Cut and Run(12)

She opened the Maps app and found three saved addresses. When she pulled the first up, she discovered the location was twenty minutes west of here, and if her memory served, the area was remote. The second location was in East Austin. The third was in downtown Austin. “What the hell?”

If Jack had wanted to get her attention with the phone, he’d succeeded. He had left these addresses for a reason, and she sure as hell was going to check them out. The third address was 1213 Sabine Street and the least likely for Jack to visit, so she searched it first. The address matched the location of the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office. Interesting. She’d been in contact via voicemail with Faith McIntyre. Sometimes the world was a really small damn place. There was no staff page for the office, so she searched the site for “Faith McIntyre.” Service was unreliable out here at the salvage yard, and the phone was slow to pull up any links.

As she waited, someone pounded hard on the front door of the trailer. She tensed and reached for the Sig. “Who is it?”

“It’s Dirk Crow. Who the hell is in there?”

Dirk Crow. The brother she’d not seen since she was one or two. He was a stranger to her, but his voice had Jack’s familiar deep notes, and for an instant, she thought Pop had come back from the dead.

“It’s Macy Crow.” She holstered her gun as she walked to the front door.

She turned on the deck light, flicked back the curtain, and saw the large man standing with his feet braced and his hand behind his back. She’d bet money it was curled around a weapon. Dark hair brushed off a face that reminded her of Pop’s when she was a kid.

Dirk, nine years older than Macy, was the product of Jack’s first marriage. He knew how to bend the law like Jack had and was as good at flying under the radar as their pop. Dirk, however, had no trouble breaking laws.

When she opened the door, she found herself indeed staring at a younger version of her pop. “The prodigal daughter has returned,” she said.

He looked her up and down, his brown eyes wary. “Well, you sure are as white as I remember, Snowflake.”

“So I am,” she said.

Though they were Jack’s legacy, there was no real connection between the two. They shared no childhood memories, or even DNA since she was adopted.

“Who told you about Pop?” Dirk asked.

“The Texas Rangers. And you?”

“Got a voicemail from Ledbetter.” A small muscle pulsed in his jaw.

“You live on the property, and I bet the cops still had a hard time finding you,” she said.

“They did.” He shifted, his gaze narrowing as he looked at the lawn chair. “Ledbetter tells me Jack is at the morgue.”

“Yeah.”

“He wouldn’t want a funeral.”

“I know. I’ll have him cremated.”

“Why you?”

“Do you want to do it?” she asked.

“No. If you know anything about me, you know I don’t like to get into town, and last I checked the funeral home is in town.”

“Fair enough. That’s why I’ll do it.” Her brother lived somewhere on the property and from what Jack said was good at keeping an eye on things and keeping the varmints away. “Where were you yesterday?”

He rubbed his temple. “I was in El Paso on business. I came back as soon as I got the message.”

No sense asking what he’d been doing in El Paso. He’d not been here, and that was enough.

“Jack trusted you with all the paperwork,” he said. “Is there a will?”

“That’s the last thing on my mind right now. I want to know who killed Pop. Do you have any idea?”

Dirk’s nostrils thinned and he drew in a breath, and then he scratched the black-and-gray stubble on his chin. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”

“Because you’re the one who stuck around. You saw him all the time. And you’d know better than anyone if he’d done something to piss someone off.”

“I hadn’t seen Jack in over a week.”

“And if Jack were into something he shouldn’t have been, you wouldn’t try to hide it, would you?” she asked.

“What do I have to hide from an FBI agent, sister?” he asked.

“I doubt we have time to talk about all that you’re hiding, but unless it related to Pop, I don’t care.” She’d learned to bluff really well as an agent, knowing if she went in hot with a suspect and acted like she had the answers, they’d give up more than intended.

“Aren’t you the badass agent?” He shook his head as he rubbed a splintered spot on the deck with the tip of his worn boot.

“When’s the last time Jack went into Austin?” she asked.

“I have no idea.”

“What about the local diner near here?” she countered. “Had he been there lately?”

“He barely left the yard in the last year. Why are you so worked up about where he’s been? He was killed right here.”

“Our old man was tortured and murdered. Everything he did in the last few weeks matters to me. What he did and who he saw is all a part of the puzzle.”

Dirk shifted, as if he were trying to shake off the edginess that was eating at them both, but couldn’t manage it. “Jack serviced a rough crowd from time to time. He patched up some dangerous people.”