Page 22 of Longest Ride

“Why?” asked Virge. “We can see the snow on the trucks ain’t been touched.”

“We’ll clean off the windows and look inside just to make sure nothing else is going on.”

“Like what?” asked Virge. “What do you mean, Billy?”

“Umm…foul play, Virge. Always be on the lookout for foul play. Never take anything for granted. Our first inclination is that Harry is a lost hunter, but that may not be true.”

“Right. I get it. Somebody might have knocked Harry off and made it look like he’s lost in the bush in the fuckin snow. Good thinking, Billy.”

Billy chuckled. “Thanks, Virge.”

“Here comes Ted.” Virge pointed at the big tow truck coming our way.

“I’ll check the insides of the trucks while you get the dogs ready to go.”

“They won’t need leashes, Virge,” I said to my brother. “With snow this deep, they won’t have any speed to get way ahead of us.”

“How are they gonna run?” Virge screwed up his face. “The snow is too fuckin deep for them. Over their goddamned heads, Harlan. I don’t think they can run through that much fuckin snow.

“They’ll figure it out. Once we get into the bush, it will be better for them. There’ll be a lot less snow in the thick of the forest.”

“Better be. My dogs will be wiped.”

We struck off from the two parked trucks following a straight line into the trees. With the snow three feet deep, the dogs had to bounce their way along until we were in the shelter of the woods.

Once we’d gone a fair ways into the bush, Billy stopped for a rest and gave Max and Sarge Harry’s shirt and his dirty socks.

The dogs carried the socks around for a few minutes and neither one of them alerted.

They don’t smell him,” said Billy.

“Does that mean Harry was never in these woods?” asked Virge.

“I’m not sure,” said Billy. “Let’s go a little further into the trees and see if they pick up a scent.”

We tramped along with the dogs for another quarter of a mile until Billy said, “This is useless. We’re going back to the road.”

Chapter Six

Tuesday, September 24th.

Coulter-Ross Ranch. La Grange.

Unsure about what to do about finding Bobby Prescott, Annie called her son, Blaine Blackmore, head of the Violent Crime Squad for Texas and told him about finding Eldon Fontana, a.k.a. Bobby Prescott, by sheer accident.

“New fake ID, sugar. The red Freightliner is now black, and he’s been hauling in the Canadian West.”

“Amazing,” said Blaine. “I wasn’t sure we’d ever catch him. That’s one of my open cases and I hate like hell having cases on my desk that were never solved. Makes me feel like I didn’t do my job.”

“I know you hate that, honey bunny. And this still might not be closed the way you’d like it to be. By the time Tammy drives Bobby home to Midway, he might be dead.”

“Do you know that’s where they’re headed?” asked Blaine.

“No. It’s only a guess. If he thinks he’s dying, he may want to go home. He won’t care about getting caught anymore.”

“That’s true. The fear of prison will no longer be a factor. Let’s put surveillance on the Midway house for two or three days and see if the truck shows up.”

“Okay. I’m down with that,” said Annie.

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