Cop by Her Side (The Mysteries of Angel Butte) (22 page)

“I feel guilty.”

He lifted his head. “Because your niece is still missing and you don’t feel like you should grab even a few minutes of happiness?”

She nodded.

“You know there’s nothing more we can do tonight.”

“I do know.”

“Damn, Jane,” he muttered, bending to press soft kisses on her forehead. “Do you know how much I want to wake up in the morning with you?”

Her heart gave a quick, hard squeeze. “No. But...I’d like that, too.”

“Soon,” he said against her lips.

“Yes,” she whispered, just before his mouth claimed hers.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
HE
DRIVE
-
THROUGH
at McDonald’s? Really?

Nothing Jane had heard about Glenn Arnett made her think he was a fast-food kind of guy, but who knew? According to the deputies who’d spent the day in visual distance of Stillwell Trucking, neither he nor Stillwell had left the building since their arrivals that day at 8:12 a.m. and 7:43 a.m., respectively. Maybe Glenn had forgotten his lunch and was starved. Maybe his wife was planning a dinner party and he detested the entrée she’d insisted on.

Seeing that a couple of bags were being passed to him, Jane amended her speculation. Maybe he was taking dinner home.

Jane bent her head and pretended to be digging in her purse when the Escalade started forward almost directly toward where she was parked at the curb, signaled and made a left then accelerated away from her.

Her phone rang. Clay.

“Stillwell went by the hospital,” he said tersely. “He’s in there right now.”

“Even if he gets in to Lissa...”

“What about Drew?”

“I primed him to tell anyone who asks that she doesn’t remember what happened,” Jane said.

“What’s really worrying me are the nurses. We could have been overheard talking to your sister.”

Oh, God. Jane didn’t remember paying attention at all to whether anyone else was near. “Surely they’re expected to be discreet.”

His grunt echoed what she knew to be true—people liked to talk, and they especially liked to talk when they knew something no one else did.

“You got anything?” he asked.

“Arnett went through the McDonald’s drive-through.”

A moment of blank silence was followed by, “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. But we’re moving again.”

“All right.” He was gone.

At the moment, the dark blue Escalade appeared to be en route to the Arnetts’ home. Which was probably exactly where he was going, Jane thought, fear swooping toward her, a hawk casting a dark shadow as it descended.

This was going to be a bust. Jane knew it. She would spend the entire evening sitting a block from Arnett’s house waiting for something to happen that never would. Of course a CPA wasn’t checking daily on a kidnapped kid! Assuming he even knew about the kidnapping. Once Lissa had started blackmailing Stillwell, he’d probably made a phone call and said, “Take care of her.” He might be agitated now because whoever was supposed to do the job had failed so abysmally, but that didn’t mean he knew anything about Bree’s whereabouts or what Lissa had seen or not seen.

And Arnett? Drug traffickers hired muscle for the ugly stuff; they didn’t send their accountant, for heaven’s sake.

She and Clay were running out of ideas.
Oh, Bree.

She tuned sharply back in when she realized the Escalade had not made the logical turn to take Glenn Arnett to his house a block from the Deschutes River in Old Town Angel Butte. Instead he was continuing sedately toward the outskirts of town.

Taking the burgers and fries to his son at work? She had no idea if the boy—Josh, if memory served her—even had an after-school job.

But they passed the city limits, generously drawn after last year’s annexation, and Jane was forced to drop even farther back as cars she’d been hovering behind turned off. The road narrowed and acquired a yellow line down the middle. There’d been some development out here, but mostly of houses on at least one-acre lots. The land was becoming forested, which meant as the road wound, she lost sight of the Escalade. Plus side was, he would be less likely to notice her behind him.

She came around a bend and her pulse picked up when she saw only open road ahead. No—another road turned off to the right only. A flicker of red brake lights reassured her, and she turned, too. Now there was no other vehicle between them. She told herself he’d have no reason to guess she was working the case or that he was a suspect, and even if he did, he was unlikely to know what she drove. Besides, half the people in central Oregon drove sports utility vehicles of one kind or another.

It was another half a mile before he turned again, this time into a driveway that cut through a stand of ponderosa pines beyond which was a vast swath of lawn. Jane slowed to verify that the Escalade was indeed slowing and stopping in front of a two-story house with a steep pitched roof and a three-car garage. She automatically took in the address on the side of the mailbox before she continued past, debating her next step.

Turn into the next driveway, she decided. With luck, nobody would be home.

At least nobody was outside. Trees screened the house from the neighbor’s, enough that she doubted Glenn would notice a vehicle parked here. She had to get out and walk partway through the narrow band of woods to see him on the porch, the bags from McDonald’s in his hand. She couldn’t tell whether he was using a key to let himself into the house, or whether someone had opened the door. A moment later, he’d disappeared inside and the door closed.

Her phone vibrated. Walking back to her Yukon, she answered. “Clay?”

“Stillwell still hasn’t come out,” he said. “What about Arnett?”

She told him where she was. He promised to call back as soon as he had the owner’s name. Jane took the time to trot up to the front porch of the house she sat in front of and ring the doorbell, manufacturing a cover story as she waited. To her relief, no one appeared to be home.

Clay called before anything happened next door. A Gerald and Helen Taylor owned the property in question. With Jane still on the line, Clay looked up DMV records and was able to tell her that Gerald was sixty-nine, his wife a year older. Clean driving records, no criminal history.

“Wait,” she said, interrupting him midword. “The garage door is opening.”

“Jane, can he see you?”

She ignored his alarmed question. “He’s pushing a ride-on lawn mower out.” Arnett disappeared into the recesses of the garage again and reemerged with a red gas can.

He’d changed clothes, she realized belatedly, and was now dressed for yard work.

“Okay, this is really strange.”

“What’s so strange? He gobbled a quick burger and fries and now he’s going to mow the lawn.”

“Gerald Taylor’s lawn. Why would he do that?”

“Friends?”

“This is a really upscale house. People like this hire a lawn service when they’re away, they don’t ask their accountant buddy to stop by and mow.”

“Crap,” Clay said suddenly. “There’s Stillwell. He’s walking fast, and he doesn’t look happy. He’s getting into his Land Rover.” Pause. “Already has his phone to his ear.”

The mower next door started with a roar. Arnett’s back was to her as he steered the mower in a straight line toward the far property line. As smooth as that lawn was, he couldn’t be cutting more than a quarter inch or so. People who didn’t water their lawns weren’t having to bother mowing at all this late in the summer.

“Hold on,” Jane said, set down the phone and grabbed her binoculars. There was definitely a vehicle in the garage. She wanted to see it. If she got a little closer...

“Jane?”

“I’ll call you back,” she said and cut the connection.

She made her way between trees, glad she didn’t have to worry about whether she made noise or not. By the time she got into a better position to see into the garage, the mower was heading her way, and she tried to make herself skinny behind the bole of the largest tree. The roar grew louder as she stayed completely still, her body locked with tension. Then the sound changed subtly and she eased to the side to see that Glenn had started back the way he’d come.

Carefully, she lifted the binoculars, first surveying the house. Drapes and blinds at several of the windows were closed. Nobody was visible through the few uncovered windows.

Then she focused on the opening into the three-car garage.

What she saw sent her racing back to her SUV. She couldn’t take a chance of the mower cutting out and Glenn overhearing her voice. She took a minute to do some online research before she called Clay back.

“Goddamn it!” he roared. “Where the hell did you go?”

“Clay, listen to me.”

“No, you listen to me. I think Stillwell is on his way to the Taylors’. We’re not five minutes away.”

“Clay,” she said, “I got a look into the garage. The first bay is empty. That’s where Arnett took the mower out through. The one car I can see in there is a Lexus. And it’s silver.”

He swore again, then said, “Who are these people?”

“I think they’re Glenn’s parents-in-law. Remember I mentioned that article in the paper about his wife chairing the event? I had this niggle of a memory and I just went back and looked it up again. Her name is Lois Taylor Arnett.”

“What if Mom and Dad are away?” Clay had calmed down, but she didn’t fool herself that he was relaxed. “Great place to stash the kid, and Glenn even has an excuse to go out there regularly.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Where are you?”

She told him. Not a minute later, a vehicle turned into the Taylors’ driveway. Through the trees, she saw it was a shiny SUV, a sort of pearlescent tan. Stillwell drove a Land Rover, she remembered.

Itching to sneak through the woods and get a better look, she waited for Clay’s Jeep.

“Jane?”

She jumped six inches. He was standing right beside her open driver’s side door. “You sneaked up on me!”

“I parked across the road. Let’s get where we can see what’s happening.”

Once again she was reduced to trailing him through the narrow band of woods, wishing she had the ability to move as silently and surreptitiously as he did. His khaki-colored chinos and brown polo shirt were good camouflage, too. Her jeans and green T-shirt were subtly wrong, the green just a little too bright.

The ride-on mower abruptly fell silent and she winced as a branch cracked under her foot right then.

But when she followed Clay’s example and knelt beside him as they reached the last hint of anything that could be called a blind, a clump of what she thought were salmonberries, she realized it didn’t matter what she was wearing or what small sounds she’d made in getting close. The mower abandoned twenty feet away, the two men stood face-to-face in the driveway, engaged in an intense conversation. Neither was looking around.

Stillwell gestured sharply toward the house. Arnett scowled and appeared to argue. Stillwell’s next gesture, a slice of his hand, was even more emphatic. Expression unhappy, Arnett nodded.

“Jesus,” Clay murmured. “There’s someone else in the house.”

“What?”

“Eleven o’clock.”

It had to be a bedroom window. She couldn’t make out more than fingers parting the blinds enough for someone to watch the scene in the driveway.

Not a child, she realized right away, or probably even a woman. Whoever it was had to be tall.

“That son of a bitch is going to leave.”

Jane switched her attention back to the driveway, where Stillwell was indeed backing away.

Glenn Arnett looked angry. He must have raised his voice, because, straining, Jane caught a few words. “Why am I...?”

“Because you’re the idiot who left your laptop where anyone could browse through it,” Clay said under his breath.

James Stillwell snapped a reply she couldn’t make out, got into his Land Rover, backed in a semicircle and drove away. Arnett watched him go, his face suffused with fiery red and his hands knotted into fists.

Clay lowered his binoculars, his expression grim. “I should have called for backup. Hell. A warrant.”

“You think he was just ordered to get rid of her.”

His gaze met hers squarely. “You have a different interpretation?”

After a moment, she shook her head. Her heart drummed. Not only did they lack backup, they also had no idea how many people were in that house, how well armed they were, even in what part of the house Bree was being held. They each had one handgun, one magazine each, no flash bangs to confuse their opponents or any other embroidery on the basics.

With sudden terror, she knew Clay would insist they wait. He hadn’t wanted her being part of the raid to rescue Matt Raynor. He’d never accept her, a woman, as his partner in a high-risk operation like this one, where they’d be going in blind.

A low, viciously uttered expletive came to her ears. She switched her panicked gaze to Glenn Arnett in time to see him swing around and stalk toward the open garage.

“Clay,” she whispered. Begged, when her whole body strained to tear across the swath of lawn and follow Arnett into the dim interior of the garage.

* * *

C
LAY
COULD
NOT
freaking believe this was happening. Gazing down at Jane’s face, radiating intensity and desperation, he allowed himself one stricken moment of fear.

He could lose her. Have to watch her go down.

There was no chance to try for more complete intelligence, summon backup, arm themselves better. He’d give anything for a tactical vest—for Jane. He had one in the back of his Jeep...but Arnett was disappearing from sight, and they couldn’t spare even the couple of minutes it would take him to make his way to the road and back.

Either Arnett would prove to have enough conscience that he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to kill a little girl, or he’d do it fast, to get it over with. Or, hell, he’d order whatever scumbag was upstairs to kill the kid, so he could convince himself his own hands were still clean.

No time to do anything but go. Clay shoved the fear for Jane down deep. He couldn’t afford it right now. The truth was, he knew he was damn lucky he wasn’t here alone. Or—worse—that Jane was here alone. At least they’d had practice at this kind of rescue operation, Clay reasoned. And whether he liked the idea of her in danger or not, he’d seen her in action and knew she was good.

He had the fleeting memory of thinking he wanted her at his side pretty much always.
Watch what you wish for.

Yeah...but he couldn’t offhand think of another cop he’d rather have at his back.

The soft sound of the door at the back of the garage opening and closing came to him.