Stranger in Cold Creek (16 page)

“Hey there, Deputy.” Phil Neiman's voice echoed faintly in the cavernous building.

She rose and turned around with a smile. “Hey, Phil, I was wondering where you...” Her voice faltered as she saw the man standing behind her. “What the hell?”

Coy Taylor stood behind her, holding a large Smith & Wesson pointed at her heart. “I thought you'd never get here.”

* * *

M
IRANDA
WASN
'
T
ANSWERING
her phone. In fact, it seemed to be going straight to voice mail. John left his third message in the last fifteen minutes, not sure whether he was more frustrated or worried.

Someone needed to see what he'd found. It was possible, he supposed, that the sheriff's department had already decoded the entries themselves, but what if they hadn't? If Miranda was available, he'd ask her who Coy Taylor was, but since she wasn't answering, what was he supposed to do now?

He needed to find out who Coy Taylor was, for starters. And if he couldn't ask Miranda, maybe her father would know.

Gil Duncan answered on the third ring. “Duncan Hardware.”

“Mr. Duncan, it's John Blake.”

“Hey, John. What can I do for you?”

“Can you tell me who Coy Taylor is?”

There was a brief pause on Duncan's end of the call. “You haven't asked Miranda?”

“She's back on duty today and out on a call. I haven't been able to reach her, and I just needed to know why the name sounds so familiar.”

“Oh. Well, easy enough. He's one of the desk sergeants at the sheriff's department.”

John's blood iced over. “I see. I guess that's why it's familiar. Thanks.”

There was an odd tone to Duncan's voice when he replied, “Anytime.”

John hung up and stared at the deciphered note from Delta McGraw's journal.

Call Girl murder, Plainview. November 3. Coy Taylor in Plainview same day. Call Girl's friends said john was a cop.

Did Coy Taylor know that Miranda had found Delta's journal? And if so, what was he planning to do about it?

He retrieved his wallet and pulled Miranda's business card out of one of the pockets. Besides her personal phone number, the card also listed the sheriff's department main number.

Would Coy Taylor answer?

“Barstow County Sheriff's Department.”

“Is this Coy Taylor?”

“No, sir,” the voice on the other end replied. “He comes in after three. You want to leave a message for him?”

“No. Is Sheriff Randall available?”

John's question seemed to catch the other man by surprise. “Who's calling?”

“John Blake. I'm the man who helped Deputy Duncan the other day after her crash.”

“Right. Okay. I'll see if the sheriff has time to talk to you.”

After a brief pause, a different voice answered. “Mr. Blake, what can I do for you?”

“Sheriff, have you had a chance to examine that journal Delta McGraw left at Miranda's house?”

“I'm looking at it now.”

“Then you've seen the ciphers.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Ciphers?”

“The last two pages of the journal were written in cipher form.” He'd spent the last few minutes testing the rest of the encrypted entries using the Vigenère decryption website and the keyword
Miranda
. The rest of the entries had been about petty crimes like shoplifting, theft and another embezzlement case similar to the one involving the late Jasper Layton.

“These don't look like ciphers,” Randall disagreed.

John flipped back a couple of pages. “What's the last entry in the journal?”

“I can't share that with a civilian.”

“Sheriff, I'm looking at a copy of the journal.”

“You're what?”

“What's the last entry in the journal?”

After a tense pause, Randall said, “It's about a ranch hand at the Bar W who's been stealing money from the ranch's petty cash.”

John found the entry. It was on the last page before the encrypted entries started about halfway down the next page.

“Look at the journal—can you see any signs that pages have been removed?”

After a brief pause, Randall's voice rumbled over the phone. “You're telling me someone tampered with this journal?”

“Who entered the journal into evidence?”

“What kind of question—”

“Who?”

There was a rustling noise as the sheriff apparently checked the label on the evidence bag the journal was probably kept in when it wasn't being used. “Coy Taylor.”

Son of a bitch
, John thought. “Sheriff, I think we have a big problem.”

Chapter Sixteen

“What the hell's going on, Taylor?” Miranda dragged her gaze from the barrel of Taylor's Smith & Wesson to his face. “Where's Phil Neiman?”

“At home, I suppose.” Taylor gave a slight shrug. “How'd you like my Phil Neiman impression?”

“Not much.”

“It got you here.” Despite his smug tone, Taylor's gun hand shook a little, making Miranda's heart skip a beat, but he got the twitching under control. “Did you make copies of the journal?”

“What?”

“The journal.” His voice rose with tension. “Did you make any copies before you turned it in?”

Miranda's initial confusion and alarm had settled into a sort of alert tension. If she lied and told him no, what would keep him from shooting her on the spot?

Nothing.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Where are they?”

“If I tell you, you'll shoot me.”

“I'm going to shoot you anyway.” Taylor's tone remained calm, but she saw a hint of unease behind his dark eyes. “But if you'll tell me where to find the copies, at least your daddy might be spared.”

“Coy, this isn't you.”

His expression flattened. “Miranda, you don't know me. Nobody in this town really knows me. Nobody's ever really bothered to.”

Anger flared hot in her belly. “So that's why you're pointing a gun at me? Because you're so misunderstood?”

“Where are the copies of the journal? How many did you make?”

“Why does that matter?”

“How many did you make?” Taylor's voice rose, his face reddening.

“One. I made one.” She let her gaze fall back on his gun hand, trying to gauge her chances of disarming him. It would have helped a lot if she'd already drawn her gun before entering the building, but she hadn't suspected she'd be facing an armed man with murder on his mind. “You know the sheriff has the journal already. Whatever you're hoping to hide—it's too late.”

“He has part of the journal. He doesn't have all of it.” Taylor's lips curved in a nasty smile. “One of the perks of being the person who enters evidence into the properties room.”

“What did you do? Tear out the incriminating page?”

“Pages,” he said with a little shrug of his shoulders. “She put it in some sort of code. I removed the two coded pages.”

Why was he telling her this? Why hadn't he just shot her already? Because she had copies of the pages where his name was mentioned?

“How do you even know you're mentioned in that journal, then?”

“Because Delta tried to blackmail me, the stupid little bitch!” The last words came out in a spittle-flecked rage. “Did she think I'd do what she wanted because she had the goods on me? I'm not some sniveling little coward she could manipulate.”

“What did she want?”

“Money. She wanted money for that stupid whore's kids.” He shook his head. “She didn't know who she was messing with.”

“You killed her.”

Taylor looked at her as if she was an idiot. “Of course I did.”

“You're the one who drove me off the road.”

He didn't answer.

“Why? What did I do?” She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Or was it that you needed to get into my house and poke around a while?”

“I couldn't risk your coming back home before I had a chance to find it.” For a moment, Taylor almost looked troubled. “It's not what I wanted. I just didn't have any choice.”

“You knew about the journal already.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “Remove the mike.”

“What?”

“Your shoulder mike. Detach it from the receiver.” As she reached for it, he added, “Slow. No sudden movements.”

She unplugged the mike from the unit and held it out.

“Toss it on the floor in front of me.”

She did as he asked. He stomped on it with the heel of his boot. The plastic mike crunched under the blow, splitting apart. He gave it another hard stomp, mangling the wires inside.

“Phone?”

“It's not getting any reception.”

“I know. I'm blocking it.” He held out his free hand. “Hand it over.”

She pulled her phone from the pocket of her uniform pants and handed it to him.

He shoved it in his back pocket. “Now your weapon. Remove your utility belt. Don't touch the pistol.”

She unbuckled her belt and held it in front of her. He took it with his free hand and nodded toward her feet. “You packing an extra?”

“No.”

“Lie to me again and I'll call your daddy down here to join us.”

Biting back a furious retort, she pulled up the leg of her trousers and removed the ankle holster holding her spare pistol. She handed over the second holster, as well.

“Other leg?”

She lifted the pants leg to show him there wasn't another weapon.

“All right. We're getting in my car and we're going wherever you've got that copy of the journal hidden.”

“I'd be stupid to do that. You'd kill me the second I handed it over.”

“Don't you get it, Mandy? You're dead either way.”

“Then why should I help you?”

“Because I know where your daddy lives. And that might be the very next place I go to look for those pages if you don't lead me to them right now.”

She looked at Taylor, took in the ruddy cheeks, sandy hair and brown eyes she'd seen nearly every day for most of her life and realized she didn't even know who he was.

“What did you do? What did she have on you?”

He laughed. “Get moving. Out the back.”

She turned around slowly, her mind racing to piece together the fragments of the puzzle Coy Taylor's treachery had just presented. What had he said before?
She wanted money for that stupid whore's kids.

What kids? What woman?

“Who else did you kill?” she asked as she moved slowly toward the refinery building's back exit.

He didn't answer.

“You said Delta wanted money for someone's kids. Did you kill a woman?”

“She tried to roll me.”

“A prostitute?”

“Keep moving.”

The murder of a prostitute would be a big deal in Cold Creek. Not that they were exactly flush with prostitution in a town that size, where everybody knew everybody else's business.

But maybe Plainview. Or even Lubbock. He could have killed someone there.

“Was it an accident?” She tried to infuse her voice with sympathy. “Things just got out of hand?”

“Don't try to play me, Mandy.”

She was getting close to the door. Her options for escape were pretty slim at this point and getting slimmer all the time.

“Open the door,” Taylor ordered. “Slow.”

She opened the door slowly and started outside. Then, with a sharp spurt of action, she slammed the door shut behind her and started running for the front of the building.

She heard the door whip open behind her, the crack of Taylor's pistol and the ringing clang as the round hit the building only a couple of feet from her. She increased her speed, running all out, her long legs eating up big chunks of real estate.

She just had to get to the cruiser. The keys were still in her pocket and the car radio should still work.

It was her only chance at escape.

She skidded in the gravel as she took the corner and reached the front of the building, where her cruiser was parked. She had already made it to the front door when she realized something wasn't right.

Both tires on the driver's side were flat.

“Nowhere to run, Miranda!” Taylor called as he came around the building, laughter in his voice.

There was a shotgun in the trunk of the cruiser, but she'd never reach it before he ran her down and killed her.

To hell with that
, she thought, and jerked open the car door. Scrambling inside, she ducked instinctively when she heard the next shot, though by that time, the bullet had already hit the back door with a hard thump.

Please start
, she begged the cruiser as she stuck the key in the ignition and turned.

It rumbled to life, and a bubble of bleak laughter escaped her lips as she jerked it into gear and started driving.

The flat tires were less of a problem than they might have been, since the cruiser had been equipped with run-flat tires. But when she reached for the dash-mounted radio, she saw that Taylor hadn't settled for simply slashing her tires. The mike was missing on the dash unit, as well.

She looked around frantically in the seat and on the floorboards in the futile hope that he might have left the mike in the car. But it wasn't anywhere in sight, rending her radio useless.

And her phone was with Taylor.

Drive
, she thought.
Just drive. You may be miles from the next outpost of civilization, but you still have a chance. And make it harder for him to kill you without getting caught.

Make it harder for him.

Lifting her chin and gritting her teeth, she hit the siren switch.

* * *

“W
HERE
DID
YOU
get these?” Miles Randall frowned at the pages John laid on the desk in front of him.

There was no point in trying to cover for Miranda. “She made copies before she turned it in. She didn't want to be left off the Delta McGraw case.”

Randall's frown deepened, but John thought he spotted a hint of admiration in the sheriff's blue eyes, as well. “You deciphered this gibberish?” he asked, eyeing the ciphers Delta had used to encode the latter entries of the journal.

“I've had some experience dealing with ciphers.” John showed him the translation of Delta's notes about Coy Taylor. “Does this make sense to you?”

Putting on a pair of bifocals, Randall took a closer look at John's decryption. “Plainview, November 3?”

“Delta seemed to think it was significant that Taylor was in Plainview the same day as the hooker murder.”

“Seems pretty slim evidence.”

“Have you heard anything from Miranda yet?”

“No,” he admitted. “We tried radioing her a few minutes ago, but she's not answering. We also tried calling Phil Neiman, the man she was supposed to meet at the refinery, but he hasn't answered his phone yet.”

“Maybe that call she got wasn't legit.”

Randall frowned. “I can try Neiman again.”

John paced impatiently while the sheriff picked up his phone and made a call. After a moment, Randall spoke. “Phil? This is Miles Randall. We got a call from you earlier today about a break-in at the refinery?” As the sheriff listened to Neiman's response, his frown deepened to a scowl. “So, you didn't call? And there hasn't been a break-in?”

No, John thought, his chest tightening with fear. God, no.

“Thanks.” Randall hung up the phone and looked intently at John before he pushed the intercom button. “Bill, radio all available units. We need everyone we've got at the Westlake Refinery immediately.” He turned and grabbed the jacket hanging on his chair.

“I'm going, too,” John said as the sheriff tried to brush past him.

“Let us do our job.”

“I'm going,” John insisted, falling into step with Randall. “I can come along with you or I can go myself, but I'm going.”

Randall looked as if he would argue, but finally he gave a nod of defeat. “You ride with me.”

* * *

I
T
HADN
'
T
TAKEN
long for Taylor's blue Ford Taurus to catch up with the crippled cruiser, since the run-flat tires couldn't easily handle speeds above fifty miles per hour. Once she spotted the Taurus coming up fast behind her, however, she took the risk, pushing the speedometer needle over sixty-five.

At the higher speed, the cruiser shimmied and shook, forcing her to muscle the steering wheel to keep the cruiser on the road. But the alternative was to let him catch up with her. And if that happened, she wasn't sure she'd live through whatever he had planned for her.

But if she could hold on a little longer, there was a chance to get out of this mess alive. For the past few minutes, her dashboard radio had squawked with calls from the sheriff's department, trying to find her. She'd also heard a call to all available units to converge on the Westlake Refinery.

There were only so many ways to get to the refinery from Cold Creek, and she was driving down one of the main roads that led there. Sooner or later, one of those units would find her.

She just hoped it wouldn't be too late.

She passed a turnoff, tempted to take it, but she knew there wasn't an occupied dwelling down that road for another two miles. The road was bumpier and would be that much harder to navigate with the ruined tires, too. And it wasn't one of the main ways to reach the refinery.

She forced herself to keep going, focused on keeping the cruiser from spinning off the highway.

How could the killer be Taylor? She'd worked with him at the sheriff's department for the past six years. She'd known him a lot longer than that; he was a frequent patron of her father's hardware store. How could he be a cold-blooded killer and nobody realize it?

She didn't know much about his background, she realized. He wasn't a Cold Creek native; he'd moved there more than twenty years ago, when he was in his early twenties. He'd married a local girl, but the marriage hadn't lasted more than a year. His ex-wife was living somewhere in Dallas, Miranda thought. Or at least, that was the last thing she'd heard.

Was that when he'd started frequenting hookers?

Behind her, the sedan was moving closer, but she'd gotten a decent head start back at the refinery. Taylor had been forced to run back to retrieve his vehicle, a familiar-looking blue sedan with tinted windows that brought nerve-rattling memories of the day of her crash rushing back to her, including a few images she hadn't remembered before.