Out of Nowhere, page 19
“Besides, remember the nondisclosure clause? There are hundreds of names in those files, and half don’t even know who I am.”
Considering the volume of material—Hudson had had clients in two dozen states and three countries in Europe—it did seem to be a long shot, especially since they really didn’t know what they were looking for.
A handful of part-time deputies had been recruited to pitch in, but after they knocked off for the day, she and Perkins had felt obligated to put in some overtime themselves, even though their day had included the round trip to the safe house and the wringing out of Billy Green. They were tired, grungy, grouchy, and sleep deprived.
As Perkins ran his finger down one list of names, he asked, “How’s your husband?”
“I don’t remember.”
He chuffed his version of a laugh.
“I called him twice today,” she said around a yawn. “The dog’s sick. He had to take her to the vet. He’s more worried about her than he is about me.”
“Go on home,” he said. “I’ll stay awhile.” A confirmed bachelor, he had no one waiting on him.
“Another thirty minutes,” she said.
He pushed the bag of potato chips to within her reach. She didn’t thank him but began absently eating them as she continued perusing her own list. For several minutes they shared a companionable silence, then Perkins said, “Draper.”
Compton raised her head. “Hmm?”
“Draper, Arnold M.”
“What about him?”
“I’m thinking.” He rocked back in his swivel chair and tapped his folded hands against his chin.
Compton’s cell phone rang. “Hold the thought.” She licked salt off her fingers and reached for her phone. She saw the readout, checked the time, and frowned as she clicked on. “Weeks?”
“His phone, but Weeks is dead.”
“Calder?” Compton whipped her head around and looked at Perkins, even as she switched over to speaker. “Say again?”
“Weeks is dead. So is Sims. Dawn Whitley, I don’t know. She’s unaccounted for.”
Having heard all that, Perkins grabbed the receiver on the desk phone and began punching in numbers.
Compton asked Calder if he’d called 911.
“Just before I called you.”
“Are you all right? What about Elle?”
“Neither of us was hurt.”
“What in God’s name happened?”
“You’ll need a good crime scene unit to figure it all out. But the gunfire came from outside through the kitchen windows. I’d just seen Dawn in there, so I figure the shooter was aiming for her.
“Sims had posted himself in the central hallway. When the shooting started, he must’ve run toward the kitchen but only made it as far as the door. Multiple wounds but hard to tell how many. His torso is mush.
“Weeks was next, I guess. Last I saw him alive, he was in the living room. Now he’s lying dead in the hallway. He was hit in the throat. Lots of blood. Since he didn’t make it into the kitchen before he was shot, I’m guessing it was a rifle. Based on the rapid fire, it was the kind that means business.”
Perkins had been following the conversation while maintaining contact with the other sheriff’s office to whom Calder’s 911 call had been directed.
Perkins covered the mouthpiece of the desk phone. “Tell him they’re about ten minutes out. Not to touch anything. Keep his head down, and make certain he identifies himself when they arrive. They’ll be gunning for the individual who put two of their men down.”
“Did you hear all that?” Compton asked.
“Yeah,” Calder replied. “But I’ve already touched the bodies to check for pulses. I may have stepped in some blood and tracked it. I took Weeks’s phone and Sims’s pistol.”
Compton pressed her hand to her forehead. “Had it been fired?”
“Not when I took it. It has been now.”
“You returned fire?”
“Six shots.”
“Did you hit him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s back up. What about Mrs. Whitley? You say you and she were in the kitchen when it started?”
“She was. I was upstairs.”
“And Elle?”
“Upstairs.”
Compton looked over at Perkins to see if he’d caught that. His raised eyebrows indicated that he had.
Calder was saying, “First blast of gunfire, Dawn started screaming.”
“Was she hit?”
“I don’t know. More shooting. Lots of shooting. Windows exploding. It lasted, I don’t know, two minutes maybe. I’d stowed Elle in a bedroom closet and gone downstairs. The only light was coming from the open fridge. I found Sims, then Weeks. No sign of—”
“Are you certain they’re dead?”
“They’re dead. No sign of Dawn, but she didn’t respond when I told her from the stairwell to shut the fridge door to kill the light. She was screaming like a banshee. And then she stopped. Chopped off. Like he’d gotten her with a clean shot once she went out the back door.”
“The back door?”
“I got to the kitchen and shut the fridge, but not before I saw that the back door was standing open with a trail of blood leading out. There was broken glass all over the floor, all over everything. She could’ve been bleeding from cuts or bullet wounds. No way of knowing. I couldn’t see but a few feet beyond the door out into the yard, and I didn’t want to risk turning the light back on.”
“He was still out there?”
“In order to find out, I’d have been shot.”
“You didn’t see him?”
“No.”
“But you returned fire.”
“In anger. I wasn’t really aiming at anything. I couldn’t see anything. I just wanted the motherfucker to know that he’s on borrowed time.”
Compton rubbed her forehead again. “Any vehicle?”
“I’ll get to that. But at the time, I got a sense that he was still there, waiting for the rest of us to show ourselves. In addition to our guards, he would have been expecting five of us, right?”
“I assume.”
“I stayed where I was and listened but didn’t hear a thing, nothing to indicate that Dawn was alive, nothing that would give away his position if he was still there. Not knowing if he was or not, or what kind of firepower he had left, I went back upstairs.”
“Elle was unharmed?”
“If you consider her second shooting in sixty days not to be harmful.” He waited a beat before adding, “We managed to escape.”
“How?”
“That small room where you and Perkins interrogated me before everyone else arrived? Remember there’s a door that opens onto an exterior staircase? We went out that way.”
“I didn’t notice a door or a staircase.”
“Well, I did. Want to know why? Because I was already looking for an escape hatch. This setup was a fucking joke. Why didn’t you have badasses protecting us? Like the marshal’s service?”
“They’re federal.”
“They’re federal,” he muttered. “Between those deputies, they had two six-shot revolvers and a rifle, and it was propped against the front doorjamb. The security cameras out there are for show.”
“You have every right to be angry and upset.”
“You’re fucking right I do,” he shouted.
“Vent later, Calder. I’ll listen. But right now I need you to stay steady. Are you and Elle away from the house?”
“Yeah, we made it across the clearing and into the woods. I called 911, and then you.”
“Do you feel safe there?”
“Partially. The vehicle? I can’t describe it, but as we were running across the clearing, it was speeding down the road that leads to the highway. All I saw were taillights, but I think he’s gone.”
“How’d the car get there without somebody hearing it coming?”
“Sims was asleep. Weeks was diddling with his phone. He’s still got his ear pods in. And I was… upstairs.”
Compton took a breath. “Okay.” She looked over at Perkins, and he held up his hand, fingers spread. “They’re five minutes out,” she said to Calder. “We’ll tell them to look for you in the woods. Which direction from the house?”
“The side with the exterior staircase. Whichever that is.”
“Stay hunkered down till first responders get there, but when they do, if you’re ordered to come out with your hands up, do it. Surrender that pistol you took off Sims. Turn yourselves over to the highest-ranking officer. He or she will see to it that you’re protected.”
“You mean like they’ve protected us so far?”
“Until Perkins and I can get there.”
“You and Perkins, who didn’t realize you had a jabberwocky in Shauna’s pocket? He was right under your noses.”
“All right, point taken. We messed up. We underestimated. But you and Elle are material witnesses to two crimes now. Two very bloody crimes. You’re valuable. We’ll protect you.” When he didn’t come back with a rebuttal, she said, “Calder, are you listening?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to heed what I say?” Again, an answer wasn’t forthcoming.
Perkins nudged her arm and slid a sheet of paper in front of her. On it, next to a circled name, he’d written: Ask him.
She said, “Calder, who’s Arnold Draper?”
Chapter 25
Calder immediately disconnected. Arnold Draper. He repeated the name several times inside his head, but it rang no bell.
He didn’t know what was up with that, but sorting it out would take contemplation he didn’t have time for. He had to get Elle and himself as far away from here as possible before the cavalry arrived and they were placed under “protection” again.
While he’d been talking to Compton, Elle had been huddled against him, shivering from the chill as well as from the most recent trauma she’d experienced. Her teeth were chattering, but she hadn’t spoken a word.
However, when he hauled back his right arm and threw Weeks’s phone as far as he could into the woods, she came to life. “Why’d you do that? We’ll need that phone.”
“I have ours.”
“You do?”
“I’ll explain later.”
He took their phones out of the side pocket of his jacket, shook off the broken glass that each had been covered in when he’d retrieved them, suspended the reception of cellular data and powered down each, then replaced them in his pocket.
“Here. Take this.” When he tried to pass her the large revolver he’d taken off Sims, she recoiled. “Come on, Elle. Take it and keep it handy.”
“Why? You told Compton the shooter was gone.”
“I could be wrong. It’s loaded. Safety’s set. If you have to fire it, don’t forget to unlock the safety. See?” He demonstrated and tried again to hand it over.
She shook her head. “You keep it.”
“I have Weeks’s.”
“You didn’t tell Compton that.”
“No. I didn’t tell her I took bullets from his gun belt, either.” He’d already reloaded the pistol he’d fired. “Take the damn gun.”
When she didn’t, he cursed and crammed it into the side pocket of her jacket.
The argument had cost a valuable minute. All the while he’d been listening for sirens announcing the arrival of first responders to his 911 call. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Go? You agreed to stay here.”
“No, I didn’t. We’re hooking it, just like we were about to do when the shooting started.”
“But that was before this was a crime scene. Leaving the scene of a crime is a crime.”
“What’s a crime is promising key witnesses protection and then falling way short.” In the distance, he heard the wail of sirens. “We gotta go.” He grabbed her hand, but still she resisted. He swore again. “Elle, I’m getting you away from here.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I’m not giving you an option. You’re mad at me. More than mad. But you’re coming with me. Now. Got that?”
After devoting a few precious seconds to thinking it over, she let herself be pulled along behind him as he set out at a jog, running in a northerly direction, the opposite of where he’d told Compton they were.
“Why not take the deputies’ car?” she asked.
“I didn’t have time to search for the key. Besides, how far do you think we’d get in that? We’d probably meet first responders on the road to the highway. Or the shooter, expecting that’s what we’d do. Either way, we’re better off in the woods on foot.”
He realized that was easy for him to say. Elle’s stride, being much shorter than his, required her to take more steps, but she kept pace. Barely. Because they were weaving their way through the pine forest, where the trees grew straight and so close together their trunks resembled a stockade. The forest floor was inherently hazardous because of undergrowth, woodsy debris, and uneven terrain.
It would have been rough going in broad daylight. But it was dark. And, as if the gods weren’t heckling them already, it had begun to drizzle.
Elle had become short of breath, but she said, “I feel like we’re deserting Dawn. What do you think happened to her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think she’s dead, don’t you?”
“Maybe she ran like we did, got across the clearing, and into the woods to hide. Maybe she was wounded and unconscious. Or maybe she was unable to answer when I called to her because she knew if she did, she’d be giving away her position to the shooter. There is an endless number of possibilities.”
Behind him Elle stopped so suddenly he lost his grip on her hand. He turned quickly. She was standing upright. Rigid, actually, her hands balled into fists at her sides. “Dawn is dead, isn’t she? That’s what you really think.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed them firmly. “Yes. I think the odds are good.” He dipped his knees to bring himself eye level with her. “I don’t want the same to happen to you, to us. Which is why we had to leave and why we have to keep going.”
“Oh, I’ll keep going. I swore to myself, to Charlie, that I would do everything within my power to get justice for him, even if I die in the process.” She raised her fists and beat them against Calder’s chest. “Why can’t they catch him?”
He hoped no one was on their trail because her shout, bouncing off every solid tree trunk, would have echoed its way back to the house. Not that he blamed her for her rage.
“He’ll be caught, but I don’t want you to die in the process.” He pulled her to him and hugged her tightly but released her immediately and reached for her hand again. “We’ve got to keep moving.”
He’d hated leaving without knowing Dawn Whitley’s fate just as badly as Elle did, but he had no guarantee that the gunman had fled. He might only have been trying to make it look like he had in order to draw them out.
But whether he was behind them or not, Calder knew for certain that lawmen were, those who’d promised them sanctuary, failed to provide it, and yet pledged it again. Screw that.
As earnest as the efforts of Compton and Perkins, Weeks and Sims, and the behind-the-scenes personnel had been, they’d been outclassed, outsmarted, and outgunned by the Fairground shooter.
Shauna’s report had been as tempting as Eve’s apple. He’d gone for it, swiftly and with a vengeance. The boldness of the attack on the safe house was an indication of his resolve. Calder was as resolved—damn the consequences—that he and Elle get away and regroup someplace safe. Or at least safer.
But first he had to get them out of this freaking forest. He wasn’t even certain they were still going in the right direction, and he didn’t want to risk turning on his phone to check. He didn’t share that worry with Elle, though. Her breathing had become increasingly labored.
He wasn’t overexerted yet, but with every step, he repeated the name that Compton had tossed out to him. Apparently she thought it would mean something to him, but it didn’t. In his mind, it was like a roulette ball that spun and bounced around the wheel but never found a pocket in which to land.
He had a disturbing intuition that he was running from that, too.
The cool front that had ushered in the precipitation had also caused the temperature to drop. The drizzle had become a steady rain, which made their footing riskier and obstacles in their path more difficult to see and avoid.
One of those obstacles caused Elle to stumble. She caught herself before she fell, but when he stopped and turned to check on her, she panted, “How much farther?”
“Not much. We only had a mile and a half to cover. You good?”
With determination, she nodded and fell into step behind him again. “Do we have a destination?”
“The abandoned filling station Weeks mentioned.”
“It’s probably not even there anymore.”
“The station doesn’t have to be there. Only the road it was on. If we can find the road, do you think your friend would come pick us up?”
“Glenda? Yes.”
“Would you trust her not to tell anybody?”
“She would never.”
“You’re certain?”
“Positive.”
“Okay, we’ll call her.”
“How did you get our phones back?”
“When I went into the kitchen, before I doused the fridge light, I noticed them on the kitchen counter where the deputies had left them. I snatched them before coming back upstairs.”
“Nothing escapes you, does it? The security cameras in the treetops, the door to the outside stairs, our cell phones. You take notice of everything.”
“I noticed your navel piercing.”
He wasn’t sure Elle heard that. In any case, she didn’t respond.
Not long after that, they came out of the woods and crossed a narrow ditch onto the road that Calder had anticipated would be there. He allowed himself only time enough to regain his breath, then took his phone from his jacket pocket. As he was rebooting it, Elle asked why he’d used Weeks’s phone to call Compton.
