Christmas Justice (Carder Texas Connections #7)(45)
“You don’t have to do this,” James said. “We could leave together.”
He let out a harsh laugh. “I just tried. My daughter was killed in a car accident yesterday, along with her boyfriend and two others. I have a wife and son, and I’ve been told what will happen to them if I fail. I won’t try to leave again.”
He bent over James. “Now tell me something. Anything. Because I will protect my family. Even if you have to die for me to do it.”
James closed his eyes. He’d already lost one daughter. Just like this man, he would die to protect Laurel. “I can’t.”
Scorching heat set fire to his skin. James couldn’t stop the scream. Blistering pain, unlike anything he’d ever known.
Suddenly it was gone. James sagged in his chair. He caught his breath.
“Tell me,” the man said. “I can’t stop.”
From outside his prison cell, his captor’s words filtered through the bars. “You’ve arrived? Excellent. Strickland failed twice. You know what to do. Kill Bradley and Strickland. I want this hole plugged up today.”
*
THE BUILDINGS OF Trouble, Texas, were one story and far apart. Dawn had come, and the dim light brought with it visibility. For better or worse.
Garrett couldn’t afford to drive any closer on the highway. He turned onto the flat desert plain. “I’m not going in through the main drag. I’ll drive through the plains and come in on one of the side streets.”
“What about your friends?”
“They’ll be here soon.”
“But not before your meeting.” Laurel leaned forward. “You need backup, Garrett. You’re one of the walking wounded right now.”
She was right, but he had to think of Laurel and Molly first. “You have to watch your niece. She can’t afford to lose anyone else.”
Laurel hugged the little girl closer.
His cell phone rang.
With a quick movement, Laurel tugged at his wrist. He frowned, but eased the phone from his ear so she could hear.
“Galloway.”
“You should have answered Derek Bradley,” the voice said. “Traitor.”
Garrett cursed under his breath. No one knew about Daniel, so that information had to have come from James.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb, Sheriff. How close are you to your office?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Five minutes before I’m scheduled to kill your deputy. You’re cutting it close. The poor kid just broke into a sweat.”
“I said I’ll be there.”
“You have the woman with you?”
Garrett didn’t respond.
“If I don’t have your word that I’ll see her outside your office in fifteen minutes, the deputy dies now.”
He glanced at Laurel. She nodded.
His lips tightened. “She’ll be there.”
“And the girl?”
“For God’s sake, she’s only a child.”
A shotgun pump sounded through the phone.
“Damn it. All right, Molly will be there, too.”
“Excellent. Look, Sheriff, you play this right, and I might let the woman and girl live. But you try to double-cross me and I won’t hesitate to kill them. I’ve done it before.” The man paused. “I hear you have a lot of scars from the bomb. Too bad it went off before you were in the car with your wife and kid.”
“Strickland? You’re dead.”
“Guess we’re both hard to kill.”
The phone went dead.
Garrett’s mind whirled. He still hadn’t killed the bastard. What had he done?
Laurel rested her hand on Garrett’s shoulder, but he shook her away.
“Strickland killed my family and I let him leave that ravine.” Garrett couldn’t think, could barely feel. He’d failed. Again. This time Laurel and Molly might pay the price.
“He won’t get away with it,” Laurel said. She set her SIG on the front seat. “He killed my family, too. He’ll pay. Together, we’ll make sure of it.”
*
A BLACK ESCALADE pulled two blocks down from the sheriff’s office.
“There’s Bradley.” Shep Warner looked over at his new partner. Léon had an accent Shep couldn’t place, but he had some serious skills. The boss wouldn’t have brought him on otherwise. “I worked with him. He was good. Too good, I guess.”
“The boss wants him dead.”
Shep looked through a pair of Zeiss binoculars. “Someone’s in the backseat. Two people. A woman and a kid.”
Léon stiffened. “No one said anything about killing a kid.”
Shep took a quick image with his camera. “Boss will want to know about this.”
He hit Send and waited.
Immediately the phone rang.
“Where did you take this?” The computer-filtered voice always gave him a chill, with its inhuman tone. He had no idea who his boss was, just that his bank account was a lot more robust since he’d started the job. It was just business.
His new partner, Léon, unsettled him. Shep couldn’t quite pinpoint what felt wrong. He certainly was a surly bastard, like a robot. Well, if he didn’t work out, the boss had a means of making more than one person disappear, particularly when the government had already named anyone missing or disavowed.