Page 25 of Vanishing Point (Bent County Protectors #1)

Thomas screeched to a stop in front of Sunrise’s Fish ‘N’ Ammo, little more than a shed off the highway and in the very outskirts of Sunrise proper. He beat Rosalie to the door, but only narrowly.

There was a young man behind the counter, early twenties. Thomas didn’t recognize him but supposed he couldn’t know everyone in Bent County. “Is Vern here?”

The young man looked from Thomas to Rosalie. His eyes lingered on Rosalie. Who smiled wide and bright at the kid.

“Faster the better, sweetheart,” she said with a wink.

The guy blushed, then scurried out from behind the counter. “Yeah, sure.” He went into the back room and when he came out, Vern, followed.

He was a short, burly man in his late seventies who’d been running this hole-in-the-wall of a shop since Thomas could remember.

“Hart,” he offered gruffly. “Ma’am.”

Rosalie rolled her eyes, but she didn’t say anything.

“I’ve got a few questions about the incident you had here with a man on Saturday.”

“Out-of-towner,” Vern said with a sneer. “If it ain’t some dumb kid, it’s some out-of-towner.”

Hart nodded, trying to find some deeper well of patience left inside of him. “Sheriff told me you guys had a little argument.”

“That’s right. He comes in here, complains to my face, then thinks I’m going to sell to him? Fat chance. He got real agitated and I figured best if I had a deputy nearby. Had Gav here call the cops.” He jerked a thumb at the kid.

Gav nodded, still looking a little lovelorn in Rosalie’s direction. The Fish ‘N’ Ammo wasn’t exactly a hot spot for young people.

“He left though. He definitely wanted a fight, but something scared him off.” Vern shrugged.

“When he drove away, did you see which way he went?”

“Yeah, west into town.” Vern pointed out the door. “I talked to Gladys at the diner Saturday night, and she said she saw the car speed past, so I know he went that way.”

That was good information. Maybe. But west of Sunrise still wasn’t a location . Still, he thanked Vern, handed his card to the man with instructions to call if he returned or if Vern thought of anything else.

Before Thomas and Rosalie could leave and decide their next move, a bell tinkled above the door.

Jack Hudson strode in. He nodded his head at Vern, approached Thomas and Rosalie.

“Hart. Rosalie. Figured this’d be your first stop.

When Vern told me Gladys had seen the car too, I decided to go around and talk to the business owners along the highway and see if anyone else had seen the car.

We don’t get a lot of traffic all the way out here, so I figured we’d get a few mentions.

And I was right.” He pulled out a small spiral notebook from his front pocket, flipped a few pages.

“I can give you a list of all the people I talked to, all the places that saw him, but the most important sighting was outside the library. Dahlia, our librarian, happened to be locking up to head home. The guy flew by. She said she might not have remembered or paid much mind, even with the speeding, but he made a screeching turn at 124th Street. She was worried because the Underkirchers let their kids ride bikes up and down the road since so few people drive it.”

“124th. There’s nothing down that road but ranches and more ranches. It doesn’t even hook up to any of the main highways, does it?”

Jack shook his head. “It’s a lot of space. Some of the ranches might back up to the interstate, but he’d have to drive over their land to get there. Seems unlikely, or at least I would have had a call about property damage by now.”

Thomas nodded. “So he could be holed up somewhere out along there?”

“Seems possible. I don’t know what other end destination would be out that way.

My deputies can start searching and canvassing, but most of the houses are a way off the street, so not a lot of eyes on the road.

Not sure we’ll get much, unless someone thinks they got a trespasser and, again, I’d have a call by now on that. ”

“I’d appreciate them asking around anyway.”

Jack nodded. “I’m sure you’ve thought of everything, but what about bringing in the K-9 unit?”

Thomas knew Jack brought it up because his fiancée was on the unit, so it didn’t grate that Jack was suggesting something Thomas had already considered. “It’s too big of an area, and we don’t have enough information yet. This is good, but it’s still not enough for the sheriff to approve it.”

“You guys follow me out to the ranch, I can hook you up with Cash. Maybe the area’s too big, but I’m sure he’d be willing to give it a shot with his dogs.” Cash Hudson was Jack’s brother who trained dogs for a number of things, including for the sheriff’s department and for search and rescue.

Thomas knew it couldn’t hurt. “Okay, we’ll follow you out that way.”

He and Rosalie got into his patrol car and started driving out to the Hudson Ranch.

He hadn’t gotten far when Laurel called. He answered the phone on speaker.

“Hart.”

“I just got done harassing a real estate agent and everyone in her office. She told me what Kay was looking for—land, out of the way, outbuildings preferable but didn’t need to be in good shape.

She didn’t want to give me specifics, but I finally got a list of the addresses she’d given to Inspector Kay. ”

“Are any of them out by Sunrise, on 124th Street?”

Laurel was quiet for just a second. “As a matter of fact, nearly all of them. I take it you’ve got a lead?”

“Yeah, send me the addresses, though. They’ll narrow it down.” He hoped. “Any word from Copeland?”

“No, think he’s still interviewing hotel employees. I’m going to apply for search warrants on these addresses, then I’ll head over and give him a hand. If we don’t get anything there and nothing else crops up, we’ll meet you in Sunrise. Unless you want us to come out now?”

“No. But I want to know why we don’t have a search warrant to ping Eric Carter’s phone yet. The evidence is there. I want it done.”

“On it. Talk soon.” The call ended.

No doubt Eric, or his alias, had also turned off his phone, but if they could get a ping anywhere in the Sunrise vicinity, even if it wasn’t a direct hit, maybe they could narrow it down.

“That isn’t a coincidence,” Rosalie said, leaning forward in her seat. “It can’t be.”

“If you’ve got service, see if you can look up anything about the addresses she texts me.”

Rosalie nodded. He followed Jack out to the Hudson Ranch, passed the main house and up to a big outbuilding that Thomas knew housed Cash’s many dogs.

Cash and his wife, Carlyle, were standing outside eyeing both police cars skeptically when Jack and Thomas got out of their cars.

Thomas knew all the players, because not only had he worked with all the Hudsons, but Carlyle had essentially saved Laurel’s life a while back.

She was the newest Delaney-Carson addition’s namesake, in fact, though they called her Cary to avoid confusion.

“We’ve got a missing person case we’re hoping you can help us with,” Jack said by way of greeting.

Thomas explained the situation, doing his best to leave his personal connection and feelings out of it, but considering all the different connections, he doubted very much that Cash and Carlyle didn’t know Vi was…his.

Cash considered the information Jack and Thomas gave him.

“I only have two dogs right now trained to do scent-specific tracking. But we can give it a shot. If you’ve got an idea of where you want to start, we can head out now. But we do have to get property owner approval before we do any searching. Legally, anyway.”

“All three properties I want searched are up for sale. I’m working on a search warrant.” But… “I don’t care about legality right now. I want her found, then we can worry about the rest.”

Cash nodded. “Then let’s head out.”

V I HAD FIGURED that at some point Dianne and Eric would sleep and she’d be able to work on using her pathetic tools for some kind of escape chance. She was tied up. Wouldn’t they think that was good enough?

Apparently not, because Dianne never left the main room. Even as the cabin had gotten pitch-black as night fell, Vi would occasionally hear Dianne do something in the kitchen, or she’d see a flash of light that was Dianne’s phone screen.

Vi had used the dark time not to sleep herself—if she even could have in this uncomfortable sitting position.

But she’d considered her nail, her shards of chair.

She couldn’t hold the nail in any way to break her bonds, but if she could somehow get the nail into the floor, sharp point upward, she could use her bodyweight to push plastic against sharp point.

She’d figured out it would take more than one puncture to get herself free of the zip tie, so it would take time. But it was possible. If she could manage to get the nail upright and sturdy.

By the time daylight started illuminating the cabin, Vi had an idea. But it’d have to wait until Dianne wasn’t quite so close.

The woman in question was hard at work in the kitchen, clearly trying to put together some kind of breakfast feast for Eric.

Vi almost pointed out the futility. She was sure he would find something wrong with it, and if Dianne wanted to listen, she could predict, with dizzying accuracy, just what he’d say was wrong.

Rubbery eggs. Cold toast. Slimy bacon. It didn’t matter if any of those things were true. It wasn’t about truth . It was about power. It had taken Vi too long, and a lot of space away from Eric, to be able to learn that.

But since she had learned it, she went ahead and told Dianne exactly that. Why not? Dianne would have to find the bullets to do anything about it.

Besides, maybe just maybe, one of these times, she could get through to Dianne. Poke enough holes in her theory of love and show Dianne how wrong she was. How wrong this all was.

“He’ll eat his fill, then throw the plate at the wall and tell you all the ways it’s trash. Because it doesn’t matter if you can cook or not, Dianne. It doesn’t matter how hard you slaved away at it. He just wants to make you feel bad.”

Dianne pretended not to hear, and marched off down the hallway, plate heaped with food in her hands.

Vi figured she had maybe five minutes of being alone. So she got to work. Carefully, meticulously, she balanced the nail on its head next to her on the ground.

Then, she scooted onto her knees. She took the skinniest shard of chair and carefully positioned it over the sharp point of the nail, with the nail in the center. Since the wood wasn’t sturdy, it only took pushing down with her bodyweight for the nail to pierce the wood.

It wasn’t as stable as she would have liked, the wood splintering a bit on impact, but it was something. If she could stabilize the wood with her knees, she now had a somewhat unmovable sharp point that would allow her to do the same thing with her zip tie that she’d just done with the splinter.

Push the zip tie against the sharp point, using her bodyweight as some kind of lever to pierce. Through the plastic. She just needed to find the right way to arrange her body so that she didn’t actually impale her hands with the nail.

Luckily, it wasn’t a long nail, so whatever damage she ended up doing to herself would likely be minimal. What was some tetanus if she managed to get freedom?

She nudged the wood under her knees, managed to get them close enough together that her own bodyweight held the wood, and thus the nail, still.

She gave one furtive look down the hall. No sound yet. No yelling. She still had time. She placed part of the plastic zip tie on top of the sharp nail, then used her bodyweight to push down.

For a moment, nothing happened, then she fell forward. She looked at the plastic and nearly laughed out loud.

It worked. It worked .

It didn’t actually get her hands unbound yet, but there was now a tiny hole in the plastic. With enough tiny holes, the plastic would break. And her hands would be free and…

She eyed the gun on the kitchen corner. Well, she’d have to get over there with her feet still tied. She’d have to find bullets.

But it was something. Chances. Opportunities. If she was smart. If she was careful. Everything could…

There was no yelling. No crash. But Vi heard footsteps getting closer so she quickly moved back onto her butt, and hid the nail and chair shard under her legs.

Dianne returned with an empty plate and a smirk. Like she’d won some contest.

Woo-hoo, he didn’t hit you this time. Congratulations.

Eric appeared just a few seconds later. His hair was wet, like maybe he’d showered. He was wearing new clothes. He was whistling as he came out of the hallway, but he stopped short when he saw Dianne put the plate in the sink.

Then move away.

Vi closed her eyes. She knew what came next.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Eric demanded in a cold, distant voice.

Dianne stopped on a dime, freezing with eyes wide. “I was just going to…to eat my…”

“Eat? You were going to leave this mess and eat ?” He didn’t storm over to her. He moved with a quiet kind of stealth that no doubt made him good at his job. All menacing force in the quietest of moves.

Even Vi found herself holding her breath as he advanced on Dianne, towered over her as she hunched down and looked away.

“I’m so—”

Before she could finish the word, Eric’s hands were around her throat. She made terrible noises as he squeezed. She fought him. Kicked and scratched out, her eyes getting wider and wider until Vi had to look away. Squeeze her eyes shut.

“You eat when I tell you to,” he said, his voice low and cold. “You clean up when you make a mess or you are useless to me. Do you hear me?”

But Dianne obviously said nothing, because he had his hands around her throat still. Vi didn’t want to look, but it wasn’t stopping . So she did.

“Eric, you’re going to kill her,” Vi said, knowing it was pointless. Knowing there was nothing to be done. He either didn’t hear her or just didn’t care. He just kept squeezing as Dianne’s fight got jerkier and less… Just less .

He didn’t look away. And when he finally dropped Dianne, she didn’t move. She just crumpled onto the floor in a heap.

Vi was shaking, trying to breathe without making noise. But he was coming for her now, and no matter how hard she tried to hold on to her strength, her hope, her determination, fear won.

He rolled back his sleeves, looked down at her with that pleasant smile that was only ever a lie. “Now it’s your turn.”