In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(90)

“Sounds good to me,” Peterson said. “We can always get one later to do a full search of the property. Let’s go.”

Tracy did not offer that Stephanie Cole could already be dead, and Peterson didn’t ask. He had the look of a man ready for a confrontation. Herr, on the other hand, looked nervous.

The three slid into the cab of a four-wheel-drive truck with a snow blade attached to the front bumper. Peterson drove east on West Second Street to North Stafford Avenue, cutting through several city blocks to Summit View Road. The streets in town had been cleared but not Summit View.

Peterson pointed to relatively fresh tire tracks quickly filling with snow. “Those would appear to confirm what you just told us.” He kept up the truck’s speed, whipping the steering wheel left and right around turns. Tracy, in the middle of the front seat, pitched and bounced with each bump in the road, unsuccessfully bracing herself with a hand on the dash. She’d driven on roads like this, in the snow, and she could tell this wasn’t Peterson’s first rodeo either. He followed the tracks around turns and drove up and down hills without lowering the blade. The thick snow tires plowed through the snow, and Peterson kept up the truck’s speed.

The tracks led them to a three-bar, metal-tube gate across a snow-covered road not much wider than the truck. Herr slid from the passenger seat and pulled a lock cutter from the truck bed. At the gate he bent to cut the chain but looked hesitant. He pulled the chain from the fence, holding it up for them to see.

The lock had already been cut.

Tracy got a bad feeling. Franklin would have known the combination to a lock on a fence leading to property they’d owned for decades.



Franklin had his head down and his hands in a hole in the ground inside the pump house. After half an hour freezing his ass off, he’d found the problem to be the pump. His fingers had gone numb, despite his blowing warm air on them to maintain some dexterity. He just about had the problem temporarily fixed; he’d have to eventually go into town and get a new one. He heard Evan shuffle into the building behind him.

“You through already?” Franklin said, not looking back. “Boy, you’re quick. Hand me the half-inch socket wrench.” He reached back with his arm.

“Your father hated it when the pump went out. One winter we had pipes bursting all over the Goddamn place.”

Franklin recognized the voice. He’d heard it more times than he had cared to over the course of his life.

Bibby.

He hated the man, hated him since he was a boy. Seemed Bibby had always been around, in the basement at the house and in the room at the back of the barn.

Franklin sat up and turned. “What are you doing here?”

Bibby stood in the door frame, the falling snow illuminating him. But he didn’t look like no angel, far from it. He looked like the piece of shit he’d always been.

“Good to see you too, Franklin.”

Bibby wore winter clothes—Carhartt pants, a heavy down jacket, boots, and a hat with earflaps. Jackpot stood at his side, his entire body wagging and jumping around like the ground was electrified. Bibby held a rifle, one that Franklin recognized.

“What are you doing with my dad’s deer rifle?”

“You’re a creature of habit, just like your dad. I knew I’d find you here, and I knew I could count on your dad not changing the lock on the gun closet.”

“What the hell are you doing here, Bibby?” Franklin asked again. He no longer feared the man. Age had a way of evening out the odds.

“I’m looking for the girl, Franklin. I know you got her here because you’re too smart to keep her at your home with the police going over it. You were always the smart one.”

Franklin kept the pipe wrench in his hand, wiped it with a rag. The police were searching the home. “What girl are you talking about?”

Bibby laughed. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Franklin didn’t respond. He kept his face placid, not giving anything away. “The police are at the house?”

Bibby smiled. “And you know what they’re going to find under the floor in the basement. They brought the dogs. Dogs can smell the dead.”

It had been the reason Franklin never moved from the house. He had wanted to, many times, but he couldn’t very well sell it to someone, not with his daddy’s and Bibby’s “hobbies” buried beneath the basement floor. What was he going to say, that he didn’t know about it? That wasn’t going to fly. They’d think he had something to do with it, he and his two brothers. His father had screwed them all. He’d screwed them good. Franklin figured he’d live there until he died. Then he’d no longer give a shit.

“Have you added to our hobby?” Bibby said.

“I ain’t my daddy. And I sure as shit ain’t you. We don’t have no girl at the house.”

“Not anymore you don’t.” Bibby smiled.

“I told you. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now get the hell out of here.”

“I think you do know what I’m talking about. And I’ll shoot you right here and find her myself. Evan with her? I’ll kill him too.” Bibby leveled the rifle, the stock under his arm. “They might find you when the snow melts, but given that nobody has been up this way in years, I doubt it. You’ll rot right here in the pump house, though I imagine the animals will take most of you.”