Texan's Baby (16 page)

“What about?” Ryan had good reasons for being protective of his brother after they'd learned that the sheriff had been targeting him for years.

“It's about Melanie. Actually, it's about Jordan Sprigs.”

“Whoa. Hold on there. Jordan Sprigs?” Ryan asked. “Beckett Alcorn's partner?”

“The very same one.”

“What does Justin have to do with him?” Ryan asked, hesitant.

“Nothing personally. The two were in the same grade and I'm hoping that Justin can tell me something about the guy.”

“Hold on. I'll conference him in right now,” Ryan said.

Dawson's social media page made a ping noise. He had a message. He opened his laptop. Sure enough, there was a message from Tabitha.

Haven't seen Abby in two days. She didn't leave a note. It was weird. I'm at work but I'll call you later.

A heavy feeling pressed down on Dawson. He typed a thank-you along with his number as Justin came on the line.

Ryan let his brother know that Dawson was listening, and then asked Justin if he knew Jordan Sprigs.

“Not really,” Justin said after exchanging greetings with Dawson. “He was strange, though.”

“What kind of strange?” Dawson asked.

“At first we thought his mom was some kind of witch because she always wore plain dark clothes when she came to school to pick him up. She was a scary-looking woman, wild eyes and stringy hair. And she was strict.” Justin paused, thinking. “I heard rumors about some of her punishments.”

“Was it anything like what we went through with Dad?” Ryan asked.

“Nothing at all. What we went through was normal compared to what this crazy witch did. She was all religious but not in the ‘have a glass of wine on Friday and then go to church on Sunday' way. I heard she used to routinely perform exorcisms when he disagreed with her or got a bad grade on a test. At first, I didn't take it seriously because I just thought kids were being cruel, but then I noticed how bad he looked some days and could tell he was being tender with his bruises.”

“That sounds like a breeding ground for a psycho,” Ryan interjected.

“Most of it could just be rumor and exaggeration. You know how that stuff takes on a life of its own. Couple it with the fact that the guy didn't act like a normal person and the rumor mill goes wild,” Justin said. “There's someone who would know for certain what went on at the Sprigs house, and that's Peter Sheffield.”

“The reporter?” Dawson asked.

“Yeah. He's right there in town.” Justin paused, and Dawson could hear shouting in the background. “Girls, Daddy's on the phone.”

Giggles followed by an apology came through next.

“Sorry. They have a knack for finding me anytime I'm on my cell. It's like they have me on radar or something,” Justin said, but he didn't sound the least bit upset. Maybe it was part of the parenting territory and he'd grown used to it.

Dawson thanked Justin for the lead. “I'm in Mason Ridge, so it'll be easy to track down Sheffield.”

The guy wasn't popular among Dawson's friends because of the way he'd hounded Rebecca for a story about her brother.

They ended the conversation with Ryan saying they needed to get together again soon.

A quick call to the station and within five minutes Dawson had Sheffield on the line.

“I've been told by Justin Hughes that you knew Jordan Sprigs in high school,” Dawson started after identifying himself.

“I don't know how well I knew him. We were in the same grade, as was Justin. Why? What's this about?” Sheffield asked.

“Do you know anything about his background?”

“Not much other than the fact that his father died when Jordan was still young and then his mother snapped,” Sheffield said.

“How so?”

“She was weirdly religious to begin with, but when his father died she really jumped off the crazy ledge.” Sheffield was being guarded with his responses and Dawson knew the guy was holding back. “Everyone in law enforcement is looking for him now that Alcorn rolled. What do you want with the guy?”

“My reasons for finding him are more of a personal nature.” Dawson didn't have a good bargaining chip, so he figured honesty was his only hope.

Sheffield seemed to perk up. “What did he do to you?”

“He's fixated on someone who is important to me. And if I don't find him, he might kill her.”

“And who is this person Sprigs is interested in?” Sheffield asked.

Again, honesty was the only course of action that made sense. If Dawson had another route, he'd gladly take it. “Melanie Dixon.”

Sheffield made a strangled cough noise into the phone. “I thought she moved away a couple of years ago.”

“She did. Mostly, to get away from him.” That part wasn't one hundred percent truth, but Dawson figured he could fudge a little under the circumstances. And what was up with Sheffield's reaction?

“Where is she now?” he asked.

“She's being watched carefully,” Dawson said.

“You don't know or you won't tell?” Sheffield asked, picking up on the nuisance of Dawson's language.

“I honestly don't know.” That was true enough. And he cursed the fact that he didn't. “Will you tell me what you know about Sprigs?”

“Are you close to the investigation?” Sheffield seemed to be hesitating, deciding.

“Close enough to let you know the minute Sprigs is in custody.” Dawson figured he'd throw that in for good measure. It remained to be seen if he could deliver on the promise, but a phone call once Sprigs was locked up wouldn't hurt anything.

“That's a deal.” Sheffield seemed to perk up even more. “Sprigs and I weren't friends, but I had to stop over at his house to take homework to him once. He'd been out sick and we had the same homeroom teacher. He lived two blocks over, so I got stuck with the job. Inside, the place was strange. There was a wooden altar that had been constructed in the corner of the living room. I'd heard rumors that he had to kneel at that thing until the devil left him. I thought people were making it up. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that could be true.”

“Sounds crazy.”

“He'd come to class looking zonked and some of the kids said he literally had to sleep kneeling the entire time some nights. He did something wrong and he had to pray.” Sheffield paused. “No one said for sure, but there were whispers of abuse. Spare the rod and all that.”

“What couldn't be removed by praying she'd beat out of him?” Dawson asked.

“Something like that. You heard that rumor, too?”

“It was all around school,” Dawson said. “I didn't take it seriously.”

“Me neither. Until I saw that house,” Sheffield said. “Then I believed all the rumors. The one about her locking him into a closet for days on end to pray. The one about her starving him so the devil wouldn't have anything to feed off of. And especially the one about her beating him with a pickax handle.”

“Sounds like the experience left an impression on you,” Dawson said. He could only imagine what it would be like to grow up in a twisted house like that.

“The craziest times apparently happened when she used the candles on him,” Sheffield said.

That was the reason he liked to burn things.

“What about his mother? Did you see her? Is she still around? She could walk right past me on the street and I wouldn't know it,” Dawson said.

“Yeah, I did before. A few years ago she moved them to a trailer on the outskirts of town.”

Now it was Dawson's turn to perk up. “You have an address?”

“Not exactly, but there aren't many places out there. It's where Old Saw Mill Road meets FM 46. Sits on a couple acres. There isn't much else out there.”

“And what about her? What does she look like?” Dawson asked.

Sheffield blew out a breath. “I haven't seen her in years, but I remember that she was fairly attractive before. Homely because of the way she dressed, but she had nice features, you know. Her hair was long, blond and she had big brown doe eyes.”

Just like Melanie.

Chapter Eighteen

Dawson thanked Sheffield and ended the call. Randall had to have known about Sprigs's mother and chose to keep that information to himself. The logical reason was that Randall wouldn't be able to share information about an ongoing investigation, and Dawson realized that on some level.

Of course, given that his family hung in the balance, it still burned through him to realize information sharing was mostly a one-way street.

Maybe Dawson could interview Sprigs's mother. Get a clue as to where her son might be hiding. He loaded his shotgun and tucked it away safely on the floorboard in the backseat of his SUV.

It took forty-five minutes to drive to the area Sheffield had mentioned. A few wrong turns later and he managed to find a trailer that looked as if it belonged on an episode of a cop show.

His phone buzzed, so he pulled off to the side of the drive where he could keep an eye on the front door of the trailer while he answered. His phone didn't recognize the number.

“Hello, this is Tabitha.” She had that perky college coed voice.

“Thank you for calling. I'm a friend of Melanie's. She's worried about her sister and asked me to help find Abby.” That was all the information Tabitha needed to make a decision as to whether or not she should trust him.

“When you find her, tell her the rent is due,” Tabitha quipped. There wasn't a hint of worry in her voice. Maybe Abby had disappeared before? “She forgot to leave a check and I don't need this kind of stress to start off the semester.”

“Will do.” Dawson paused. “You have any idea where she could've gone?”

“None. And she's not answering any of my calls.”

“There's a guy in the photos online and her sister thinks she has a new boyfriend,” Dawson said.

“Oh, yeah. His name is Bradly. They've been spending a lot of time together lately. I should've called him first,” Tabitha said.

“Does Bradly have a last name?”

“I'm not sure. You know who would, though? Carlton. Let me check with him and get back to you,” she said.

“I'd like to hear from you as soon as you know.”

“You don't think something's happened to her, do you?” she asked, and it was the first time she sounded truly alarmed.

“I hope not.”

“She could be somewhere out of cell range, or there've been a few times she forgot her charger.” Tabitha's voice rose the more she spoke. She was beginning to see the possibilities that both Melanie and Dawson feared.

He hadn't intended to scare Abby's roommate. But then, he needed some urgency on this, and that was one way to get it.

Dawson ended the call and then phoned Randall.

Staring at the trailer, Dawson figured he'd better go in armed with information.

“What do you know about Ruth Sprigs?” Dawson asked as soon as Randall answered.

“That she'd most likely do anything to cover for her son,” Randall said. At least he didn't lie about it.

“So you interviewed her?”

“Yes. Her and everyone else I could find connected to her son.” Randall's tone was matter-of-fact. “There's news out of Houston. Someone is watching the apartment and we think it might be him.”

It was too early to hope, but if that was true then Sprigs couldn't be hiding out at his mother's trailer. Although that was probably too obvious anyway. “Is his mother involved in illegal activity?”

“No connection has been established,” Randall said in a convincing tone.

“If I told you I was staring at her trailer, would you give me some advice?” Dawson figured it was now or never and he needed to know how concerned law enforcement was about her.

“Yes. Plenty. Are you alone right now?” Randall asked.

“Yes,” Dawson said.

“Then get out of there.”

“I've made it this far. I'm not turning back,” Dawson said, and he meant it.

“Then wait. Let me send someone out there for backup,” Randall said.

“You get anything out of her before?”

“No.” Again, he was being honest.

“I might. I'm local and she might be more willing to talk to me.”

“She's a few cards short of a deck,” Randall said. “And I don't want you anywhere near that place.”

“I might be able to help,” Dawson said. “To end this once and for all.”

“Let my people do their jobs.”

Dawson understood Randall's position. It had been weeks since this whole ordeal began with Melanie and so much longer than that if they really went back to the beginning. What did anyone have to show for it?

Sure, Beckett Alcorn was in jail. At least for now. Wasn't it Randall who'd said it was only a matter of time before Alcorn's fancy lawyers got him out on some technicality? Stories like his littered the news.

Dawson couldn't risk it. His family was at stake.

“I gotta go,” he said before ending the call to the background noise of Randall's protests.

The area was thickly wooded and the nearest major street was a good twenty minutes away. There was no way to sneak up because the road only led to one place, the trailer.

Even though the property consisted of several acres, there was a fence around the trailer, giving the impression of an enclosed front and backyard.

Dawson turned his SUV around and parked on the lane outside the fence. No one had opened the front door, which meant they were either content to watch him from the window or not home.

The trailer was old, the metal fence rusted. There was a beat-up tire tied to a tree in the side yard. It was the kind of place he expected to see a Rottweiler chained out front.

In fact, Dawson scanned the yard for animal feces as he breached the gate.

He took a deep breath and caught wind of something awful, a stench like rotting meat left out in 110 degree weather. The closer he stepped toward the trailer, the more pungent the odor. It was something worse than trash left to sour. There was something oddly sweet but overpowering about this scent. And it made him want to puke.

Dawson pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth to filter the air he breathed. It helped a little. He took the two makeshift wooden steps to the trailer in one stride and then knocked on the door.

There were no barking dogs and he sighed in relief. The last thing he needed was an encounter with a pit bull.

Then again, there was no noise at all.

He pressed his forehead to the glass, trying to get a look inside. The blinds were closed and with the bright sun to his back he caught a glare off the window.

The smell was about to double him over as he walked around to the back of the trailer. He hoped to see a metal trash barrel full of rotting garbage instead of what he most feared.

Melanie was fine, she was with Randall or one of his men. It was Abby he was worried about. And that was what prompted him to break the law and kick the back door open.

As soon as the door flew open, the stench cloaked him.

Dawson stumbled a step backward, tripping down the makeshift staircase and landing on his back. The wind knocked out of him.

Jumping to his feet, he curled his arm around his face, nose to the crook of his arm, to stave off the nauseating odor.

He gripped his cell in his other hand and called back the last number he'd phoned just as he glimpsed a female body slumped over in a plaid recliner. He couldn't get a good enough look at it to tell if it was Melanie's sister, and since he had no idea if the murderer was still around, he had no plans to run inside to check.

“There's been a murder,” Dawson said.

“Get out of there,” Randall said. “We're on our way.”

Dawson jogged over to his SUV. It would be safe to wait inside there and he needed a break from the overwhelming stench or he was about to toss his breakfast.

Even running the engine and turning the AC on high couldn't completely get rid of the smell that clung to his shirt like Louisiana humidity.

Staying alert, he waited for one of Randall's men to show.

Much to his surprise, the sedan that pulled in was driven by Randall. He parked next to Dawson and it looked as though he instructed Melanie to stay in the vehicle.

“We were the closest to you. I've alerted local law enforcement and they're on the way. We don't make a move until they get here,” Randall said.

“She shouldn't be here,” Dawson said to Randall as he exited the car and closed the door.

“We had a situation, so we had to transfer her to my vehicle,” Randall said. “I couldn't leave you here alone or risk the crime scene being tampered with by the sheriff. Especially after learning about his relationship with the Alcorn family. This case has been mishandled dating back to the abductions fifteen years ago.”

Dawson couldn't argue with that point. And he'd had his suspicions about Sheriff Brine's integrity along the way.

“We need to take a walk,” Dawson said.

Randall followed to a spot where Dawson was sure Melanie couldn't overhear what he needed to tell the agent.

“Her sister is missing and I didn't get a good enough look at who was inside there to know if it was Abby,” Dawson said.

“Based on the smell and the heat, this person has been in there for a few days at least. I'm guessing there'll be significant decomposition given the circumstances.”

“Meaning?” Dawson asked.

“Even if I walked inside right now, I might not be able to determine who it is.”

“The body was too small to be a man's,” Dawson said. “That much I could tell.”

“Then we're dealing with a woman, his mother, or possibly a child,” Randall replied.

Dawson's stomach churned as he thought about the possibilities. Given Sprigs's history, it could be either. Based on the size, Dawson's money was on a female.

“We'll bring in a team to analyze the crime scene,” Randall said. “It'll take a little while to process. You leave messages with her sister?”

Dawson nodded.

“Then let's hope she calls back soon.”

“She's been missing for three days.” Dawson moved to the parked sedan. The door opened and Melanie climbed out, holding Mason against her chest.

“What is that smell?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“You might want to stay inside with Mason and keep the AC on,” Dawson said, leaning in to kiss Mason's forehead and then Melanie's before urging them back inside. He didn't want to get too close while he had the dead body stench all over him.

“Dada.” Mason's face lit up.

“I'm here, buddy.” He looked at Melanie. “And I'm not going anywhere.”

She squeezed his arm. “We need to talk.”

“We will. Soon.” He had no intention of letting her disappear again without knowing how he really felt about her and Mason.

“Did you find out anything about Abby?” she asked.

“Her roommate is trying to reach Bradly?”

“That's a good sign. She's done this before when she meets someone,” Melanie said, looking a little relieved.

“She's planning to call me back here in a few minutes,” he said. He hoped that was all there was to it. Abby had met a new guy and had fallen off the radar. If that was true then Tabitha could be calling back with good news soon.

Melanie smiled tentatively, nodding as she climbed inside the cab.

He closed the door and then instructed her to lock it, feeling a small sense of relief when he heard sirens in the distance.

By the time he turned around, Randall was on the phone. Good. Maybe there'd be an update about when other law enforcement officers would be there and Randall could take Melanie far away. Dawson had a bad feeling about her being anywhere near this place, and God forbid her sister be the one inside that trailer. The two were close and Dawson knew it would destroy Melanie if anything had happened to Abby.

The most likely scenario was that the body in there belonged to Sprigs's mother. And there was a less likely possibility that it was a child. In general, Sprigs and Alcorn took younger kids, three years old and younger. The only cases of older children being taken had to do with Kramer's greediness and nothing to do with the operation.

“There's a problem,” Randall said to Dawson as soon as he ended the call.

Dawson didn't like the sound of that. He'd been catching the occasional whiff of something he couldn't immediately identify. He wrote it off as whatever was in that trailer.

“Emergency vehicles can't get through.”

When he really thought about it, the sirens hadn't moved closer in the past few seconds. “What's going on? Someone blocking the road?”

“Not someone, some
thing
.” Randall looked Dawson directly in the eye. “Fire.”

The opening to the lane was far away and there were enough trees around to block their vision. Plus, the stench would mask the smoke, at least for a while.

And that meant one thing... Sprigs was there.

Dawson marched over to his SUV and pulled out his shotgun. “We'll have a better chance of getting out of here alive if we take my SUV.”

“There's only one road in and out,” Randall said.

“Then we'll have to make our own way out the back,” Dawson countered. He ushered Melanie and Mason out of the sedan and grabbed the car seat with his free hand. He locked it dead center in his backseat.

Randall was on the phone again. “They're battling the blaze as they look for a way out for us through satellite pictures of the property.”

“Being here isn't going to help us. I can get us through that clearing.” Dawson pointed to a place opposite the entrance. “Find out where that'll take us, because we're not staying here. That's exactly what he wants and he could be anywhere.”

The land was fairly flat in this part of North Texas, and that made traversing the terrain a bit easier as Dawson navigated as far away from the trailer as possible. The main problem was trees. They were getting closer together and Randall had already warned that there was a creek coming up that would block their path. Being inside the SUV offered some shelter and Dawson didn't like the idea of leaving its safety.