Cut and Run(20)

As she walked, she saw another poster of Paige Sheldon. This one was torn and weather-beaten, and someone had written a mustache over her smiling lips. When did a missing girl become a damned joke?

Without thinking she snapped a picture of it with her phone. Might mean nothing, but better to have the reference at her fingertips.

Walking away from the bar down Third Street, she searched her phone for Mitchell Hayden’s phone number. Unlike Spider-Man’s sense, she did trust her own, and it was telling her that the morning was going to be too late to call the Rangers.

Just outside the arched entrance of Comal Pocket Park, she saw a homeless man. He was wearing an army-issue jacket and when he looked up, their gazes locked. For a quick instant he reminded her of Jack, and she wondered where Jack would have ended up without the salvage yard. Knowing she’d given her last twenty to the bartender, she crossed the street to an ATM, pulled out sixty bucks, and returned to him. She gave him twenty.

“Thanks, pretty lady,” he said.

“Don’t drink it. Get something to eat.”

“I will.” He crumpled the bill up into a tight fist. “I was just dreaming about a hamburger.”

“Now is the time to get one.” She thought about the poster of the girl and pulled it up on her phone. “Have you been around here long?”

“Years. This is my home.”

She showed him the picture. “Did you ever see this girl?”

“The missing girl.”

“That’s right. She vanished in May.”

“I saw her around. She wasn’t here long, though.”

“Where do you think she went?”

He shrugged. “People come and go. That’s the way it is.”

“Did the cops ever talk to you?” Macy asked.

His eyes narrowed. “Are you a cop?”

“No, man,” she lied. “Just a girl wondering if I’m even playing with the right puzzle pieces.”

He laughed. “That happens to me.”

She smiled as she studied the doodles made on the picture on the poster. “Seems like people have forgotten her. Like it’s all a joke.”

“People forget, but I don’t.”

“What do you remember?”

“She was nice. She was scared. She shouldn’t have been on the street.”

No kid should have. “When did you see her last?”

“I don’t remember.” He dropped his gaze and wrapped his arms around his folded knees.

Why the hell she was talking to a homeless guy in the middle of East Austin about this girl was beyond her.

“Okay, well, thanks anyway.”

He didn’t respond, and she figured the chances of him eating a hamburger were slim, but she kept moving down with her sights set on the car’s location and her attention on the search for the Ranger’s number.

What happened next came so fast.

Headlights flicked on and tires spun over the pavement, kicking up gravel. An engine revved and had her turning. She saw the headlights moving, the truck quickly picking up speed and aimed directly toward her. She started running and took a hard left onto Comal Street, pumping her arms, knowing the truck was gaining on her.

In the next instant, she felt metal crashing into the back of her left hip with such force it sent her flying to the right onto the pavement like she were no heavier than a rag doll. Her backpack flew into the shadows seconds before her head, back, and torso hit the ground hard. Brakes skidded and the tires kicked up rocks as the truck turned around.

Headlights glared on her broken body, and she knew one arm was bent at a sharp right angle and a femur bone jutted out of her thigh. A deep gash on her forehead oozed blood that dripped into her eyes, blurring her vision. Adrenaline rocketed through her body, but she knew it wouldn’t last much longer. She’d been careless, and it was going to cost her her life.

In the distance, she heard the homeless dude screaming as pain shot through her body. She raised her head slightly and saw that he was waving his arms as she struggled to hang on to consciousness. She tried to drag herself away, but pain paralyzed her.

Truck wheels screeched in reverse, away from the approach of the flashing blue lights of a cop car. Agony hammered her body as she looked up at the stars, heard the man yelling now for an ambulance.

Macy thought about Jack, her mother, Faith, and the stones she’d seen on that barren stretch of land. She thought about the poster of the missing girl. Would she also die like that lost girl and just be forgotten?

As much as Macy wanted to say something, she couldn’t form the words to whoever was now pressing two fingers to her throat.

“Hold on for me,” the woman said.

But Macy’s grip on consciousness was slipping fast as the darkness rose up around her, pried her fingers free, and sucked her under to what she accepted as death.





CHAPTER SEVEN

Tuesday, June 26, 4:00 a.m.

The early-morning air was humid and thick as Hayden pulled up to the flashing lights of three Austin cop cars parked on the perimeter of Comal Pocket Park. His partner’s black SUV was parked across the street, and a collection of news vans had already gathered down the block on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape.

Out of his vehicle, he drew in a deep breath and took a moment to settle his hat on his head before he strode down the side street toward the crime scene and the female uniformed officer. “I’m Captain Hayden with the Texas Rangers.”