“I said,” the man reached into his jacket and pulled the handle of a gun into view, “you’re coming with me.”
“But . . . “
The man pulled the van door open and directed Allan to get in. Allan didn’t move. The man pulled the gun into full view. Allan looked for help, seeing none. In that moment he knew there was nothing to do. He stepped toward the van.
“I don’t know you,” Allan protested as he neared the vehicle. “Where are you taking me?”
The man said nothing, pushing Allan into the van and ordered him to sit and remain quiet. He enforced his demand by showing Allan the pistol again. Allan did not say anything more. It wasn’t until the door slid shut, locking him away in darkness that he understood the significance of what the man had said. He had called Allan by his real name.
Chapter 79
(Four Corners)
Henry was released from the hospital early that morning. Mrs. Cutter picked him up and drove him home. As soon as they arrived, he insisted on returning to the city alone. Mrs. Cutter protested until Henry broke down and explained why. Ben had told him about the encounter he had with the stranger. The attorney told Henry of his intentions to bail Jack Bolder out of jail. He also explained how he would do everything he could to get the sorry son-of-a-bitch off, but he never wanted to see the man again.
Henry listened from where he lay in the hospital bed without much response. Ben obviously had his mind made up about the Cutter’s house guest. Henry, having spent so much time with the man, was not convinced. He spent the night considering what he knew about the stranger he found lying on the side of the road. It didn’t amount to much. Waking in the morning, he was still sure the man was not a murderer or the type to threaten his own attorney.
So, in the wee hours of morning he decided he would be there when Allan was released from jail. He believed the man when he said he was Allan Tuttle. He believed Allan’s wife was doing whatever she could to destroy her husband. He had no proof, only Allan’s word. Henry prided himself on reading people. He did not think Allan was pulling one over on him. And the easiest way to find out was a face to face confrontation. Ask him point blank for the truth. And whatever he said, Henry would look him in the eye and figure out if he was lying or not.
So, shortly after arriving at the house, Henry kissed Mrs. Cutter on the cheek and took the keys to her truck. He adjusted the seat and mirrors while Mrs. Cutter lectured him on the fine points of taking care of himself and her truck. After her speech he poked his head out the open window and kissed her full on the lips. She grinned at him and stepped away from the vehicle. A cloud of dust followed Henry all the way to the main road.
Now, sitting in his wife’s truck, he sat down the street from the jail waiting for Allan to come out. He saw Ben enter the building just after he parked. He figured it would not be long before Allan emerged a free man. It was nearly an hour later before he saw Ben come back out again. To Henry’s surprise, the attorney was alone. Henry was suddenly unsure what to do. Had Ben failed to bail him out? Was Allan already gone?
Even as the questions passed through Henry’s mind Allan stepped out onto the sidewalk. He stopped, looking around as if lost. Henry started the truck with the intention of pulling up to give him a ride. Before he could, Allan was running down the sidewalk. He stopped and a large man in a dark suit began talking to Allan, helping him into a van. The man then moved around to the driver’s side and drove away from the curb. Henry pulled into traffic and followed.
Sarah barely found a place to park before she saw Allan walking out of the jail. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Her hand moved to the seat beside her where the newly acquired pistol lay wrapped in newspaper. The man who sold it to her called it a Saturday night special. She wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. She was sure it wasn’t the price because it cost her a small fortune.
She knew she couldn’t just walk up to Allan and shoot him in broad daylight with all these witnesses around. She would have to wait until he was somewhere less populated. She suddenly wished the cabin had not burned to the ground. It would have been the perfect place. No neighbors for miles. No telephone. It would have been days, or even weeks before anyone found the body. The closest thing to that would be the ranch where Allan had been staying. It was isolated from neighbors which was good. There were also far more people there than Sarah wanted to run into. She wondered what she would do if she never got him alone.
For now, the priority was following him so she would know where he was and whom he was with. She put her car in gear and waited to see which way he would go. She had never tried to follow anyone before and felt a bit of a thrill with the whole undercover spy idea. She wondered if Dave would play along with her if she suggested a cat and mouse game. He could stalk her or she him. And when the stalker caught their prey; oh my, what fun. A sudden warmth rushed through her body. It was definitely something to think about.
The scene across the street from where she was parked caught her attention. A man, a large well-dressed man, was talking to Allan. She could not see the stranger’s face. In fact, all she could see was the hulking back, the thick slack-clad legs and the dark wavy hair, cut short, covering the back of a wide head. He was massive. Sarah did not know him, and she was sure she knew everyone Allan knew. At least everyone he knew before that fateful night he came home early.
This man did not appear to be someone Allan would be friendly toward. Although she could only see his back, Sarah was sure a man of that stature, a man who carried himself that way, would have no use for Allan Tuttle. Unless of course Allan hired him. She had heard of the contacts you can make in jail. You meet undesirables who can introduce you to undesirables. A network of criminals so vast you could find anyone to do anything, for a price. Was it possible Allan was hiring a man to kill her? After all the years she gave him, he was going to have her killed? What nerve.
The stranger reached for and opened the side door to the van and Allan vanished inside. The man walked around the van to the driver’s side and Sarah saw his face. It was not the face of a man you would want to meet alone in the dark. There was no humor in the eyes, no pleasantness in his expression. He was a serious man with no need for others. She read all of that in his face in the few seconds before he turned away again. If Allan hired this man to kill her, she was going to be dead. Unless, she got to Allan first.
Dave stopped by the station to talk to Philip. His partner wasn't there. It was no surprise to Dave. He was over an hour late. Philip was probably following up on a lead or still trying to prove Sarah Tuttle had something to do with her husband's death. Dave made a couple of calls, checked his messages. The second message was from Philip.
The message was very basic. Jack Bolder was making bail. He would be released within the hour. Philip was going to go to the jail and see if he could tail him. Where had he gone last night? Dave checked his watch. The message was left for him fifty minutes earlier. Bolder would be on the street soon.
Collecting his jacket, Dave returned to the parking garage to get his car. There was no use trying to find Philip. The detective was good at tailing suspects. He would be in a car other than his own and would blend into the crowd. If Jack Bolder was there, Philip would be nearby.
He drove down to the jail and started looking for a place to sit and watch. He would tail the man as well. Between the two of them there was no way he would slip away. He would wait until Jack was on the move to make contact with his partner. He did not want time to talk about what happened with Cutter beforehand. He was not ready to hear what Philip would have to say. He was absolutely not ready to talk about Sarah.
As he drove past the jail he thought he caught a glimpse of Henry Cutter quickly dismissing the idea as he knew the old rancher was in the hospital and his truck was in no condition to be driven. A short time later he thought he saw Sarah driving up. A honking horn made him glance away. Looking back, his new lover was gone. He decided he was imagining things. Why would she be there anyway?
Both were forgotten as soon as he saw Jack Bolder exit the jail and make his way to the sidewalk. Bolder ran a short distance and stopped to talk to a man Dave had never seen before. The detective was instantly alert. Was this Bolder’s accomplice? Was this the man he and Philip had been looking for? Watching the exchange between the two men and the fact that Jack got into the van was enough to convince Dave. They finally had him. They had a face to put with the mysterious partner. Dave quickly jotted down the license tag number. When he was ready, he would call it in. He looked around trying to locate Philip without success. The van moved into traffic with Dave two cars behind. The chase was on.
Philip was amazed. He was positioned in his car half a block away from the jail. He saw Henry Cutter pull up and park a large pickup on the opposite end of the street, the same side he was on. He watched his partner drive past him and pull into an inconspicuous spot across from the jail. He also watched Sarah Tuttle parallel park just a few cars away.
There were four of them. All watching for Jack Bolder to come out of the jail. He could not take his eyes off of Sarah’s car. The other two he understood. For the life of him, he could not think of one good reason for the Tuttle widow to be there. Before he could pursue the thought his attention was drawn away from her to the front door of the jail where Jack Bolder was emerging. He was moving slow, appeared to be looking for something or someone. Philip scanned the area. No one made a move to meet him. Jack descended the steps to the sidewalk still looking lost, broke into a run, and stopped suddenly. Philip decided he wasn’t looking for anyone at all.
From his angle he didn’t see the man in the suit until he stepped away from the van. The van was dark, nondescript. Philip wrote the tag number down on a pad he kept in the seat next to him. The man talked to Jack first, Philip noted. Although Jack talked to the man, he seemed a bit agitated. Not angry, taken aback. Jack glanced around before getting into the van. Philip thought he saw fear in Jack’s eyes. Still, he was only guessing and at the distance he was from the man, he could be wrong.
There was no mistaking what he saw next. As the large, suited man came around the front of the van, Philip could see him slip a gun into his jacket. Philip started his car and reached for his phone.
Chapter 80
(The Catch)
Peter was pleased with how smooth everything went down, almost exactly as he planned. He hoped he wouldn’t have to show his gun, too risky with the number of people on the street. He never really believed the man would get into the van without a little coercing. But now Tuttle was tucked away in the van and no one saw the weapon. No problem.
He looked in the rearview mirror, angled downward so he could see all of the van’s interior. After stealing the vehicle from the airport parking lot, he found an alley where he was blocked from view of the street and pulled the seats out of the back. He then took a can of black spray paint and painted over all of the windows in the back shell of the van. Finished, the interior looked awful with all the paint overlapping the plastic molding around the windows. From the outside it looked like the van had very dark tinted glass. Satisfied no one could see in he went to work disabling the interior handles so the doors couldn’t be opened from the inside.
Identifying the lawyer was simple enough, and threatening to kill him and his family if he didn’t get Bolder out of jail was nothing he hadn’t done before. In fact, everything about this job was going much better than he ever could have hoped for. Now, driving along the town’s main street looking for another location hidden from view, Peter glanced into his rearview mirror at his prisoner. The only light was what shone through the front windows and the windshield. That was more than enough for Peter to see the man sitting without expression, facing the side door of the van.
Turning corners the man steadied himself by putting a hand on the floor of the van. He was thrown back more than once with a thud as he hit the van wall. Peter grinned each time the man’s head hit the metal. He always enjoyed the pain involved with his work. It was the reason he was so good at what he did. His father told him at age ten, “Son. No matter what you do in life, make sure you enjoy it.” Soon after that he ran off with the woman from the apartment down the hall.
Peter, being a kid, assumed he meant to enjoy the games he played. His mother told him, after his father disappeared, it meant the man only did what he enjoyed which was usually screwing anything in a skirt. Again, at his age, he did not understand the meaning of what his mother was suggesting. From her tone, Peter gathered it wasn’t a good thing. He never understood the problem because to him his father was a great man. When he never came home again, he could only come to two conclusions: His mother had kicked his father out or some horrible evil had befallen him. The strain of not knowing irreparably damaged Peter’s relationship with his mother. It was years later that Peter learned the truth. His father was living with their former neighbor only two miles from their home. He never made an effort to see him or Stephanie. Peter paid a visit to his father and his new wife. Before leaving, he put a bullet in both their heads. And he enjoyed it.
His father’s wisdom was revealed to him at that time. Whether at work or home, life should be enjoyed. If it was a matter of leaving a family you did not want or a job you couldn’t stand, you did what made you happy. In Peter’s case it was inflicting pain. There was nothing better than watching a grown man beg for his life only to take it from him. It was what he enjoyed and it was what he was good at. He had his father to thank for it all. If his father had never left, he would have never killed him. He may never have learned the joy of inflicting pain.
He turned the next corner sharp and watched in the mirror as his prisoner tried in vain to keep his balance. The man’s head slammed against the side of the van and Peter smiled. When he found the right place it would be so much more enjoyable; using his own hands, looking directly into the man’s fear. He was here because the man behind him could cause his sister harm. Somehow that made it all that much more exhilarating. He would have to make this one suffer a little more, a little longer. For his sister.
Chapter 81
(The Van)
The van bounced and rocked as it moved. Allan was tossed and thrown about its interior. There were no seats for him to buckle himself into. The carpet under him was damp and sticky. The windows were black. Not tinted. Completely black as if they had been painted. He wondered who would paint their windows black and why. Glancing forward to where the driver sat he realized he had just met such a man. And thinking about the why, made his stomach turn.
The inside handles to the side and back doors were gone. There was no way to get out, not that getting out was an option while the man sped through traffic.
Allan studied his abductor a moment. He did not know the man. He was sure it would be best not to know him. Taking a sharp corner caused Allan to roll, his body slamming against the side of the van hitting his head on the framing. He looked forward and thought he caught a glimpse of the man smiling in the rearview mirror. Allan found it odd that a van with black windows would have a rearview mirror. The man’s eyes appeared in the reflection and what Allan saw there caused him to shiver in fear. He couldn’t look away fast enough.
If someone in the jail had told Allan his situation was only going to get worse, he would have never believed them. Now, being the prisoner of this large, crazed man with a gun made him wish he were back behind bars. He closed his eyes, thinking back on the events leading up to where he was now.
Everything began the day he came home early from Chicago, catching Sarah cheating on him. Considering her reaction, it was obviously not her first time. Allan believed they were a happy couple. He was happy. He assumed she was. Now he knew he was wrong.
He wondered when her feelings for him changed. She never gave him any indication she did not love him anymore. She greeted him with a hug and kiss every time he returned from his travels. She slept curled up next to him each night.
They complimented each other in everythin
g they did. Nothing ever seemed to be amiss as long as she was at his side. Working was never work. He would write, she would type and edit, he would rewrite. Anything he missed in the story line she would find. It was perfect. A perfect marriage. A perfect team. A perfect life. Nothing in their lives changed until the night he came home early. What had he missed?
The only explanation for the thug in the driver's seat, was that Sarah hired the man to kill him. No one else would have any reason for wanting him dead. It had become obvious to him no one else even knew he existed. The only people other than Sarah who knew him were dead. And soon he may join them.
The van turned another corner and Allan tried to catch his balance. Failing he was thrown against the side of the van hard enough he thought he might black out. He looked toward the front of the vehicle and this time he was positive he saw the man smiling. At that moment he knew. This man intended to kill him.
Chapter 82
(Pursuit)
Dave’s phone rang three times before he answered. He was steering through traffic with one hand as he pressed the talk button and put the phone to his ear. “Detective Parker here.”
“Dave, this is Philip,” he heard his partner say.
“Where are you?” Dave said.
“Two cars behind you,” Philip said.
Dave checked his rearview mirror. "I see you."
“We have a situation,” Philip said.
“Situation?” Dave said. “Can’t it wait?”
“The driver of the van is armed,” Philip said. “He has a gun under his jacket.”
“How do you know?”
“Saw it,” Philip said. “When he came around the front of the van I could see him putting it away.”
“Okay,” Dave said. “I’ll be cautious. Anything else?”
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