Bombed Page 20

  Annie was on past here, up in the hills. That was where he wanted to be. It might mean nothing, finding this car that had been parked in front of Buzzard’s house. It hadn’t been Buzzard peeing by the road.

  But something leftover from Iraq—always check out anything that’s out of place—made him stop and start backing up. So he was looking back over his shoulder, and maybe he should have been checking the curve ahead too, but he wasn’t veering out of his own lane.

  A horn honked. He looked to the front. A pickup was coming right at him, all the way across the center line. It swerved and braked in some attempt to avoid a collision. Wes increased his speed backwards and swung toward the shoulder of the road.

  He thumped into the Valiant.

  *

  Annie reached the open farmland, still driving slowly since that was the only speed the old Beetle would go, and fearing this plan wouldn’t work. Whoever got caught at the Caterpillar Lounge wouldn’t tell where her uncle was. Whoever was holding him would do all the ghastly things in the ransom note. She was feeling more and more helpless and frightened to the point that she was hardly aware she was driving at all, so when she came around a corner and found a whole crowd of people standing in the road, and she slammed on the brakes, and the little car’s brakes were just as obsolete as its electrical system, it was a good thing she’d been going so slow.

  Amazingly, she didn’t hit anyone. It was the people from the camp standing in the road, and just about all of them were yelling.

  The three trucks from the camp were parked on the right hand side along with the insurance salesmen’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. She pulled in behind it and leaped out.

  “Is anyone hurt?” somebody yelled.

  “I bonked my knee,” yelled someone else.

  “I told you not to stand up in the back of a pickup.”

  Bull’s voice bellowed over all the others. “What do you mean, I wasn’t in my lane! Everybody knows this time of night you take your half out of the middle!”

  There must have been an accident, but none of the trucks from the camp seemed to be hit. There was a fourth pickup on the other side of the road, headed up toward the woods. It also appeared unscathed. It was a blue Ford that looked familiar although Annie couldn’t place it. She waded into the crowd to see what had happened and if everyone was in fact all right.

  Then she saw Buzzard’s car.

  Its hood was crumpled. It had all sorts of other dents too, but most of those weren’t fresh. The damage to the hood was clearly new. The whole front was caved in.

  She didn’t see Buzzard. Instead she saw Wes, his jean-clad rear end, not something she wanted to see anymore. He was bent over, checking out the front of the Valiant.

  Bull came over to yell at him, “What were you doing driving out here this time of night anyway?”

  Which was exactly what Annie wanted to know.

  “You almost hit me head-on,” said Wes, still examining the caved in front. “We’re lucky no one was in this car.”

  But it hadn’t come here empty. It hadn’t driven itself. “Then what happened to Buzzard?” Annie said, and Wes stood up and looked at her.

  Not a hint of surprise at finding her here. Just a coplike caginess.

  “Buzzard?” said Bull and several other people.

  “It’s Buzzard’s car,” she told them.

  “But I don’t think Buzzard drove it here,” said Wes. “I saw the driver a little way back, and it wasn’t him.”

  “Well, it looks like the car was dead before you hit it,” Wheeler said. He’d taken a crowbar to the car’s pleated hood and was now poking around at the engine. “This note says it ran out of gas, but that’s not the whole story. Threw a con rod right through the side of the block.”

  “That is peculiar,” someone said. “I thought these old Valiants were immortal.”

  “Yeah, I had one. Had to put it out to pasture just ‘cause I got sick of it. Body rusted. Seats rotted. Thing refused to die.”

  Other people began to tell about their indestructible Valiants, but then Bull said, “If this is Buzzard’s car, you think it has something to do with Michael?”

  Annie had already opened the driver’s door and was leaning in to see what she could find. “Will someone give me a flashlight?” she said.

  Wes, of all people, handed her a flashlight, reaching over her, getting in way too close. He said, “Why do you think this car has anything to do with Michael?”

  “It’s a long story.” She found candy wrappers, junk food containers, and a beer opener wedged in the front seat, the sickness in her heart swelling up into her chest until she could hardly breathe. Several empty beer bottles and one full one rolled in the garbage on the floor. So far no sign that Michael had been here. She switched to the rear seat.

  Then her hand closed on a thick ring of cardboard. She pulled it out, refusing to think what this might mean.

  “That’s the inside of a roll of duct tape,” said Bull.

  She backed away from the car as if it had hit her with an electric shock. She backed right into Wes, who gently grabbed her around the waist, which gave her an unnerving shock too.

  She stumbled away from him and stared at the trunk.

  One of the women said, “Wouldn’t a musician like Buzzard use duct tape all the time?”

  “Yeah, Annie,” said someone else. “I’ve seen you tape stuff to the stage.”

  “I’ve got a roll of duct tape in my car too.” Several people said that.

  “You don’t think this means . . .” Wes didn’t finish the sentence, and Annie was glad he didn’t.

  Michael couldn’t be in the trunk because if he was, he would have heard all these people, so he would have been pounding on the trunk, he would have been letting everyone know he was in there. Unless—

  Annie swung the trunk open before she could think about unless—and he was there. Curled in a fetal position lying very still. His arms were taped behind him. His legs were bound with tape. She tentatively reached out to touch him. He was warm. She thought she saw him breathe. She still struggled with her own breath, not yet sure.

  He opened his eyes.

  She pulled the tape from his mouth as tenderly as she could, and he said, “I knew you would come.”

  Wes was immediately untaping his ankles while Annie released his wrists, and Michael began to unfold himself. Wes gave him a hand out of the trunk. At first Michael just leaned against the rear of the car. His lip was swollen, blood was crusted around his nose, and the way he was cautiously straightening himself, no telling what other injuries he had. But he kept saying, “I think I’m okay. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m okay.” He gently touched his nose. “I don’t even think my nose is broken.”

  Annie could barely believe what she was seeing. Her uncle had been bound with tape! He’d been locked in a trunk!

  “You need a beer,” Bull said to him.

  “No, I’m not supposed to,” Michael said.

  “I need a beer,” said someone else, and beers were passed around. Someone tried to put one in Annie’s hand, but she was shaking too badly to hold onto it, and it wasn’t a beer she wanted.

  She tried to put her arms around Michael, but he cringed away from her the way he did.

  “Well, this is wonderful, isn’t it?” said Char as a bottle of whiskey began to make the rounds too. “Now we don’t have to kill anyone. You know, I was never totally on board with that.”

  Yes, it was wonderful. Michael was here. He didn’t seem too badly hurt. He didn’t even seem very distressed by what he’d been through. One of the women handed Annie a baby wipe, and he let her wipe the blood from his face. He let her touch him that much. Once most of the blood was wiped away, he looked better. The blood must have come only from his nose.

  Slowly, Annie felt the shock and horror seep away. Hot anger swept through her instead, anger at Buzzard and Fleep and anyone else who might have done this, but, disturbingly, at Michael too. “Why were you lying so stil
l! Why didn’t you let us know! We’ve been here ten minutes or more!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “There was this bump, and voices, and I was trying to stay calm, doing that deep breathing thing Dr. Kortge taught me to do. I didn’t know it was you.”

  Had he thought the kidnappers had come back?

  “Did Buzzard do this?”

  “No, Buzzard, he’s really very nice. We played video games.”

  “Video games! Then was it Fleep?”

  Michael bent down to pick a stray piece of tape from his pants, and when he straightened, carefully adding that piece to a sticky silver ball Wes had made of the stuff, his face had shut down. His fat lip and the few remaining smears of blood were now the only signs of what he might be feeling.

  “Right! Fleep!” shouted Bull. “We still haven’t got Fleep.” He turned to Wes. “You said you saw the driver walking toward town?”

  “Let’s go get Fleep. Get Fleep, get Fleep.” This became almost like a battle cry, and many of the campers started for the trucks.

  Then Wes said, “Hold on a minute,” and everybody stopped.

  Maybe they stopped because he had that cop authority in his voice, even though only Annie knew he was a cop. So people had big question marks on their faces, like why was this guy giving them orders like that?

  “Just what do you plan to do with this Fleep?” he said. “Get yourselves arrested for assault? Or how about attempted murder?”

  “Huh?” was the general response.

  But Annie knew, in spite of her anger, Wes was right. Nothing good could come of the campers going off on some vigilante pursuit of Fleep now that Michael was safe. But then Wes’s speaking up like that, showing his cop face, made her think again of what had struck her when she first saw him here. “What are you doing here?” she said. “Were you following me again?”

  He didn’t answer. He just said, “It’s time to bring in the police.”

  Some people laughed while others grudgingly agreed that it might be okay to go back to the camp and let the police beat up Fleep. And Annie realized that since Wes had been just heading up toward the woods, he couldn’t have followed her here.

  So why was he on this road? Why wasn’t he surprised she was here?

  The campers began to discuss their distaste for any kind of dealings with the law—and which would be worse, calling the cops in now or the aftermath of leaving Fleep in a ditch—while Annie tried to think if Wes could have put a tracker on the VW. Then almost at the corner of her eye, she saw standing back in the crowd the Latino stranger, the one with the motorcycle like hers, the one she thought she’d seen before. Now she knew where.

  “You staged that mugging at the Caterpillar Lounge,” she said to Wes.

  He kind of winced, and the Latino glanced quizzically at him.

  “So this is your Tejano partner, the one who taught you how to make enchiladas,” and she glared right at the guy with his sultry brown eyes and his Zorro mustache.

  The partner gave Wes another sideways look and frowned.

  “Can’t we talk about this later?” said Wes.

  “Later? There’s no later for us.” It was amazing how much better she felt now that she could turn her anger on him.

  “But we still need to talk,” he said. “And I left my car at your house.”

  “That’s not your car. Nothing about you is true.”

  The partner did another double take, and Bull said, “Is this guy hassling you, Annie? You want me to kill him?”

  “I don’t mind if Wes comes home with us,” Michael said. “I think you two should talk.”

  “No we shouldn’t!”

  Wes slipped up beside her and spoke softly right in her ear, which made her even more furious because his breath right at that spot always sent some kind of thrill all the way to her toes. “You think everything’s okay now?” he said. “You were right, Michael was kidnapped, and I still don’t understand that, but everything else I told you about, all of that’s still going on.”

  “I need to get home to Lisa,” Michael said.

  Annie was stepping away from Wes, trying to shake off that maddening thrill and keep her anger focused, when one of the trucks from the camp started up. Maybe some of the campers had decided to go ahead and chase down Fleep. But no, the truck made a U-turn and headed back toward the woods.

  Wes’s partner started for the blue Ford pickup that Wes must have brought to this scene instead of the BMW, and Annie found Russ and Char were no longer here. They must have figured out who Wes was, and now they were in the truck that was heading back to the camp.

  Annie took a deep breath to prepare herself for what she had to do. “Okay,” she said, “you can take Michael and me home. But you’ve got to take us in your truck since you seem to have an unlimited supply of vehicles.”

  Chapter 29

  Michael went with Wes to the blue pickup that he was sure he’d seen before, although not with Wes in it. Annie was just saying good-bye to a few of her friends here, and then she’d said she would be right with him. At least he’d given Lisa some of his steak before he left, but by now she would be expecting her tuna. It was good that he would soon be home.

  He thought it was good that Wes was coming home with them too. But Wes’s friend, who was walking with them, seemed upset about that.

  “You can’t leave now!” said the friend. “We’ve finally found the chemists!” His dark eyebrows were pulled low and straight, and his hands made angry chopping movements.

  “I’m sorry,” said Wes.

  “You’re sorry!”

  “You follow them,” said Wes.

  “Then leave me the truck! Why are you taking this truck? Annie’s got a car.”

  Michael realized the man was talking about his car. “There’s something wrong with my car,” he said.

  “No, there’s not! Annie’s been driving it!” The friend was getting more upset, his hands clenching into fists.

  Wes just shrugged. “She didn’t say I could ride home with her in her car. She said she’d come with me in this truck.”

  “Because she’s protecting the chemists! You’re going along with that? I bet right now she’s telling these people to keep me here. I’ll have to shoot one of them to get hold of a vehicle!”

  Now the friend seemed so angry maybe he would shoot someone. Or grab somebody by the shirt, or punch somebody in the nose. Or tie someone up with duct tape? Michael had had enough of that kind of thing today.

  He backed away.

  *

  “What the hell are you doing?” Hector said.

  But Wes couldn’t explain what he was doing, and he knew Hector was right to be pissed. He should let Hector have the truck. In fact, if he was doing his job, he would jump in the truck with Hector, go after the chemists, and forget Annie.

  And more than likely he was going to have to do that eventually anyway, forget her. She’d made that clear. But he couldn’t do that now. Michael was still in danger and would be until Annie took the FBI’s interest in him seriously.

  “She knows you’ve been lying?” Hector said. “She knows I’m your partner?”

  Wes tried to look him in the eye and say this as straight as he could. “You’re my partner in the music business. I’m a booker, remember?”

  Hector just stared at him for a moment. Then in a quieter voice, almost sympathetically he said, “For someone whose job depends on lying, you’re not very good at it.”

  “I’m—” Wes began.

  “Don’t tell me you’re sorry again.”

  Hector walked away, and then Annie was back from telling her friends good-bye. Or telling them to keep Hector here. “Where’s my uncle?” she said.

  Wes hadn’t noticed Michael leave, but now he looked around and didn’t see him. “I don’t know. He was right here.”

  Hector swung over the barbed wire fence and walked out into the field by the road.

  “I know he was here with you,” Annie said.

 
Several of the men swung over the fence and followed Hector into the field. “Maybe he had to take a leak,” said Wes while watching the scene developing in the field. “More than likely he did after being in that trunk.”

  Hector reached into his pocket, probably for his phone, and all those guys were on him.

  “He’s probably behind one of the rigs, trying to get a little privacy,” said Wes.

  Now the men were tossing the phone back and forth, laughing and running through the field as if they were just horsing around, and Wes knew Hector was right. Annie had made sure he wouldn’t be able to follow her dope-making friends, or even call in for someone else to pick up the trail.

  “You’re not going to stop this, you know. You might slow it down, but you’re not going to stop it.” Wes said this maybe to convince himself that he wasn’t stopping the bust of the lab. He just wasn’t pursuing it right now.

  “You think that makes you one of the good guys?” she said, and she stalked off. To look for her uncle. Or just to get away from him again.

  Wes walked over to the other side of the road to see if Michael was behind one of those rigs. There were only two of them left since the pickup with the chemists had gone back to the woods. The FBI’s Jeep Grand Cherokee and Michael’s car were gone too. While he’d been making his excuses to Hector, he’d seen them both head toward town. He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. He’d recognized the two FBI, and Hector had said they’d been up at the camp, apparently lost up there, and that they’d wanted to get back to town. Then Michael’s car, he’d assumed Annie had asked someone to drive it home for her.

  But now he thought about both those vehicles being gone, and Michael being gone too, and what that might mean.

  *

  Annie’s eyes were scanning everywhere. Michael had been here, safe! He had to be nearby.