Guardian of Justice (13 page)

Dallas slowed down and turned into the first parking lot he found. “This is absurd. We’ve got to find out who it is, and what he wants.”

“What?” she said, horrified. “This is our date. Our first date. I’d like it not to be our last.”

“Are you going to enjoy it, worrying about the silver car?”

Why is this happening to us, God?She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. “Take me home, Dallas.”

“I’m just going to go back and get the plate number and have your brothers run it. We’ll go from there.”

“Given the time it would take to return to the restaurant, we may as well order a pizza and eat at my place. You can join me or go home, it’s up to you.”

They drove back in silence. Just her luck, their first date was ruined, and the car was gone.

SIXTEEN

For a few days Kira’s life seemed rather boring, in a wonderful sort of way. She and Dallas talked on the phone every evening, and with her routine pretty much back on track, she began to feel more secure. She hadn’t seen the silver car recently, which comforted her, yet left her slightly on edge, too.

Even though their first date had been a bust, they did arrange to go to church together. She couldn’t wait. Despite the difficulty of actually finding quiet time together, they were getting to know each other.

An hour before Dallas arrived to pick her up for the service, Cody’s foster mom called. “Kira, I’m sorry to bother you on a Sunday morning, but Cody’s gone.”

Kira was caught totally off guard. “Gone where?”

“I don’t know. Glen’s gone out on the motorcycle looking for him. I’ve called all of his friends, but no one has seen him. We had an early breakfast, did chores and were getting ready to go to church. He didn’t want to go. We sent him to his room to think about his options, and when we went to check on him a while later, he was gone.”

“I’ll get there as quickly as I can,” Kim exclaimed. As she drove out to their farm, she called Dallas to let him know she’d have to miss church.

“I’m going to contact the DEA agent, see if they’ve had any luck getting through to that phone, or heard anything about Sorento,” he told her.

Ten minutes later, he called back. “Pick me up on your way through town. They think they have a location on the phone this morning. Maybe we can spot him.”

By the time she got to Dallas’s house, the news had changed. “The phone has been turned off and they’ve lost the signal. When they picked it up, whoever it was was south of the Woods farm.”

“So Cody does have the phone?” Kira smacked the steering wheel. “Why won’t he tell us he has it?”

Dallas shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he was giving it to someone else. Let’s head out there, and maybe we’ll luck out and intercept him as he comes back to the house.”

Kira had a hunch that Cody had sneaked out of the house to use, dispose of or try to figure out what to do with the phone. She stopped a few miles from the farm and dialed the Woods’ number. “Deb, it’s Kira. Any word yet?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “I was going to call you, but I can’t talk right now.”

Kira could hear Glen’s voice in the background. He was obviously giving Cody a firm talking to.

“Do you want me to stop by?” Kira asked, careful to stick to a question that Deb could answer with a yes or no.

“No, we’re all on our way in to church. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“That’s fine. Do you mind if we look around outside for the phone while you’re gone?” Kira asked.

“Sure enough,” Deb said. “We’d appreciate it.”

Kira looked at Dallas and let out a deep breath of exasperation. “Deb gave us her blessing. Can you get any closer to where he was when he used that thing? I’m going to find that phone before it kills someone else.”

Dallas raised his dark eyebrows. “This is a side of you I don’t think I’ve seen before.” He opened his cell phone and called the agency back. “Can you give us the nearest crossroads to where the phone was used?” He paused. “No, I don’t have a global positioning anything. Just give me highways, streets or county roads.” He jotted numbers on his hand, then closed his phone. “We’re looking for County Roads 84 and 19.”

She turned south at the intersection of 86 and 19 and stepped on the gas so they wouldn’t happen upon Deb and Glen. They didn’t need to give Cody any more reasons to run today.

Kira pulled to the shoulder of the road and shut off the car. They got out and looked at the empty field. “There’s a tree over there. Maybe he hid it underneath. Where’s the Woods’ house?” Dallas asked.

Kira pointed to the north. “Somewhere that direction. They’re on County Road 86. I think their address is 18-something or in the 18,000’s, which means…” She turned and pointed toward the Rockies. “Numbers get larger as you go toward the mountains, so if this is County Road 19, they are east of here.”

“Two miles,” Dallas muttered. “May as well get started.”

Twenty minutes later, Kira and Dallas had searched every possible hiding spot within a half mile of the car and found nothing more than a plastic container filled with trinkets and notes, under an abandoned tractor.

They looked around every tree, in every ditch and gully, with no results. “This is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack,” Kira complained.

“Welcome to police work,” Dallas shot back.

Dallas started writing notes on his hand.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Drawing a treasure map. If we can’t figure out where it is, we need to make sure we know where it isn’t. I don’t want to search these fields more than once. Each road is a mile apart….”

Kira furrowed her brow. “How do you know that?”

“That’s the way our forefathers set up the grid for most counties. Too bad cities had to break that tradition. Which means Cody went at least two miles south of the house….” Dallas looked back toward the road and paused when he saw a maroon truck stop next to Kira’s car. “You don’t happen to recognize the pickup near your vehicle, do you?”

“No,” she said promptly.

“It’s probably the farmer, wondering what we’re doing out here. Come here,” he said, trying to sound casual.

She stepped toward Dallas. The truck drove past very slowly, turned onto the dirt road, then made a U-turn and drove back toward her car.

Kira’s fingers dug into Dallas’s forearm as he sidestepped to stay between her and the car. “You don’t suppose it’s the guy…Soprano, or whoever the big drug guy is, do you?”

“Sorento. No, the kingpin doesn’t—” Just then they heard a loud bang.

Kira jumped a mile, digging her fingernails even deeper into his skin. “Was that him?”

Dallas tried not to sound alarmed, but even he was beginning to get suspicious. The car wouldn’t do them much good with a flat tire. They had to move on, because he wasn’t about to convince her not to change the tire now. Not with a drug dealer shooting at them.

“No,” he lied. “Sounded like a car backfiring. Let’s keep going toward the foster home.” He pried her hand loose and held it tightly.

“Are you sure that wasn’t a gun?” Kira said, tugging her tennis shoe from the freshly turned farmland as he led her forward. “Hey, look. There are some bike tracks. That must be how Cody got clear out here and back so quickly.”

Dallas pulled her close. “Looks more like a motorcycle of some kind,” he said, picking up the pace. They came to the edge of the field and looked down a steep embankment into an irrigation canal. The pickup zoomed up the road toward them, “backfiring” as it approached.

“I don’t think that was the truck engine,” Kira said, her concern growing more evident. Dallas again put himself between her and the gun. He looked around for somewhere to take cover. The trees were on the other side of the canal, and there was only one way to cross it right now.

“Down into the canal, quick.” He stepped off the edge and slid down the earthen side to the bottom. Kira was still standing at the top, well out of his reach. “Come on!”

“Thank goodness I hadn’t changed into my church clothes yet.” As Kira said it, she took that leap of faith.

“At least they haven’t started running water yet!” Dallas said as he caught her at the bottom. They took off running, hoping the driver didn’t figure out they were down in the canal channel. Dallas took hold of her hand again, practically dragging her along. He heard the rattle of the truck, which screeched to a stop on the gravel road sixteen feet above them.

Dallas wasn’t sure if the shooter had a handgun or a rifle, but he only had one prayer. Keep us safe, God.Looking up, he saw a man sixty feet away, on the other side of a barbed-wire fence. A minute later, they heard shots fired again, and Dallas pushed Kira ahead of him. “Run faster, Kira. I don’t think that’s the landowner checking to be sure we’re okay. There’s a culvert ahead. Get in there and stay there,” he demanded.

“I hate bugs and rodents.”

“There isn’t really a choice. A gun, or the protection of a dirty culvert.” They reached the opening and Kira paused, then ducked into it.

“You aren’t even winded!” she said as she gasped for air. She knelt down. “Don’t you have your gun?”

He crouched next to her and tried to listen for the truck, or see if the shooter had followed them into the canal. “Of course I do, but I’m not going to get into a gunfight with you right next to me.” He pulled his gun from the small of his back and started to move closer to the opening. “Stay in here, just in case.”

“No, don’t you dare go back out there. I didn’t mean I wanted you to protect me. I…I just wondered.” She jumped up and ran toward him. “Please, Dallas, don’t go.”

“I have to—” He felt the ground above them rumble as a vehicle drove over. “He headed west, so we’re going back east again. There should be a small steel pipe running across the canal somewhere past where we dived in. It may have a wooden plank over it, but they’re old and wobbly, so we need to be careful.”

“I know, we used to play on them at my uncle’s farm, but don’t you dare tell my parents.”

“Like they’re going to punish you now?” Dallas said with a chuckle. “Run until you get to it, and climb back up and go to the nearest house.”

She grabbed his hand. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll be behind you. If we hear the clatter of the truck, I’m going to fire. You just keep running. Don’t stop for anything. Understand?”

She nodded, fear etched across her face. Kira ran, ignoring the uneven ground. Dallas sidestepped, watching the rim of the embankment for the shooter. God, don’t let me shoot an innocent bystander,he prayed.

A vehicle approached, but went on by.

“Keep going,” Dallas said as he caught up with her. “It’s not the truck.”

Ahead, Kira could see the pipe. “Are you sure we should try to go across that thing? I was considerably smaller when I went on them as a kid.” She looked over her shoulder, comforted to know he was just a few steps behind.

“I’m hoping we won’t have to go across it. We should be able to climb up the side to the road. Then we’ll have to get over the barbed-wire fence, through the borrow ditch, then to the road.” The one-foot-wide footbridge above the pipe was supported on each end by old pieces of broken concrete that had been piled there as cheap pylons.

“I’ve got to start exercising more often,” Kira panted.

Dallas took hold of her hand as she started to climb up the embankment. “Wait,” he said quietly as he examined the old concrete, tugging on several pieces to make sure it was secure. “I’ll go first, then I can pull you up.”

“What if he’s waiting up there?” she whispered.

“That’s the other reason I’m going first,” he said as he holstered his gun again.

Dallas made it as far as the pipe, then had to maneuver around it before studying the situation again. He planted his foot on the dried mud on one side, gingerly rested his arm on the plank and lifted himself onto it. The wood groaned with his weight.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Kira called softly.

He peered over the edge of the canal embankment and looked both directions. “It’s clear. Come on,” he said as he lay prone on the planks. The wood continued to protest.

“I meant the footbridge doesn’t sound like it’s going to hold you.”

“It only has to do so on a little while longer. Come on, before it decides to give up.”

Kira thanked God again that she had not come dressed for church. She scrambled up to the pipe without a problem, but looked at Dallas with trepidation when she saw the condition of the rotting wood. “How about if you get on the side of the ditch instead.”

“We’re fine, just take my hand for support and climb onto the dirt.”

She let go with one hand and lost her balance, tumbling to the bottom again. Dallas peered down at her. “You okay?”

She sat up and started up the side again. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I think.This time, she made it far enough to grasp his hand before she started sliding again.

“Don’t let go,” he demanded. Dallas squeezed her hand and grabbed her other arm, twisting his body to keep hold of her. The wood protested with a small snap. Dallas propped himself on his elbows and crawled to solid ground, Kira dangling from his hands. He backed away from the canal embankment as it crumbled beneath them. She felt Dallas’s strong hands squeezing hers tighter with each movement he made, pulling her with him. Finally, they were both back on solid ground.

Dallas collapsed into the dirt and took a deep breath. “Remind me to report that bridge to the water district.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the police department. “Sarge, I need you to put out a BOLO for a maroon pickup, Ford F-250, in the area of County Road 86 and 19.”

While Dallas explained the situation to the Sergeant, Kira rested her forearms on her knees, trying to catch her breath. The reality that someone had just fired at them began to sink in. She felt numb at the thought.

She looked around, wondering which was closer, the house or her car. Where was that maroon pickup now? Was the driver going to come back to finish them off, or had he just been trying to scare them away? And what did he want?