Cover of Night Read online

  “Two guys got rough with Neenah and Cate,” Cal said. “A couple of days ago.”

  The silence on the line was black and icy; then Creed said softly, “What happened? Were they hurt?”

  “Scared, mostly. One jammed a pistol against Neenah’s temple and she’s sporting a bruise. I bashed the other one in the head with my Mossberg, then got a bead on the guy holding Neenah.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Creed said, and crashed the phone down in Cal’s ear.

  15

  TEAGUE WAS ALMOST IN POSITION OUTSIDE CREED’S CABIN when the front door banged open. He froze in place, wondering if the place was rigged with motion sensors or night-vision cameras that he hadn’t spotted during his reconnaissance, and whether or not Creed would shoot first and try to identify him later. As a result, Creed had slammed into his pickup truck and was fishtailing down the rutted lane that was his driveway before Teague could react.

  “Shit!” Teague grabbed his Motorola CP150 two-way hooked to his belt, thumbed the “talk” button. “The subject just left in his pickup, coming toward the road. Follow him.”

  “What about you?” came Billy’s reply, his tone very quiet but his voice clear.

  “Send someone back for me. Don’t let him give you the slip—and don’t let him see you.”

  “Roger that.”

  Still swearing, Teague carefully reversed the path he’d taken. He could have made better time if he’d moved down into the lane, but he would also leave boot prints, and he preferred staying in the rough. He wondered what had happened to cause Creed to take off like a cat with its tail on fire, and whether he’d be better off waiting here and taking his shot whenever Creed returned, instead of following.

  The problem was, Creed might be gone for days, and Teague had no intention of sitting on his ass that long. He wanted to know where Creed had gone. Even more to the point, he’d rather chase the action than wait for it to come to him—more fun that way.

  Less than half an hour after Creed had hung up on him, a thunderous pounding on his door made Cal wonder if the thing would come off its hinges before he could get it open. It wasn’t locked, so he yelled, “For God’s sake, turn the doorknob!”

  Creed powered into the room like an avalanche, his jaw set and his fists clenched, just as Cal had known they would be. “What happened?” Creed demanded in a hoarse growl.

  “It started last Monday,” Cal said, turning away to grab a couple of long necks from his beat-up, avocado-green refrigerator. He popped off the tops and handed a bottle to Creed, who took it in a grip that made Cal wonder if he intended to crush the bottle in his bare hand. “A guy staying at Cate’s bailed out the window and drove off, left his stuff behind.”

  Immediately Creed’s hazel eyes took on the analytical expression Cal knew so well. “I was there Monday morning,” Creed said. “She was busier than usual. Who was he running from?”

  “Don’t know who or why. He didn’t come back. On Tuesday, Cate reported him missing, but because he left under his own steam, the sheriff’s department didn’t do much more than check the area hospitals and instruct deputies to be alert for signs of an accident. Also on Tuesday, some guy called Cate pretending to be from a car rental agency, trying to track this guy down. Later Cate called the rental agency but found they had no record of this guy ever renting a car from them.”

  “Caller ID record?” Creed asked.

  “Unknown name and number. I guess the phone company could give us more info than that, but why would they? No crime was committed, no threats made. Same with Cate’s customer—he hadn’t run out on his bill, so no crime was committed, so the cops aren’t interested.”

  “What was the guy’s name?”

  “Layton. Jeffrey Layton.”

  Creed shook his head. “Never heard of him before.”

  “I hadn’t either.” Cal tipped back his head and poured down some cold beer. “Then, on Wednesday, these two guys checked into Cate’s.” He explained why Cate had been suspicious, and that one of the men had evidently overheard her and Neenah talking in the kitchen. “Next thing they knew, the guy calling himself Mellor came through the door with a pistol in his hand, demanding Cate give them the stuff Layton had left behind.”

  “I hope she didn’t argue,” Creed said grimly.

  “She didn’t. In the meantime, I was going into town to pick up some stuff, and I stopped by to get her mail. I thought she was acting weird, kind of jumpy and distracted, and when she gave me her mail, she’d put the stamps on upside down.”

  He saw Creed make the leap. “Smart girl,” he said approvingly.

  “I took the chance I was jumping into idiot-land, parked the truck down the road, and got the shotgun out from behind the seat. Then I sneaked back and went in. Found one guy in the foyer, pistol in his hand, sneaking peeks out the window. Clubbed him in the head, and went looking for Cate. I heard voices upstairs, followed them to the attic. Cate was hauling Layton’s suitcase out, and this other guy was holding Neenah by the hair, her head jerked sideways, with the barrel of his pistol jammed against her temple. I got the drop on him, convinced him his only way out alive was to drop his weapon and let Neenah go. Cate gave him the suitcase, and I saw them on their way.”

  He’d left a lot out of the telling, but Creed had known him a long time and could read between the lines; he knew exactly how Cal had sneaked up on the two men.

  “This was Wednesday?”

  “Yeah,” Cal reaffirmed.

  “Fuck.”

  That needed no response. Creed’s instinct was to hunt them down and make them pay—very painfully—but the incident had happened three days ago and they were long gone.

  Creed made a frustrated sound in his throat, then sagged onto Cal’s secondhand sofa. “Are they okay?” he asked. “Neenah and Cate?”

  “Cate was shaky, but her mother was here to help, plus Cate had the twins to take her mind off things. Neenah didn’t have anyone—in private, I mean. All the neighbors gathered round, but you and I both know the reaction kicks in when everybody leaves and you’re alone.”

  Creed leaned forward to prop his elbows on his spread knees, his hands dangling down. Cal watched him closely as he continued, “I can tell she’s having a tough time dealing. She’s withdrawn, and she’s got circles under her eyes like she isn’t sleeping. Plus there’s that big bruise on her face.”

  Creed’s hands knotted into fists, but he didn’t move from Cal’s sofa.

  Cal leaned down, looked his former commanding officer in the eye, and very softly said, “You’re a candy-ass coward if you don’t go hold that woman now when she needs holding.”

  Creed shot to his feet and opened his mouth to deliver a blistering tirade, then abruptly shut it. “Fuck,” he said again. “Fuck!” Then he stomped to the door and was gone, the stairs thudding beneath his boots as he went down them two at a time.

  A slight smile curving his mouth, Cal shut the door.

  Teague couldn’t believe his luck. Sometimes the sunshine just poured down on a man, now didn’t it? That bastard Creed had driven straight to Trail Stop, of all places.

  They weren’t likely to have a better opportunity than this. The hour wasn’t as late as he’d like, but most people in Trail Stop were middle-aged, at least, with a few old geezers, so it wasn’t as if they were hitting the singles bars every night and staying out until the wee hours. There were a few younger people, like the Nightingale woman, and one couple looked about the same age as her, but that was about it. He’d bet every inhabitant was at home, snug as a bug. Come to think of it, he was betting on that—betting the success of this plan on what he knew from observing people and his skill in reading them.

  “Hurry up,” he whispered into the two-way.

  “I’m hurrying,” Billy whispered in return. He was under the bridge, putting detonators into the packages of explosives they’d stolen from a construction site some months before. Teague believed in being prepared; you just never knew when you might