life. And planted the bug of living on his own terms, making money by bringing in criminals determined to escape justice.

  Drew said, “So they were paid for the house.”

  “Some kind of payment was made to them. I’m not sure if it was the value of their property, or their silence. Maybe they were forced to take it and leave, and it’s all they’ve got now.”

  He said, “Did you find any of the others?”

  “Yeah.” Mark was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “Here they are. Two others with Mexican bank accounts. One in Belize. All people who moved away from that dinky town of yours in the last few years.”