Cut and Run

by Mary Burton

  “Texas Rangers. We’re looking for Randy Kelly.”

  Two more locks clicked, and the door opened. The guy who stood before them was shirtless, wore jeans, and his hair stuck up. “That’s me. You find the truck?”

  “Mind if we come in, Mr. Kelly?” Hayden asked. “I have questions.”

  Kelly nodded and stepped back. “Is my truck okay?”

  “Your truck was used in a crime we’re investigating.”

  “Shit,” Kelly whispered as he pulled on a shirt that had been on the floor.

  Kelly’s one-room apartment had a Murphy bed, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. Several action-movie posters decorated the walls, a couple of pizza boxes were stacked on the kitchen counter, and dirty clothes were scattered on the floor around a card table holding a laptop.

  “Where did you last park your truck?” Hayden asked.

  “I work construction and odd jobs. I slipped into a bar to get a beer yesterday evening, and when I came out, the truck was gone.”

  “What is the name of the bar, and where is it?” Hayden asked.

  “It’s in East Austin. Rodney’s on Linden. I parked the car on Seventh Street and went in for a couple of hours. I came out around eleven and no truck. I called the cops right away.”

  “You’re sure about where you parked your truck?” Brogan asked.

  “Yeah. I’d had a few beers, but I was in good shape when I came out. I know where I parked my truck. I was supposed to work today, so I couldn’t get plowed. You said it was used in a crime?”

  “In a hit-and-run accident sometime after midnight,” Hayden said.

  “Shit,” Kelly hissed.

  “Does anyone else have keys to your truck?” Hayden asked.

  “No. It’s mine.” He scratched his head. “It’s ten years old, and it doesn’t run that well. But it’s paid for and gets the job done. Who was hit?”

  “A woman.”

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “I don’t know. And you can prove you were here the entire time?”

  Kelly shook his head slowly. “I called the cops, gave my report about eleven thirty, and then came home. There will be a record of the car service. I was asleep by twelve thirty.”

  “Where were you on Sunday?” Jack’s murder and Macy’s attack happening so close together couldn’t be a coincidence.

  “On a roof in north Travis County. I arrived at five a.m. and worked until sunset.”

  Hayden would check out the man’s story but was inclined to believe him. “All right, Mr. Kelly. I might double back with more questions.”

  “What about my truck?” Kelly asked.

  “If and when we find it, it’ll be impounded as evidence. So we’ll have to hang on to it for a while,” Hayden offered with no remorse.

  Kelly shook his head. “What am I supposed to do in the interim?”

  “You’ll have to make other transportation arrangements.”

  As they left to the sound of Kelly grumbling curses, Brogan made a call to dispatch, putting out a BOLO on the vehicle. His next call to the city’s uniformed division was for a search of cameras near Rodney’s on Linden. With any luck, they’d find footage of the car theft.

  When Faith arrived at her office, Nancy was waiting for her with lab results from autopsies done three weeks ago, several messages from police officers with questions about pending cases, and the schedule for tomorrow.

  “Good, you made it back,” Nancy said. “It’s going to be a crazy afternoon.”

  “What’s happening?” The buzz and noise of the office normally excited her, but right now it felt like an annoying intrusion.

  “We have a death that appears to be an ATV accident,” Nancy said. “The victim is a twelve-year-old male, and the family is torn up and looking for some kind of closure.”

  Whatever worries had been plaguing her vanished as she focused on caring for this child. “All right. What about a possible hit-and-run? Female. Did she arrive here yet?”

  “We’ve not seen any case like that yet. What do you know that I don’t?” Nancy asked.

  She was more relieved than she’d expected. “Good.”

  Nancy studied her. “You all right?”

  “Long night. Bad sleep.” She smiled.

  “Let me talk to Dr. Ryland,” Nancy said. “I might be able to talk him into taking the ATV case.”

  “No, I’ve got this. See you in the suite in thirty minutes.”

  After she changed and quickly leafed through the reports and messages, Faith met Nancy in the autopsy suite. Neither spoke as they performed the grim but necessary task of conducting the autopsy.

  After she closed up his chest and pulled the sheet back over his face, she spoke to the bereaved family, answering their questions and listening as they cried and struggled to wrap their brains around the tragedy.

  By the time Faith moved behind her desk, she was bone weary. Rolling her head from side to side, she released the tension in her neck. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there like that when she heard the knock on her door.

  Mitchell Hayden stood in her doorway. “You all right?”

  “Sure. Always. This is a surprise.” Faith rose.

  He entered her office and carefully shut the door. “I need to talk to you.”

  She remained behind the desk. “Now I’m getting worried. First you call last night, and then you show up to talk?”

  He walked up to the other side of her desk. “Remember the hit-and-run last night?”

  She leaned on the desk, knowing she might have been tempted to lean into him had it not been there. “Did the victim die?” Her breath caught in her throat, and she thought if a heart could actually pause, hers did. “Are you sending her to me?”

  “She’s still alive. She just got out of surgery an hour ago, but she’s in rough shape.”

  An odd stillness settled around her, and her voice seemed to echo from far away. “Why’re you telling me this?”

  He fished his phone from his back pocket and selected a picture. “I snapped a picture of her identification badge, as well as of her driver’s license. I’d like you to have a look.”

  “All right.” She accepted the phone, studying his face as if somehow this mystery, which was now really scaring her, could be solved with one of his weighted glances or frowns.

  When she could get no read from his expression, she studied the picture. She enlarged the image with her fingers and studied the eyes, nose, and quirky half smile that were all familiar. The hair was different, and she was wearing a necklace Faith had never seen. It was her, and yet it wasn’t.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Neither do I. When I saw her identification, I thought someone had figured out we were sleeping together and was playing a sick joke on me.”

  Faith could do nothing but shake her head.

  “But it wasn’t you,” he said. “Her badge says her name is Macy Crow.”

  “Macy Crow. I received a voicemail from her. This is Jack Crow’s daughter?”

  “The same.”

  She swiped to the next picture, which was of a Commonwealth of Virginia driver’s license. The black-and-white image was no less unsettling than the color version.

  “Are you adopted?” he asked.

  She traced the shape of the face that was hers. “I am.”

  “How long have you known?” he asked.

  “Always. But it’s not the kind of thing that comes up in everyday conversation. My parents didn’t like to talk about it.”

  Hayden shifted slightly and gripped the brim of his hat tighter. “Do you have any details about your adoption?”

  “No. I contacted PJ Slater recently about it. I thought he might find something in the files. As a matter of fact, he called me just this morning and gave me the name Josie Jones as a possible birth mother.”

  “Do you have any adoption records? An original birth certificate?”

  “None.” Her head was spinning,
and she was just trying to keep calm and find a rational explanation. “Do you think I have a twin?”

  “A DNA test will confirm it.”

  Somewhere deep inside her, missing puzzle pieces snapped into place. “Where is Macy Crow?”

  “ICU at Midtown.”

  She removed her purse from her bottom drawer, took off her lab coat, and didn’t bother to change out of scrubs. “I want to see her, now.”

  “I’ll take you.”

  “That’s not necessary. I can drive myself.” That was a lie. Her head was whirling, and she could barely focus as she fumbled through the keys on her ring.

  “No, Faith. I’ll drive. No arguing.”

  It was too hard to fight common sense right now. “Let me tell my office I’m leaving.”

  “Sure.”

  Later, she would think back on this moment, and she wouldn’t remember speaking to Nancy about clearing her schedule, getting into Hayden’s car, or driving to the hospital. Her first memories would begin with the hospital’s fluorescent lights buzzing overhead and the rattle of a cart in critical care in the neuroscience unit as she and Hayden stepped off the elevator. Hayden showed his badge to the nurse, and they learned Macy Crow was in room 212.

  Down another hallway, he punched the button for the ICU doors, and they entered another section, where patients had larger rooms to accommodate more equipment and staff.

  The beep of a monitor had her pausing at the curtain drawn in front of one of the doors.

  “Ready?” Hayden asked.

  She wasn’t ready for any of this. “Yes.”

  He pushed aside the curtain into Macy Crow’s room. Her bed was positioned in the center and surrounded by machines. Her right leg was in traction, and there were pins in her thigh. Her arm was set in a cast, and her head was heavily wrapped in white gauze. Bruises and swelling made her face unrecognizable.

  Faith stepped closer. Her mouth was dry and her body stiff as she leaned over the bed. In the autopsy suite, she’d witnessed human carnage, but this woman’s injuries made her stomach roil. “My God.”

  Tubes fed into Macy’s mouth and nose. Faith reached a trembling hand out and touched the woman’s right wrist, which seemed to be the only spot uninjured.

  Faith cleared her throat. “Macy. My name is Faith. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I left you a voicemail yesterday about your father, Jack. And as it turns out, we might have something in common.”

  The beep, beep of the monitor picked up.

  Hayden’s presence behind her was calming, and she was glad he’d been the one to deliver the news. No drama. Just facts.

  “Macy, I’m here with Captain Hayden of the Texas Rangers. He’s working your case. He’s going to figure out what happened to you and Jack. He’s a pretty crackerjack crime fighter.” The attempt at levity fell flat. “Concentrate on getting well, and leave the rest to him, okay?” Her voice cracked on the last word, but a deep breath settled the rising panic.

  Faith studied the agent’s hands. Like Faith’s, Macy’s fingers were long, the deep nail beds unpolished and short.

  A knock on the door had her turning toward a man dressed in a white lab coat. The guy was young, and his head was covered in a shadow of dark stubble. “I’m Dr. Bramley.”

  Hayden removed his identification from his breast pocket. “Mitchell Hayden, Texas Rangers. This is Dr. Faith McIntyre. How is Special Agent Crow doing?”

  Dr. Bramley rubbed his eyes and then moved toward the bed, automatically glancing at vitals on a monitor and then the drip from an IV. “She made it through surgery, and that is very encouraging.”

  “There is head trauma.” Aware that Macy could be taking all this in on some level, Faith kept her tone clinical and tightened her mental grip on her trademark control.

  “There is, but the good news is that we got her into surgery quickly and were able to relieve the cranial pressure. Once the swelling abates, we’ll reevaluate. But as I said, she made it through the night, and that’s a real testament to her strength.”

  Faith looked at the unconscious woman and had so many questions for her. The thought of her not making it was almost unbearable. “What are her other injuries?”

  “Fractured femur and arm. Cracked ribs. When Ms. Crow came into the ER last night, I didn’t think she’d make it through the hour. But as I’ve already said, she’s hung in there. She’s tough.”

  “Did she say anything in the ER?” Hayden asked.

  “She was unconscious when she got to us,” Dr. Bramley said.

  “I’ve called city police,” Hayden said. “A uniformed officer will be arriving soon to watch her room. No one gets in or out without clearing it past the officer or me.”

  “Her brother just arrived,” the doctor said. “He’s in the waiting room. We weren’t able to let him see his sister because we were examining her, but I’ve agreed for him to visit for a minute or two.”

  “That’s Dirk Crow?” Hayden asked.

  “Correct,” Dr. Bramley said.

  “I’d like to meet him,” Faith said.

  “So would I,” Hayden said. “I’ve been trying to reach him since Sunday.”

  “The waiting room is down the hall and on the right.”

  Faith reluctantly released Macy’s hand. Drawing in a breath, she left the room with Hayden at her side, and they made their way to the waiting room.

  There were several men in the room, but her gaze was instantly drawn to the large man cradling a crushed coffee cup in tattooed fingers. There was no missing the square jaw, thick brow, and muscled arms that so resembled Jack Crow.

  When the man looked up, he stared at her with narrowed eyes glinting with wariness. “Macy, what the hell?” He tossed the cup in the trash and grabbed his cap as he stood.

  “I’m not Macy. I’m Faith McIntyre,” Faith said.

  He didn’t look convinced as he approached her, working his big fingers over the bill of a sweat-stained ball cap. “If you’re not Macy, you look just like her.”

  “I know.”

  “How is it you look so much alike?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” The more people who noticed her resemblance to Macy, the more unsettling it was. “You’re Jack Crow’s son?” she asked.

  “That’s right. Dirk Crow,” he said.

  He barely glanced at Hayden as he stepped toward her. He smelled of motor oil, the hot sun, and Texas dust. “Jack kept up with Macy over the years but wasn’t keen on me hanging out with her. I saw her for the first time yesterday at Jack’s trailer.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you since Sunday,” Hayden said. “I had news about your father.”

  “Yeah, Ledbetter caught up to me,” Dirk said. “He told me. That’s why I went to the trailer. The place looked like holy hell. Did the cops do that?”

  “We left the black fingerprint powder, but the rest was as we found it. Any idea who might have killed Jack?”

  “Like I told Macy, not a clue. I’ve been in El Paso for over a week.”

  “Did you know there were two of us?” Faith asked.

  “Not for sure.”

  “What do you mean?” she demanded.

  “When Macy and her mother, Brenda, left for good, Jack commented it was better that Macy was gone. He said she was safer. I asked him why, and he said, ‘As soon as someone started seeing double, there were going to be questions.’ I asked if she was a twin, and Jack caught himself and said no.”

  “Did he ever bring it up again?” she asked.

  “No. Never. Jack didn’t trust anyone with whatever secrets he had.” He went silent for a moment. “Hayden, do you have any idea who killed my old man?”

  “Not yet.”

  Dirk flexed his fingers, making some of the tattoos on his forearms shift and move. “How is my sister doing?” he asked.

  “She’s holding her own. But she’s in bad shape,” Hayden replied.

  “I want to see her,” he said.

  “In a minute. I understand from
Ledbetter you and your father got into a fight a few months back. You wanted him to sell his land.”

  “He’s sitting on a gold mine of dirt,” Dirk said. “Land prices are high, and now is the time to cash in, but he was a stubborn old bull and wouldn’t listen.”

  “You’ve been in El Paso for a week. When’s the last time you saw Jack?”

  “We hadn’t spoken since we fought. So it’s been a few months.” He sniffed, cocking his head toward Hayden. “You think I killed him and then ran over my sister?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Hayden said.

  Dirk twisted the bill of his hat tighter in his fingers. “But you’re thinking the money is motive enough.”

  “I do.”

  “I can give you the names of the people I was with in El Paso. They’ll tell you I was there.”

  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Crow?”

  “Construction foreman. I was in El Paso interviewing for a job. There are people that can vouch for me.”

  “I’ll need those names and addresses before you leave here today. I’d also like your address.”

  “Sure.”

  “How old was Macy when your parents adopted her?” Faith asked.

  “A couple of days old, I guess. She was small, and Pop and Brenda were worried she might not make it. But she was tough, even then.” He shook his head and looked into her eyes again. “I’m not going to pretend we cared about each other. There’s nine years between us, and I haven’t seen her in almost thirty years. But she’s still family.”

  “Did your father ever mention the adoption?” Faith asked.

  “I asked him once about it, and he said he never thought about it and loved her like his own. I got to say, he kept up with her better than me. Those two always seemed more wired alike from what he said. He was proud as hell when she became an FBI agent.” Dirk shook his head, a bitter frown twisting his lips. “Can I see my sister now?”

  “The doctor said it’ll have to be a quick visit,” Faith said. “She needs rest.”

  “Of course,” Dirk said. “Whatever you say.”

  The three went into Macy’s room, and the big man stood silent, showing no signs of emotion as he moved closer to the bed and stood staring down at his sister. He didn’t speak, and he seemed to be inventorying her injuries.