The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(110)
“Don’t move.”
The voice came from behind her, slow and deliberate. She heard Fields step around the corner of the house and instantly calculated whether she was fast enough to spin and get off a shot.
“Let the gun drop from your hand, Crosswhite,” Fields said. “Let it drop, or I’ll drop you where you stand. I said, drop the gun.”
Tracy dropped the gun. It hit the wood porch with a dull thud. Inside the house, Orr and Andrea Strickland looked toward the window.
“Turn around.”
Tracy raised her hands—a subtle signal to the women inside the house—and turned to face Fields. Fields took another step from around the edge of the house, gun raised and pointed at her. Tracy knew she’d made the right decision. Fields would have shot her before she’d turned.
“You’re back awfully soon,” he said, kicking the gun away. “Much too quick to have located the local sheriff and made your phone calls. I’m guessing that when you got partway down the mountain you got cell reception about the same location I noticed that I’d lost it. And I’m betting you got an interesting piece of information concerning a certain guerilla e-mail account. Am I right?”
“Why, Fields?” Tracy asked, the words bitter in her mouth.
Fields smiled. “Why not?”
“When did you turn?”
“Turn? Interesting choice of words. Let’s just say I picked up a few bad habits working undercover. You see, I realized that with every bust there was all that money unaccounted for, untraceable, not to mention all that product. I’d spent all my time learning how they distributed it so as not to get caught. A fortune. I decided I was playing on the wrong side.”
“What about your wife? What about what she died for?”
Fields smiled but it was dark. “Well, let’s just say we didn’t see eye to eye on things when she found out.”
“You killed her.” Tracy nearly spat the words.
“Depends on your point of view. Drug bust gone wrong,” he said, still smiling. “It happens all the time. Agent gets in deep and someone blows her cover. Mine got blown right after they found out about her. No choice but to leave the area.”
Tracy had been so fixated on disliking Fields, she wondered whether she’d missed the signs—she could now vividly see all the evidence pointing directly at him. “So when you thought Andrea Strickland was dead, and that her husband had killed her, you saw a chance to get her money.”
“You met him. He certainly didn’t deserve it.”
“But you didn’t count on someone having the same thought, and beating you to it.”
“It was almost comical when you think about it, the way Devin Chambers played him. Beautiful, really. Poetic justice. She actually offered to split the money with me. I had to give her credit for ingenuity, but I couldn’t go through life worrying about her coming back or doing or saying something stupid.”
“And the Pierce County crab pot case, was that yours?”
“No, but I did admire that guy’s creativity. It’s even better than leaving a body in the desert for the animals to feed on. In that instance, you still got bones. Drop a crab pot in the water and there’s nothing left of the person, unless some kid hits a one-in-a-million snag and pulls up the pot.” He shook his head. “What are the odds, huh?”
“Yeah,” Tracy said. “What are the odds? But it doesn’t matter now, Fields. Look around you. Where are you going to go?”
His smile broadened. “Are you kidding? Anywhere in the world. I got everything in that bag I brought with me. Fake passports. Disguises. This gun—who knows where it came from? I used to pick these things up half a dozen at a time. It’s untraceable. So by the time anyone finds what’s left of the three of you out there, if they find you, I’ll be long gone. Hell, they might even think my body is out there somewhere too, dragged off by the wildlife. I take Orr’s car, or maybe the Jeep, and I drive out of here. I told you, Crosswhite, the desert used to be my home. Now it can be yours.”
CHAPTER 35
Fields directed Tracy back inside the house, where they both got a surprise. Penny Orr and Andrea Strickland no longer sat on the couch, and the shotgun no longer leaned against the river-rock fireplace.
“Shit,” Fields said, keeping the gun on Tracy as he moved to the back of the cabin and glanced into the room. Tracy felt a breeze from the bedroom and couldn’t help but smile.
Fields swore and removed the handcuffs from his belt. “Hug the post, Crosswhite.” He motioned to one of the two floor posts bracing the ceiling.
Tracy didn’t immediately move. “You know you’re not going to get away with this, Fields.” She wanted to give Andrea Strickland and Penny Orr as much time as possible to get away. Orr had said Strickland liked to read and to hike, that she had hiked these mountains growing up. Hopefully, Strickland knew the area well, knew its hiding places. Tracy doubted Fields would kill her and risk leaving blood in the cabin so she decided to push the situation.
“I’ve already called my office, Fields. My guys have people on the way. They know you were the guy who hired the skip tracer. Viola, seriously?” She laughed. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Fields stepped forward, the muzzle of the gun just a foot from her forehead. “I was thinking no one was going to find the body. Now, hug the damn post or I’ll drag your body into the mountains, shoot you, and let the animals eat your intestines. I don’t really give a shit.”