Cut and Run(32)

It was at ten thirty p.m. when a hooded figure appeared. He kept his head down and hands in his pockets as he walked up to the truck, looked in through the front driver’s side window, and then walked past, disappearing from view. Not long after, he reappeared, and this time with no one around him, he cracked the side window with a glass punch. Glass shattered into the front seat, allowing him to shove a gloved hand inside. He popped the lock.

The thief kept his head down the entire time, as if he knew there were cameras around. He leaned under the steering wheel to hot-wire the ignition and drove off like he owned it. Not once did the camera get a good shot of his face.

“This guy’s good,” Hayden said.

“He’s likely scoped out this area before.”

And why was the million-dollar question. “Pull footage from the last couple of weeks, and go through it. We might catch whoever did this on camera.”

“Will do.”

“Did you find anything in Jack Crow’s bank accounts?”

“Crow had one bank account that he used for the salvage yard. He had one credit card that he rarely used,” Brogan said. “The bank account received odd cash deposits over the course of each month. Nothing more than a few hundred dollars, but that fits with a salvage yard business. He couldn’t have been laundering money through the account. The amounts are just too small.”

Brogan shuffled through a stack of credit card statements. “According to the one credit card statement, he bought groceries infrequently, but again, he never spent more than twenty or thirty bucks.”

“Any favorite haunts?”

“Maxwell’s is a local diner. Looks like he ate out there a lot.”

“I’ve been guilty of eating at the same pizza place for years,” Hayden said.

“And you’re telling me they know something about you?” Brogan asked.

“Maybe not me personally, but they have an idea of my schedule and if I ever ate with anyone. Same might hold true for Crow,” Hayden said.

Brogan nodded. “Worth a shot.”

“What about Crow’s phone records?”

“He called Macy two weeks ago, and they spoke for about half an hour. And he called Dirk five or six times in the same time period, but they never connected. He called a few local auto parts stores, but that’s about it,” Brogan said.

“Not a sociable guy.”

“Nope.”

“If he was into something, then he was smart enough to operate in cash. Ledbetter said he bought two phones,” Hayden said.

“He didn’t use a credit card when he bought them,” Brogan said. “I also did a background search on Crow. He joined the army when he was eighteen and stayed in a dozen years. That’s when his first wife divorced him. When he got out, he hooked up with Brenda Hamlin, married, and opened the salvage yard. He and his second wife never filed for divorce.”

“No jail time for Dirk?”

“None.”

“Double-check with Ledbetter about where he bought those phones. I want to see the footage from that store as well.”

Brogan grinned as he nodded. “‘Be a Texas Ranger,’ they said. ‘There’ll be nonstop action,’ they said.”

Hayden laughed, rose, crossed to a coffee machine, and refilled his cup. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, you’ll be bored off your ass. It’s during that one percent when all hell breaks loose that you can get your head blown off. What a rush.”



He looked at the list of neatly typed names. Jack Crow’s name was crossed out. Macy Crow’s name had not been crossed out, but circled. As tempted as he was to strike her name, he could not. He’d hit her hard with the truck, and he’d heard the bones crunching as her body careened off the metal bumper and sailed through the air. She’d struck the ground with tremendous force, and he’d seen blood everywhere when he glanced back in his side-view mirror.

The chances of her surviving last night were slim, but he’d yet to see the body. Death could be a fickle bitch sometimes.

He circled Macy’s name over and over, his pencil darkening the stark-white paper and then wearing it away. He should have squeezed her for information, but what was done was done.

Five names. Dirk Crow had also returned to town. Chances of him knowing much were slim, but he would leave nothing to chance.

After Dirk, that left three names, including Faith McIntyre. By rights she shouldn’t know anything. The first time she’d met Jack Crow, he was dead. But the old man might have known about her, and if he did, he might have tried to reach out. Their possible contact meant she had to remain on the list.

She was also on that Ranger’s radar, which meant he needed to be smart and bide his time. The Ranger was sharp and driven and could easily be trouble if not neutralized.



Faith was shaken and distracted when she arrived back at the medical examiner’s office. Her mind swirled with so many unanswered questions about herself, her parents, and how she was linked to the battered woman lying unconscious in the hospital bed.

She dropped her purse in the chair behind her desk and tossed her jacket over the back. She sat, pressed her palms to her cheeks, which now felt as if they were on fire.

The halls were quiet, the daily hum of activity gone, and five pink message slips lay in the middle of her desk. Her phone’s message light was blinking. It never stopped.