Cut and Run(37)

They drove in silence, and she stared out at the clouds and blue sky. Soon side roads fed into smaller and smaller roads. She leaned toward her window as the first car she’d seen approached them.

“Sit lower in the seat,” he said.

When she didn’t move fast enough, he grabbed her wrist, twisting her arm until she cowered down. They drove for almost a half hour, and soon the lights of Austin glistened around her. He exited the main road and took several rights and lefts before pulling into a little neighborhood and into the garage of a house.

When the garage door closed behind them, he shut off the engine and came around to her side of the car. He hauled her out of the car and into the house. She had barely seconds to register her surroundings before he dragged her down a set of stairs and toward another door. Another prison.

He opened the door and flipped on a light. “Go on, get inside.”

This space was half the size of the other. The bed was a twin, and there was no kitchen table but only a side table with a microwave and packets of noodles and bottles of water. There was a toilet in the corner, but no bath or shower.

“This place is so small.”

“Don’t worry. You won’t be here long.” He grabbed a chain from under the bed. “Sit down. I need to put this on you.”

“I don’t need a chain. I won’t run.”

He shoved her toward the bed and forced her to sit, clamping the chain around her other ankle. “You fooled me once. You should see the damn bruise on my arm. So that’s not coming off you until the baby is born.”

Death in childbirth was rare in light of modern medicine, but that was in a hospital with doctors, nurses, and clean sheets. “If I have it alone, the baby’s chances of survival are so much lower.”

“I got it worked out. It’s been a while, but I’ve delivered babies before. But you better hurry up and have that baby. If it doesn’t come in the next week, I’ll cut it out of you.”





CHAPTER TWELVE

Tuesday, June 26, 6:00 p.m.

Hayden met Brogan at the Austin Police Department Forensic Science Division’s forensic lab. Melissa Savage, a technician who favored jeans, flats, and brightly colored Hawaiian shirts, greeted them. Her dark curly hair was wound into a ponytail, and several pencils stuck out at different angles.

“Gentlemen, come on back to the lab,” she said.

She walked with long, even strides as she led them toward a light table. She’d methodically arranged neat rows of Macy Crow’s belongings, which had been found in her backpack and in her pockets. Her bloodstained clothes, which had been cut away by the EMTs and emergency room doctors, were also present.

Among the belongings were a hairbrush, lipstick, mace, PowerBars, and receipts for food and gas and a withdrawal from an ATM. There were also her cracked cell phone, breath mints, and a hotel key.

“What about that phone?” Hayden asked. “Any record of calls? I hear she was trying to call me.”

“That’s correct,” Savage said. “But she was hit before she finished dialing. There’s a voicemail from Dr. McIntyre’s office.”

“They were trading messages,” he said. “What else is on the phone?”

“She also visited the website for the medical examiner’s office and did a search on Dr. McIntyre.”

“She saw a picture of her?” Hayden asked.

“It was on the page she pulled up.”

How had Macy been tipped off about Faith? Had she learned something when she’d visited Jack Crow’s trailer?

“No more calls,” Savage went on to say, “but Special Agent Crow did snap a selfie in what looks like her hotel room, as well as a picture of a missing person poster, all on the night she was attacked.” Savage opened the phone and showed the Rangers the pictures of the selfie and the missing person poster. “Remember Paige Sheldon?”

Paige. The name Macy had given the responding officer. “Sure. She was a pregnant teenager who vanished about eight months ago.”

Savage pulled up the case on her computer. It was the same picture on the flyer, but this one was more vivid, in color, and showcased her stunning looks. “She’s now nineteen, and according to the missing person report, she vanished in May,” Savage said.

“Why did Macy take a picture of her poster?” Hayden asked.

“Missing girls, runaways, and black market babies are the exact kind of case Macy Crow specializes in investigating.” Savage spoke the words as if she were saying Hayden’s thoughts out loud. “She’d have been drawn to a poster like Paige Sheldon’s.”

These cases got under Hayden’s skin because he remembered how Sierra used to talk to him about adoption. They had always known she couldn’t have children, so adoption had been the plan. They had just been referred for a mixed-race toddler when she’d been diagnosed with cancer. Adoption was put on hold, and whenever she was sick from the chemo, he’d remind her that one day she’d hold their baby in her arms.

“Is there a geotag on the picture?” Hayden asked.

“Yeah,” Savage said. “It was taken on Third Street outside a bar called Second Chances, which is two blocks from where she was struck by the vehicle.”

“Her old man gets brutally murdered. Macy’s in town less than five hours, visits a bar, takes the time to snap a picture of Paige Sheldon’s flyer, and then an attempt is made on her life,” Hayden said. “I want to talk to Paige Sheldon’s family. Macy Crow saw something, and I want to know what it was. What else did you find?”