Wrecked (Josie Gray Mysteries #3)(38)
The anger he felt toward his dad at that moment made him want to sit on the floor and cry like a baby. He missed him. His dad was his best friend, the funniest person he’d ever met, the one who took care of him after his mom left them ten years before. His dad never complained about a single thing he had to do for Hec. He took him to the doctor, bought his school clothes, got him up for school every day. He knew parents who treated their kids like crap.
Hec knew what some people thought about his dad, but it wasn’t true. He just liked to deal, beat the system. That was his thing. But when he started messing with the cartel, he pushed it too far. And when Hec refused to leave with him, his dad had fought and yelled and even cried one night when he got lit on whiskey. Hec had told him that he didn’t want to live his life like a lie. So his dad finally left. No phone. No plan. No word on where he was going. Hec figured Canada, but that was just a guess.
He walked to the window that faced the back side of the property that ended in the river. Hec knew that men were watching him. They didn’t try to hide. When other people showed up, like the cops, the men took off, but as soon as the cops left, they came right back. Watching and waiting.
They’d already taken him once. Kidney punches and kicks to his gut so no one could tell he’d been beaten. He ran his tongue along the dried crack in his lip where he’d been punched for not answering a question.
Hec was a quiet kid and stayed out of trouble. He’d never been in a fistfight, not once all the way through high school. He didn’t even know how to duck when the men came at him, kicking their cowboy boots into his stomach until he thought he was going to die, right there in the dirt, down by the river. Finally, one of the men yelled and the others stopped. Two guys picked Hec up by his armpits and dragged him to a rowboat. They threw him in it and rowed across to Mexico. They held him at some house for a week, locked inside an empty bedroom. They asked him questions day and night, but Hec had nothing to say. He told the men the truth: his dad had told him nothing.
One of the men who spoke English finally pulled him off the floor and sat him in a chair. “We’re sending you home. You don’t leave the junkyard until your dad comes home. Your dad’s the only person who can set you free. We watch you day and night. You try to leave?” The man made a face and shrugged like it was no big deal. “We kill you.” He hadn’t left since.
*
Christina Handley’s apartment was located in Debby Williams’s renovated garage. Debby was the local middle school principal and caretaker for all who needed a break. She typically boarded teachers who were new to the area, with no family or friends to stay with while they found their own place. Debby had known that to entice a young person to accept a job located just outside two ghost towns in far West Texas, there had to be some extra incentive—support. In an effort to convince talented new teachers that Artemis was a worthy place to call home, Debby and her husband had renovated their detached garage, turning it into a one-bedroom efficiency apartment designed to accommodate a young person until he or she found permanent housing.
Otto pulled into the driveway of Debby’s two-story home, just a half block from Dillon’s home, and shut the jeep off. The house was made of chunky tan stone and had a red barrel-tile roof and brown shutters that surrounded long narrow windows. Otto wasn’t an expert on home styles, but the house reminded him of what one might see in the French countryside. It was a tasteful home that he and Delores had always admired.
Debby walked outside to greet him. They shook hands and then hugged. Debby was almost a foot shorter than Otto. She wore her hair short and carried herself as a professional, compassionate, and caring, but always in control.
“This is awful, Otto. I never would have imagined this could happen here.”
“It’s a scary time. When life means no more to these mercenaries than this.” He glanced back behind the Williams’s home to the garage apartment. “Twenty-four years old. Hadn’t even had time to make her mark on the world yet.”
“No time to be loved,” she said. She looked away, overcome with grief.
After a moment, Otto said, “I talked with her parents today at the memorial service. They want to go through her things. I explained that I need to check the apartment this afternoon. I may be able to allow them in tomorrow. They plan on flying her body home the day after tomorrow.”
“What do you need with the apartment?”
“I need to examine her records, her financial statements and so on. I have a search warrant.”
She gave him a startled look. “A search warrant?”
“It’s standard procedure. We can’t go barging into a deceased person’s home until a judge makes it legal.”
“Murders and search warrants. Kidnappings? This isn’t supposed to happen here,” she said.
Otto unfolded the search warrant and tried to hand it to her, but she merely glanced at it and waved it off.
“Any more information on Dillon?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said.
“I don’t know how Josie is holding herself together right now.”
“She’s running on adrenaline, but that only lasts for so long.”
“You know if there is anything John or I can do…” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her fingertip, trying to hold back tears.
“I appreciate that.”