Sandman (28 page)

“Hey! What the hell’s up there?”

“An old box of Christmas ornaments which may or may not belong to the current occupants. A dead rat, a lot of spider webs and dust…”

“Dammit, Shadowhawk, quit fucking around! Have you found anything useful or not?”

“Maybe,” she said, her head now sticking out of the hole. “Take this.” She lowered a metal box into his outstretched hands. Then she backed out of the hole and dropped the last few feet to the floor. She was covered head to toe in dirt. Cobwebs clung to her jet-black hair. He picked them out while she dusted herself off.

“Let’s take this into the kitchen,” Thomas said.

By then the first officer had arrived. Thomas sent him back out to secure the scene. He carried the metal box to the counter and used his arm to clear a space. The box was locked. Shadowhawk appeared with a lock pick, and within seconds the box was open. She started pulling things out: A birth certificate, an old driver’s license, a key ring from Yosemite, a picture. It was of a beautiful young woman with long blonde hair parted in the middle, wearing a Mexican peasant dress holding a baby, circa the sixties or early seventies.

Shadowhawk waved the snapshot in the air.

“Remind you of anyone?”

Thomas examined it. “Could be anyone of our vics.”

“Exactly. But it’s hard to imagine this woman abusing her child. She looks kind.”

“Can’t tell a lot by a photo. God only knows what she was truly like.”

Shadowhawk lifted a birthday card and read it.

“Check this out.” She handed him the card, then reached into the box for more photos.

“This is from Meagan!” Thomas read on. Shadowhawk handed him a stack of pictures that all had one thing in common: Meagan. Meagan on the beach coming out of the water, Meagan riding a horse in a forest, and in the last one, Meagan holding up her left hand to show off an engagement ring.

“Holy shit!” Thomas gasped.

“What?” Shadowhawk stared at him.

“She told me about her ex-fiancé. She called him Jay, but what she was really calling him was J., as in the first letter of his name. Jordan Roberts wasn’t on the list because I’d asked her to name every man she’d dated in the last five years. That gave me everyone who had been in her life
since
she dumped his sorry ass.”

Thomas continued to stare at Meagan’s smiling face, while Shadowhawk inspected the remaining items in the box. She pulled out another stack of pictures, flipped through them, then handed them over for him to study.

“Gee, I guess he lied to us. I’m hurt.”

Thomas glanced down into the face of Cindy Gross.

“Well, if there was any doubt before, these prove otherwise.” He skimmed the remaining shots of Cindy in her bikini.

“Uh-huh,” She said without glancing up. Then she was silent while she read something in her hands. “Okay, here we go.” She handed him a newspaper clipping. “Looks like the father killed himself exactly like Brad Landis, bullet to the head. What are the odds?”

Thomas grabbed his cell phone and dialed. “Johnson, get me an address for an Edward Michael Roberts in San Juan Capistrano. I’ll call you right back.” He slipped the phone back in his pocket. “Come on, I think I know where he might be.” The detectives jumped into the BMW and headed south.

The minute they were on the freeway, he called Johnson back. She had the information.

“Wait” Thomas passed the phone to Shadowhawk. “Here, get the address and put it into the GPS so it can give us directions.”

The Ortega Highway exit loomed ahead, and Thomas took it. The car idled at the end of the off-ramp, while he waited to hear if he was heading east or west. He glanced at the red light, then back at Shadowhawk’s fumbling fingers. “Come on!” Just as the light turned green, the map came up on the screen and Thomas swung a hard left, tires screeching in his wake.

“Looks like the house is way out in the boonies,” she declared.

“Makes sense. No matter how loud you scream, there’s no one around to hear you.” Thomas imagined ripping Roberts apart limb by limb.

“What I don’t understand is why he held on to all that land? I mean, why the hell didn’t he sell it? It must be worth a friggin’ fortune!”

“Obviously his privacy was more important to him than money.”

Thomas was having a hard time concentrating on his partner’s inane conversation. Meagan held his thoughts captive. He had to find her alive; he couldn’t live without her. His mind flashed images of her, taunting him. Ramping up the panic already deep-seated within him.

The way her eyes lit up when she smiled, her hearty laugh, the way the sun danced across her auburn curls. Since the moment he’d met Meagan Laurel McInnis, his emotions had been in turmoil. No matter how hard he fought it, he knew he’d fallen in love with her.

I’m sorry, Victoria.

It’s all right. You belong together.

Thomas jumped in his seat. “What did you say?”

Shadowhawk stared at him. “I didn’t say anything.”

Great
,
now I’m having hallucinations of my dead wife talking to me. Maybe I do need a shrink after all!

FORTY-FIVE

“That’s the mailbox.” Shadowhawk pointed. “Turn here!”

Thomas jerked the wheel and took a hard right onto a dirt road sending a cloud of dust in their wake. It was a little while before he saw a farmhouse in the distance. Once Roberts’ car came into view, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Sweat etched his brow. The adrenaline pumping through his body had his legs twitching. He couldn’t wait to get out of the car. He heard his partner’s voice as if she were in a tunnel, calling for backup.

Thomas had barely put the car in park before he flung the door open. Shadowhawk’s hand shot out to grab his arm. “Wait!” But it was too late. She found herself clutching thin air. He raced toward the front of the house and landed next to the front door, back against the wall, gun pointed straight up.

“Shit!” She scrambled out of the car and caught up to him.

“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to wait for backup, could I?” she whispered. But one look at his determined face told her that was
not
going to happen.

Thomas reached out and twisted the doorknob. Unlocked. He motioned to his partner that he would take the lead. With fingertips pressed against the door, it slowly swung open and he eased into the house. Thomas pointed for her to take the right, while he went left. Within minutes they’d searched the entire house. It was empty.

He put his gun away. “What the hell?” With his hands on his hips, he did a 360.

“The barn!” Shadowhawk took off out the front door.

“What barn? I didn’t see any barn.” He followed her outside. Off in the distance, to the left of the house, there stood a barn. It must have been obscured by the trees as they drove up the road. By the time Thomas caught up to her, she was standing in the middle of the open space, shaking her head.

“Did you search top to bottom?”

Shadowhawk put her arms out, palms up. “There’s only one floor.”

Thomas took in his surroundings. A rusted-out John Deere tractor. Old farming equipment pushed to the outskirts. Hay littering the floor. Dead center, a puddle of fresh oil. The faint odor of manure still haunted the enclosure.

“That doesn’t seem right. What about a trap door?”

His body was drenched in sweat, his heart knocked loudly in his ears.
Where the hell is this sick fuck holding Meagan?
Frantically he searched the floor, pushing hay away with his feet, stomping, listening for a hollow thud. When Thomas came up empty, he turned to Shadowhawk.

“Dammit, I know they’re here! What are we missing?”

He fled the barn and circled the perimeter of the building. He found the cab of a semi parked in back as if in hiding. Thomas was on his second lap around the barn when he noticed something odd. He raced back inside. The tack room. It was too short. The outside wall was roughly another ten feet longer. He entered the room and scanned the floor. Before long he found a spot that had been cleared in a perfect arc.

Thomas pressed his hands against the wood until the wall popped open with a click and a door swung open. He pulled his Glock and soundlessly entered the room.

He was met with the back of a naked man kneeling on a table a few feet away. On either side of him were the legs of a woman, her ankles tied to the table underneath. The rest of her body obscured, but Thomas knew it was Meagan. Roberts was rambling something incoherent and waving his hands around wildly to emphasize his point.

Thomas stood rigid. His gun pointed at the man’s head. The urge to blow Roberts’s brains out immediately was tempered only by Meagan. From where she lay, she would be showered with blood and gray matter. That’s not something she would recover from real soon, so he lowered the gun and aimed at Roberts’s butt.

“Police. Get off the table and back up
real
slow,” Thomas hissed the words through gritted teeth. Rage shook his entire body. It took all the control he had to keep himself from unloading the gun’s entire magazine into the lunatic’s ass.

Roberts eased his way down and stood up without turning around. His arms were still in front of him. Thomas assumed he was using to the table to steady himself.

“Clasp your hands behind your head.” Thomas waited, but Roberts didn’t move. He couldn’t see the man’s hands, and that made him leery.

“I
said.
” Thomas’s jaw was clenched so tight he thought it might snap. “Clasp your hands behind your head. Now!”

Roberts spun around and lunged at Thomas with a large hunting knife. It slashed his arm. The gun fell to the floor. Thomas grabbed Roberts’s wrist and tried to wrestle the knife away. He fell back onto the ground with Roberts on top of him. They rolled across the floor under the table. Roberts ended up on top. Thomas scanned the area around him for the gun. It was out of reach.

It took both of his hands to keep Roberts from piercing his heart with the knife. Shadowhawk’s feet appeared in his peripheral vision. She kicked the gun within his reach. It was up to him. There was no way she could take the shot herself without endangering him as well.

He had to be quick. He didn’t have enough strength in only one arm to fend off this madman. Roberts had the advantage. He eyeballed the gun, then stared back into the eyes of the crazed killer. Thomas readied himself. He took a deep breath and focused all his strength. It was all or nothing.

Thomas rolled his body hard to the right. It was just enough to jerk Roberts off-kilter. He snatched the gun and brought it up in front of Roberts’s face. He squeezed the trigger without hesitation. The blast echoed through the small room. The look in his eyes was one of disbelief before his body toppled over sideways.

“Get this crazy motherfucker off of me!” Thomas shoved the body aside and jumped up.

The bullet had entered right between Roberts’s eyes and exited out the back of his head.

The Sandman was dead.

Finally.

Shadowhawk put her gun away and raced out of the room. She’d said something to him, but he wasn’t paying much attention.

Thomas rushed to the table and stopped. Meagan’s eyes were closed, her head lulled to the side. Her face was covered with perspiration, her hair damp, her porcelain skin ashen. Her body was smeared with blood. He couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but the dirt floor was thick with it. It was all over him as well. He looked like he’d rolled around in a bloody mud pit. The metallic stench accosted him.

All that blood.

Meagan’s blood.

God, no, I can’t be too late. Not again!

His head collapsed against her side. She was still warm. He stood up, pressed his fingers to her carotid artery, no pulse. He pushed harder and held his hand in place. It took a while, but finally he felt a faint slow rhythm. Relief washed over him. He swatted the tears standing in his eyes.

“Meagan, it’s time to wake up, honey.” He stared down at her and waited, but her eyes wouldn’t open. She didn’t move.

Just then Shadowhawk flew into the room. “How is she?”

“She’s lost a lot of blood, but she’s alive. Barely.”

“Backup’s just pulling in now. An ambulance is on the way.” She pulled out a pocketknife and went to work cutting the cords securing Meagan’s arms and feet.

Thomas took off his jacket and covered her body.

“It’s all right, you’re safe now.” He stroked her hair, and willed her to wake. Her eyelids quivered a bit, but didn’t open.

“Come on, baby, let me see those beautiful blue eyes of yours.” He choked back a sob, swallowed hard.

“You can do it.” He stroked her cheek with his finger.

Her lids fluttered, then opened.

“That’s my girl.” A chuckle of relief escaped.

“You found me,” her weak voice but a whisper. Her eyes eased shut.

“Yes, I did.” The tears he’d been holding back broke free, but he didn’t give a damn. He kissed her forehead. “And I’m never letting you go.”

FORTY-SIX

A few days later, Thomas pulled up in front of his house and parked on the street. He jumped out, ran around to the passenger side of the car, and hoisted Meagan into his arms.

“This isn’t necessary.” She smiled up at him.

“The doctor said you had to stay off that leg or you could rip out the stitches. So stop being stubborn.” His jaw was set.

“I do have crutches, you know.” Meagan was having a great time teasing the ever-so-serious Thomas. He had spent every day in the hospital by her side, and now insisted on taking care of her at his home. Not that she was complaining. It was pretty damn cute the way he treated her like a frail damsel in distress.

“Oh, yeah, like I’m going to watch you spend an hour trying to navigate these front steps?” Thomas acted so tough, but she knew better. He’d been terribly worried for her. That’s why she was letting him do things his way. Sort of. She couldn’t pass up this golden opportunity to badger him. Who knew when another moment like this would come along?