Page 78 of The Harborer
“Copy, 346. Advise details about the beige pickup. In pursuit. Might be connected.”
Soon they learned the driver of the beige pickup had been headed southbound at a high rate of speed when he hit a deer. The animal came through the windshield, killing the driver. He went on to answer questions about possible narcotics in the vehicle, affirming he’d discovered a bag of pills, which he’d taken into custody, bagged, and tagged.
“Plates?” Shane asked.
“No plates. Driver appeared to have false ID. VIN comes back to Utah. Reported stolen two weeks ago.”
A new question bubbled up in Shane’s brain, and he had Gunderson radio Donna once again. “Advise wrecker’s location for fatal at sixty-three.”
She told them the tow truck was out of Ouray. They hadn’t been able to raise Micky Allen, their usual go-to.
They signed off, and Gunderson exchanged a quick glance with Shane. “The beige pickup was headed south—”
“Toward County Road 352,” Shane finished for him.
“Do you think the pickup was supposed to join our convoy?”
“Entirely possible they were planning to rendezvous.”
Gunderson motioned out the window. “Take this track to the right. It leads to the cabin.”
Shane turned off the county road and onto the trail to the cabin. “How far are we?”
“Miles, and the road only gets worse from here. It’s going to take a while.”
Not what Shane wanted to hear. Thank God he had to focus on the narrow, winding path that resembled a game trail more than a road. Bumping over its ruts and roots would keep him from going nuts thinking about what might be happening to Amy right now.
Chapter 26
Where's the Raid?
Amy used her bestdeath glare on the blond guy leering at her from where he sat on a camp stool. Shooting him daggers was about all she could do from her seated position on the damp, rotten floorboards. Her back rested against ancient, splintered wood, and she tried not to think about creepy crawlers infesting it. Her wrists were zip-tied behind her so tight her fingertips tingled. Her socks and sneakers had been removed, and her bare feet were bound at the ankles with another zip tie. Even if she could lurch upright and escape from the three menaces who’d brought her here, how far would she get in the shadowy woods on bare feet? And she was already bone-cold from sitting in this tumble-down shack high in the mountains on a freezing October night. She couldn’t allow it to distract her from finding a way out of this unimaginablesituation. She willed herself to remain present and dig deep for a kind of inner steel she’d never had to tap before.
If only this were like the movies! The handsome hero would come riding in on his stallion, throw her over his saddle, and gallop away. In her case, the handsome, brown-eyed deputy sheriff in his shiny patrol vehicle—the same man who had shredded her heart yet somehow still made it tap dance.
No, if she was going to get out of this alive, it would be through her own wellspring of grit. That, she had. Opportunity? Not so much. If she didn’t make it, at least Shane would know he’d been wrong about her. Shewasinnocent. Small consolation, though. She’d rather escape with her life and have him believe she was guilty.
Would he look for her? Or would he assume she blew him off in the wake of their confrontation? If hedidcruise past Mountain Coffee, nothing would look out of place. Micky had tossed the box into her Explorer and locked her back door with his ill-gotten key, leaving no sign of the tussle. The knife-wielding blond guy had demolished her phone, crushing any hope of tracking its signals—and her—along with it.
Her spirits deflated further as she surveyed her surroundings. The dark, one-room cabin was lit by one stinky kerosene lantern, and it threw ominous shadows into the corners and onto the faces of the men guarding her.
Using the point of a large, fixed-blade knife, the guy seated on the camp stool cleaned his grimy nails with a casualness that shot icicles down Amy’s spine. When he wasn’t picking at his nails or his teeth with the tip, he busied himself sharpening the blade on a rectangular stone. Over and over and over, the scraping noise made her grind her molars.
The other guy, who was playing sentry by the front door, was the dude she recognized as Benny from the fake fishing trip. He was even uglier now that she’d had a closer look, with his rotten teeth, his sallow skin, and his greasy black hair hanging like strings from the confines of his beanie.
Do drugs much?
Benny was also way twitchier than the last time she’d seen him, which had been at home after the Boarding Call. She had evaded Shane’s questions about the guy when he’d asked, but she’d done it to protect Micky. Dear Lord, how she regretted that decision. She might have been able to help Shane instead of throwing a roadblock in his way, and Micky didn’t deserve her protection. She saw that so clearly now.
Micky had spun a smooth lie when he’d begged her to keep his friendship with Benny a secret. His reason for hiding the truth? Benny had gotten into trouble with drugs before and had a record, and Micky hadn’t wanted Shane to know about the guy’s past. If Shane did, Micky had argued, he would have stuck his nose into Micky’s business, and if Micky’s customers saw the deputy constantly sniffing around his garage, they would have quit him. He couldn’t afford the bad press. And like the sucker she was, Amy had fallen for the story.
His argument had struck her as a logical one at the time, but looking back, shehadbeen duplicitous. She’d aided and abetted, which made her equally guilty in the eyes of the law. And Shane wasn’t stupid; nor was she a good liar. He had probably seen right through her clumsy dodging. No wonder he suspected her.
“You never told us how pretty your little brown coffee shop girl is, Allen. I’m thinking of all kinds of pleasant ways to spend time in this shithole while we wait for Duke.” Knife Boy gave her a salacious grin. He had brown teeth and a jaundiced complexion too, along with what looked like oozing sores on his hands and neck. The thought of those hands touching her skin sent ripples of nausea through her.
“I already told you, Dalton. No one touches her,” Micky bit out.
Amy turned her glare on Micky, who returned a rueful look of his own. He hovered somewhere between her and Dalton, as if trying to protect her from the creep’s blatant ogling. How had Micky gotten mixed up with these losers?
