“I’ll do that. Sorry to have bothered you.” What an ass. He still didn’t believe her.
“You’re not bothering me. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up and it turns out to be nothing. Keep me informed.”
She slammed the phone down. Cory didn’t believe her. What the fuck was wrong with him?
Jared. He was the only person who might believe her. She looked at the clock. Nine forty-seven. Would he be asleep by now? Was he still mad at her? She knew he started work early in the morning.
She tapped her foot on the floor while it rang once, twice.
“Hey.” She could hear background sounds of people talking and laughing. He wasn’t in bed.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“The Dirty Bar.”
Darn it. He was drinking. “I hope you’re not gonna drive.”
“I live down the road at Mrs. Pocket’s place. Is that why you called me? To tell me not to drive drunk?”
“No. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She hung up and picked up her purse. She had put Moore’s card somewhere in it. She scratched through things and eventually lost patience and dumped the contents on the counter. There. She punched in the cell phone number.
“Moore,” he answered in a croaky voice. “Who is this?”
“It’s Tara Ericson, Detective. I’m sorry to call so late, but I—I got a message on my answering machine yesterday. It was from my sister.”
There was silence on the other side of the call.
“Are you there?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’m trying to understand why you’re calling at ten-oh-five at night when you got the call yesterday.”
“I didn’t listen to the message until just a little while ago.”
“What did the message say?”
“She—she just said, ‘Please help me.’”
There was another long pause. “Are you sure it’s her? Not some crank pretending to be her?”
“It’s my sister, Detective. I know her voice.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“Yes. I’m sure. She’s the only person in the world who called me Tara-Tay. She’s autistic and found it hard to say my name. But—you knew that.” She took a breath. “The caller ID said ‘unknown,’ but I’m hoping you or the Feds or someone could find out what number she was calling from.”
“Okay. I’ll come out to your place as soon as I get a chance tomorrow morning. Nothing’s about to change overnight. If the message was new, that would be different.”
Tara could understand the logic behind that, even though she desperately wanted them to start investigating right that minute. “Okay. I’ll be here.” She hung up the phone and stood there for a while. She wasn’t going to sleep.
What was that? An engine revved up loudly outside. Who would be driving out here at this hour? This place was at the end of the road.
The rifle and the revolver were upstairs. Why hadn’t she brought one of them down so she could access it easily? Her gut clenched as she crossed to the front door. She stopped to listen. The engine was ticking over slowly on the driveway. Was Jared coming back? She moved away from the door and slid the blind across so she could see the headlights. Should she call 911?
A shot rang out. Someone was shooting from that car. Tara screamed and dropped to the floor. She slid on her behind to the counter. Tires squealed on the gravel and the engine revved and raced away, leaving her sitting there gasping for breath, unable to process what had just happened.
The dogs barked like crazy at the back door and sniffed and growled. She pushed onto her feet and crossed the room on shaky legs. Her hand hovered over the doorknob. She unlocked the door and opened it a crack to let the dogs in, shut it, and locked it behind them.
“You guys can sleep with me tonight.”
She listened at the front door, her heart pounding. After a while, she figured the vehicle had left, and it was safe to move about. She climbed the stairs, the dogs following at her heels. She picked up the rifle and went to Cassie’s bedroom, where she had a clear view of the driveway and entrance to the property. She left the lights off so nobody would know where she was, and stood there in the dark, her heart still pounding. Should she call 911? She didn’t want to wake Moore again. He was thirty miles away in Groover.
She punched in the sheriff’s phone number. After three rings, Deputy Tim Bowen answered.
“Timmy, it’s Tara. Someone just tried to shoot me through the window.”
Chapter 30
The nightmare came back with a vengeance. Tara awoke to her own terrified screams. She sat up and pushed her sweat-dampened hair out of her eyes, panting and gasping for breath.
She tried the light switch. Nothing happened. She grabbed her cell phone. Four fifty-five. Her breathing quickened. What if someone was in the house? She slipped her hand under the pillow and slid the pistol out and lay there listening. The dogs were lying at the end of the bed. RJ lifted his head when he heard her stir, but he didn’t look as if he had heard anything out of the ordinary. He stood up, stretched, and licked her face. The orange cat didn’t stir on the other pillow. Rainwater dripped from the gutters, telling her there had been a storm. Maybe the power was out because of the lightning.
Roberto would be up and about soon. She didn’t think he would have heard her crying out now that she closed all the windows at night.
She hadn’t had much sleep. The two deputies had spent a couple of hours interviewing her and walking around the property. They didn’t find anything except the tire tracks. They set up tape around them so no one would drive that way, and said the evidence techs would come from Groover in the morning to take a cast. Eventually, she had assured them she would be okay and they had left.
Sox jumped off the bed and whined. Tara slid out from under the sheets and turned on the phone’s light. She rubbed her neck. Her entire body was still trembling and her heart hadn’t gone back to its normal rhythm yet. RJ stretched again and jumped onto the carpet.
Sox barked.
“Okay, I’ll let you out. I know you wish we had a doggie door for you guys.” She followed the dogs downstairs, the rifle in her hand, unlocked the kitchen door, and let them out.
Slugbug was still lying on her pillow when she went back to her room. The lights flickered on and went out, and flickered on again, and stayed on, confirming there had been a power outage.
Relieved, she stripped out of her T-shirt and dropped it on the floor, and made the shower water cold, as cold as she could bear.
She thought about calling Jared, but he would most likely worry about her, and she didn’t want to interfere with his work. And something had pissed him off last time they were together. She would handle things without his help.
Chapter 31
“Thank you so much for coming,” Tara said as she let Detectives Moore and Garcia in and led them to the living room.
Garcia took out a notebook and pen.
Detective Moore looked at her with raised eyebrows. “I’m glad to see you’re okay. A lot has happened in the past two days. I apologize we couldn’t get here yesterday, but we’re working a case forty miles on the other side of Groover. Deputy Bowen filled in the details of the shooting last night and the evidence techs are on their way. We’ll take a walk around in a little while. Can you tell us what happened?”
“Last night someone drove into the yard and fired one shot. Then they left.”
Moore leaned forward in his chair, a look of concern on his face. “Where did they aim? Did they hit anything?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so.”
“The sheriff’s department found nothing?”
“No—but there are some tire tracks. They came over and checked everything out, but it was dark. You must
have seen the tape. I told them you would be here this morning. “It all happened so fast—in a few seconds.”
“And what about the incident in Hardship?” He glanced at her knees. “We have the deputy’s report, but can you tell us about that? Can you describe the man? We may be able to get an artist to draw him if you think you can remember his face.”
“Basically, he tried to run me down, and luckily I was able to roll into a ditch. There was a woman who yelled and warned me just in time.”
“What else? What did the truck look like?” Garcia asked.
“It was gray with some missing paint patches and they were brown, maybe they were rusty. It was a ways away from me and I was shaky. But I can remember what I saw of his face. He had a big beard and a cap pulled down, but I saw his eyes. They were brown. His nose was big but not overly different. Oh, he had a tattoo on his throat. Here.” She indicated the base of her neck. “I only saw it for a short time but it was a bull facing the front and snorting smoke, or whatever. It was done in red ink.”
Garcia was writing in his notebook. “That’s good info,” he said. “Was he tall? Short? Fat? Thin?”
“He was quite short—shorter than me—short and stocky.”
“Like one fifty pounds? Two hundred? More?”
Tara shook her head. “Probably around two. He looked strong and muscled.”
“Then what happened?”
Tara related the other events, ending with Tim Bowen being punched in the face. “He has quite a shiner.”
“They couldn’t catch him and the rear plate on the vehicle was covered in mud. So no luck there,” Garcia said.
Moore said, “You sent us some pictures of your fence. Did that happen on the same day?”
Yes. The fence was cut behind the barn. There were boot marks, but the rain will have washed them away now.”
“Did you tell that to the deputies?”
“Of course. I did. They took a look last night in the dark but the rain . . . And then we had another horse go beserk—I told you what’s been happening before. Yesterday Button—one of our calmest ponies did the same as what the others did. He went crazy for a little while. Doc Grainger came and gave him something to calm him and took blood, feces, saliva, and a sample of his water and feed. He hasn’t gotten back to me yet, but he’s done the same with the other horses in the past and found nothing.
“I sent you the video from my new CCTV system, and it showed a man sneaking around the barn, but I don’t see how he can be identified. The previous manager from this place, Randall—it wasn’t him. He was a lot skinnier than that, but he’s still high on my list of suspects. He was up to something no good.”
“We’re still looking for him. Could the person on the CCTV be the man who tried to run you down?”
“It could. I don’t know.”
Detective Moore sighed and shifted in his chair. “So you called last night about your sister,” he said.
“Yes, I had a message from her on the phone.” She swallowed and wondered why her mouth had gone dry. “I’ll play it for you.” She stood up and pressed the ‘play’ button on the phone, which was on the counter of the open-plan kitchen behind them. Nothing happened. She tried again and again. “It was there. I don’t understand . . .”
Moore’s face was impossible to read. Did he believe her?
“I’m sorry, but—it looks like somehow the message got wiped. We had a storm after I went to bed, and the power went out for a while. Maybe that was what did it. But I know it was from Cassie. I know her voice.” She pulled her lips tightly together. “And—and I saw her.”
Moore sat up straighter. “You saw her? Where?”
He was probably thinking she was more than a little nuts by now. “Cassie was in the passenger seat of the truck that tried to run me down. I saw her face.”
Moore had that look that meant he didn’t believe her. Garcia was writing notes and she couldn’t read him.
Tara put her hand over her heart. “She’s been missing for a long time—as you know—and some people seem to think she died, but it was her, and I was so hoping you could check the phone records and see who called in the last couple of days. You can do that, right? No one seemed to care about Cassie. They had no idea how it hurts when you lose both your parents and then your sister as well.
“I’ll look into it. “ Moore stood up and peered through the window. “Looks like the evidence techs are here. Let’s see if they can find the bullet. ”
Chapter 32
Cassie couldn’t stop the tears.
He had wanted her to call Tara. He would never have left the phone lying there if he didn’t. He was waiting for her, listening outside the damn door. She spoke as quietly as she could, but as soon as he heard her, he charged into the room and smacked the phone out of her hand, leaving a smell of acrid sweat in his wake.
He wanted Tara to know she was alive, but he didn’t want her to know anything more.
Tara had been so right. She’d had the dumb idea that she could become an actress—just by going to Hollywood. She had been so naïve in those days. The only movie parts she could get into were porn movies.
Bucky, her pimp, had found her when she was walking out of a sleazy studio, trying to decide if she could take off her clothes in front of the camera and do those disgusting things or starve. She’d been in California seven months, and was out of money, hungry, and homesick. But what was waiting for her in Hardship? Her parents were gone, Cory had his own life, and Tara was probably at college somewhere. She liked Aunt Lacey, but she wasn’t Mom. Besides, they would all just say, “I told you so.”
“You look like you need someone to help you,” he’d said. Tall, his skin almost black, with a short beard and bright eyes, he wore a fancy suit and tie. “How about I take you to that restaurant over there and buy you a square meal? And then we can talk ’bout what we can do for each other.”
The burger and fries tasted like the best meal in the world. She’d been scavenging out of dumpsters, and hadn’t eaten a real meal for days. As she ate, she wondered why he had brought her to the restaurant and what he wanted her to do. Maybe he had a job for her. He sat with her, watched her eat, and made polite small talk, and he seemed okay.
Until she went to the restroom. A woman was waiting for her and grabbed her as soon as she entered, She struggled and kicked and fought as hard as she could, but the woman was strong. There wasn’t anything she could do but watch the syringe come closer to her arm and see the needle go in.
She woke up on a messed-up bed in a dark room, totally naked.
Her clothes were gone.
She jumped up and tried the door. Locked. Her head hurt like crazy and her mouth was dry. Nausea rose in her throat. She rattled the door and tried to wrench it open, but it was solid. She ran to the window and ripped the curtains open. Bars.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Thinking back, she could still taste the bitter panic of bile in her throat that made her feel like she was suffocating. Tara had warned her about human trafficking, and she hadn’t believed her.
She jumped up and backed away when Bucky came in. “Let me go, please. I’ll do anything, just let me go.”
“You know that ain’t gonna happen, bitch,” he said as he circled around her.
He raped her and beat her so badly she thought she would die, and then he kept her locked up until the bruises had almost faded away, and started shooting her up with heroin. He told her if she ever contacted any family member, he would personally find them and kill them.
He forced her into prostitution. and made her wear skimpy clothing and stand on street corners. When she wasn’t “working,” she was locked in a room in a crumbling, cockroach-infested building with five other girls. They slept on mattresses on the floor. She didn’t dare run away. One girl tried to leave. H
e killed her and boasted about it. He said he would kill anyone else who tried to run.
That was almost ten years ago.
Life had passed in a blur of disassociating herself from the repulsive things she was forced to do. The johns stank—some of stale alcohol, some of garlic, and some just stank of sweat. The only way she could go on was to close her eyes and picture herself at home with Tara and her parents.
She tried to keep track of the time, but had no watch and wasn’t allowed to look at the TV or magazines. The closest friend she had made, one of the other girls named Ocean, taught her to find the date on the newspapers being sold on the streets, and, hungry for news, she read the headlines. Jared had been convicted of the murders and sentenced to death. Jared. He would never have killed her parents.
She thought about her family all the time. Had Cory gotten married? He’d been sweet on Melinda when the murders had taken place. Maybe they even had kids. When she hurt all over, desperate for a fix, Bucky gave it to her. As time passed—one year, two years, three and four, she lost the belief that she would escape.
Chapter 33
Jared hadn’t seen Tara since the night of the shooting, when he had left in a bad mood. That had been three days ago. They’d texted a couple of times, but he’d been super busy at work. He thumbed in her number, hoping she would answer.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey yourself. The drawing you did with the forensic artist was all over the TV last night. Did you see it?”
Tara nodded. “I saw it. The artist—her name was Jamie―she did an amazing job. She was really nice to talk to as well. The picture does look like him, and she got the tattoo perfectly.”
“I’m positive it’s the dude who was driving Mrs. P’s car. Have you heard anything more from the detectives? Were they in Groover when you were there with the artist?”
Tempestuous Taurus Page 12
