Touch of Red (Tracers #12)(85)

“Yes!”

“That’s good news for you?” He gave her a puzzled smile.

“Maybe.” Callie whipped out her phone and called Christine. “Hey, it’s Callie. You get hold of the wife yet?”

“She just showed up,” Christine said in a low voice. “I’m standing in her living room while she talks to the maid in the kitchen.”

“Does she know what’s going on?”

“Only that police are looking for her husband. The lieutenant didn’t want to freak her out, so I’m here by myself, but she seems pretty alarmed to see me. She’s got card tables set up here, and I get the impression she’s having friends over this afternoon.”

“Whatever. Listen, I need you to get her alone right now. Don’t give her time to call her attorney or anyone, you got that? Get her alone and ask her the location of her husband’s ranch property in Marshall County. It might be a deer lease.”

Pause. “Mahoney has a deer lease?”

“We have reason to believe so, but we don’t know where it is. Only that it’s most likely in Marshall County. Ask her. Now.”

“Hold on a sec.”

Callie glanced at Travis, who was sitting there watching her with those nice forearms folded over his chest. She couldn’t read the look in his eyes. “Sorry to interrupt you. You work in the ballistics lab, too?”

“Only when they’re backlogged. Which is pretty much always.”

“You like guns?”

He nodded. “You shoot?”

“Not if I can help it.”

He gave her a funny look, and Christine was back on the phone.

“Okay, she’s hedging, I can tell. Not exactly what you would call a cooperative witness.”

“What’d she say?” Callie gripped her phone, hoping for something usable.

“She claims she knows nothing about a ranch in Marshall County. Her husband used to have a deer lease there that he shared with his brother, but she said his brother died, and her husband hasn’t gone there in years.”

“Bullshit he hasn’t.” Callie huffed out a sigh. “I need an address.”

“I asked her that, but she swears that’s all she knows.”

“She’s lying. Talk to her again. Tell her if she doesn’t give you a location, you’re going to haul her ass to jail and charge her with obstruction of justice, child trafficking, and conspiracy to commit murder.”

“You seriously want me to say that to a judge’s wife? I mean, she’s got ladies in pearls showing up here for bridge right now.”

“You say it or I will! Put her on the phone. We need this information, and we don’t have time to dick around being polite!”

“Okay, just . . . hold on.”

Callie closed her eyes and waited, trying not to grind her teeth to nubs. Her phone beeped. It was an incoming call from Sean, but she ignored it.

“Callie?” Christine sounded breathless as she got back on. “Okay, she spilled.”

“Tell me you got an address.”

“I’m texting it now.”

“Yes! You’re my hero.”

She hung up with Christine and glanced at Travis, who was watching her with an amused look on his face.

“Thanks for your help,” she said as she rushed for the door. “I owe you.”

He smiled. “Definitely my pleasure.”

? ? ?

With every bump and lurch, pain rocketed through Brooke’s body. It seemed like hours now that she’d been knocking around on the floor of this car. With every minute that passed, she knew the chances of Sean or anyone else finding her were growing more and more remote.

Tears burned her eyes, but she squeezed them back, even though no one could see her crying beneath the hood or the T-shirt or whatever they’d wrapped around her head.

Breathe. Be calm. Think!

She had to come up with a plan. For Cameron. Whatever faint chance they had to get out of this depended on her, and she refused to lose hope. Refused. Even though logic told her it would be next to impossible for someone to find them in time. If someone had witnessed them leaving the gas station, that would be one thing. But there had been no sirens or even evasive maneuvers to indicate the driver was trying to outrun somebody.

No, they were off the grid. Defenseless. Just Brooke and an eleven-year-old boy and at least two armed men who were taking them somewhere extremely remote to do God only knew what.

Bile rose up in the back of Brooke’s throat.

She couldn’t let this happen. She had to do something. She pictured her body being dumped into a shallow grave. Then she pictured that grave being excavated. She pictured Sean standing nearby as people in white Tyvek suits dug her remains from the earth. He’d never get over it. He’d feel responsible, as though somehow this were his fault, even though he’d warned her over and over to stay away from his case.

She thought of sweet young Cameron, and her eyes filled again. She had to get it together and do something. He wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for her. She’d felt connected to him ever since she’d crouched inside that pantry, staring at those cookie crumbs and imagining how events had unfolded.

Why had she been so clever? So tenacious? So intent on proving to Sean and everyone else that she could glean every last speck of evidence from every crime scene? Deep down, she knew. She’d wanted to show off, to earn their respect. And by doing so she’d endangered the life of an innocent boy.