Page 60 of Shelter for Sharla

“You have to. There’s no other way. Go and go now. To the station. Find Cruz. He should be there. He’ll be waiting for you, or Sam. Somebody will be there. Go on.” When she started to cry, his heart broke, but he shrugged it off. “Do as I say! Do it, Sharla!”

“Okay, okay! Please, don’t make me leave you, Carter! Please, I’ll?”

“Now, Sharla!” Carter bellowed. “Go!” He waited, his back to the drive, as she walked past him, tears streaming down her face. Creaking sounds filled the air as the car door opened and closed. He heard the cruiser’s engine start, and the sound of his weapons sliding across the hood and dropping onto the ground as she backed out of the driveway made his skin crawl. In no time, she drove away and the roar of the Crown Vic’s engine dwindled into the distance. As soon as he knew she was out of sight, he cocked an eyebrow. “Okay, so what now?”

“Now you’re going to take us to the place where we find what’s ours. No tricks. No funny business. No driving us around in circles for the rest of the night. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.” The gap-toothed henchman held up a small GPS unit, but Carter shook his head. “Nope. I’m not giving them to you, but I’ll take you there.” One of the men raised his weapon, but Carter grinned. “You shoot me, you got nothing.”

“Shoot you in the leg.”

“I’ll bite down on this capsule and I’ll be gone before you can blink.”

From the inside of the house came the sound of boots, heavy boots, and a man appeared in the doorway. “Why don’t we just admit that he’s got the upper hand, you idiots? SheriffMelton, I presume?”

“PaoloAngelico.”

“I see my reputation has preceded me! Good! So you want to go with us, eh? I think that will be permissible. We can take your truck, no?”

“Sure. Why not? Might as well.”I won’t be needing it anyway, Carter told himself.

“Everybody in.” The crew cab wasn’t very big, and seven guys didn’t fit well. As they rolled down the road, Angelico asked without looking at Carter, “Will we need shovels?”

“From what I could tell, yes. You will.”

“Pull in up here at the big discount store and buy a couple of shovels, guys.” As soon as they were in the parking lot, two of them hopped out. They were only gone a few minutes before they returned and threw five spades into the back of the truck. As soon as they were back in, Angelico asked, “So, where are we going?”

“O’Fallon,Missouri.”

“You know the way to get there from here?” Before Carter could answer, the gang leader added, “Oh, of course you do. That’s how you found out about the money. What a shame about them. They were good guys once upon a time.”

I knew it. He had them killed, Carter’s brain hummed. They rode along in silence except for the times when Carter told them where to turn or which exit to take. When they passed through Cairo,Illinois, they stopped at the only gas station around and got out for a bathroom break, then back into the truck and on the road again.

When they hit the O’Fallon city limits, Carter began to think about what was left. His mother would make sure he was buried?ifthey found his body. It wouldn’t be long and he’d get to see his dad again. And his grandparents! He’d never been religious, but he believed people were reunited with their loved ones when they died, and at least that was something to look forward to.

He directed them to turn here and there until the scrap yard loomed in front of them. His guess had been right. It looked like the place had been closed down for at least fifteen years, maybe more, and he was a little surprised that the city hadn’t forced the owner to get rid of the stuff. “This is it.”

“Needle in a haystack,” Angelico mumbled.

Carter shook his head. “No. I know exactly where it is. Well, within twenty-five feet.”

“Twenty-five feet?”

“GPS coordinates aren’tthataccurate. It could take a while to dig around the location and find it, but it’s there.”

“Show me,” Angelico said, prodding Carter to get out of the truck.

It was silent there, and the veteran officer couldn’t help but think how like a graveyard it was. Every one of those cars had been new at one time. They’d been somebody’s pride and joy, just like a child. But as time went by, they lost their shine. Their systems started to break down. At some point, it wasn’t worth fixing them anymore. After working as many accidents as he had, he also knew that a great many people had died in some of the vehicles left sitting right there in that scrap yard. Inside many of them bloody, battered bodies, the life gone from them, had rested until some underpaid, overworked EMT or fire department first responder had cut them from the vehicle and taken them to the morgue. It was a graveyard, a huge graveyard, and he was going to die there. Of that he was certain. He thought about the aerial view, what it had looked like. As soon as he passed the crane, still sitting there like a frozen sentinel, he stomped around a little. “Right here.”

“You sure?”

“No, I’m not sure it’s this exact spot, but it’s close enough that if you made a circle around me, it would be within that circle.”

“How big of a circle?”

“Move out a little.” The men started stepping back, three of them with guns trained on him. When they’d gone far enough, Carter said, “There! It’s within this circle somewhere.”

“You two and you two?get the shovels and start digging. Give DeputyDawg here a shovel and let him get to work too. Dig, sheriff. Dig like your life depends on it, because it does.” Carter took the shovel that was handed to him and stuck the tip in the ground, tonguing the capsule in his cheek. “Well? Fucking dig!” Angelico yelled, and all five men started working.

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