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“Call Cameron,” Tate said, the moment they got inside.
Wade grabbed his phone and hit speed dial, then waited for the call to be answered.
“Do you think it’s actually him?” Wade asked.
“The fact that it could be is concern enough. Using the left hand to carry the rifle, drives the same color and model truck, and has the same damn legs. That’s too many similarities to ignore.”
The call rang five times, then went to voice mail.
“He’s not answering,” Wade said. He left a quick “call me” message, then turned to Tate.
“Call the police and have them send a car to the trailer to check it out. In the meantime, we’re going back.”
Tate pressed harder on the gas pedal, his lips compressed into a thin line. He wouldn’t let himself think about what this might mean, or that they’d gotten too cocky about keeping Nola safe.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hershel was working under time constraints. Without knowing how soon the other two agents would come back, he had to consider his window of opportunity a narrow one. Because he needed to break the jinx, he had to replicate everything from that day, including what he’d been wearing. So he’d packed the same cap and uniform, the wig and mustache, and headed out the door carrying his bag and a baseball bat.
The vulture was still on the roof.
It’s an omen, Hershel. You shouldn’t do this.
“It’s not an omen, it’s just a big ugly bird,” he snapped, and tossed his things in the front seat of the truck.
But instead of driving out of the trailer park, he drove all the way to the back lot and pulled in behind the bushes around an abandoned trailer falling to pieces on its lot. He dressed quickly, put on the wig, affixed the mustache to his upper lip and then added bushy brown eyebrows over his own gray ones and got back in the truck.
This time, as he drove back toward the entrance, he was coming up on the Feds’ trailer from the back.
He parked his truck out in the street so it would not be immediately visible from the front or the back door, then grabbed the bat, slipped his Taser into the holster on his belt, went to the back door and knocked.
* * *
When Cameron heard the first knock, he thought for a moment Nola must have awakened and was thumping around in the back bathroom. But then he realized someone was actually knocking on the back door, which made him immediately wary.
He pulled his weapon as he got up, and then slipped down the hallway and looked out a window. When he saw a Queens Crossing officer standing on the steps holding a baseball bat, he frowned.
“What the hell?” he muttered, and with his gun still in his hand, opened the door.
Hershel was all business, as he knew an officer would be.
“Sorry to bother you, sir, but we’ve had a report of a missing kid who lives out here, and we’re checking every residence.” He held up the bat. “I saw this laying in the grass and need to check and see if it belongs to any of your kids.”
“No, no kids here,” Cameron said.
“Be on the lookout, okay? He’s ten years old, slight build, shaggy blond hair and blue eyes.”
Cameron was disarmed by the question. “Yeah, sure,” he said, and looked up and out across the backyard, which was exactly what Hershel was waiting for. He swung the bat, caught the agent on the side of the head and knocked him cold.
“Sorry about that,” Hershel said, and dragged him off the steps where he’d fallen. He laid the agent down in the grass beside the trailer skirt, then pulled his truck up to the back door.
He didn’t have any way of knowing where Nola Landry would be, but he had to look fast. He moved to the front of the house and realized it was empty, then started down the hall to the bedrooms. The two closest ones were empty, which left the master bedroom.
He turned the doorknob and peeked in, then couldn’t believe his luck. She was in bed asleep. He hurried toward the bed and shook her.
“Wake up,” he said.
“Huh? What?”