P Deutermann - Spider mountain

“What’s your point?”

“These guys were chasing me because I know what happened at the jail and I’ve become a thorn in their criminal hides. But why did Grinny Creigh send her daughter to abduct Carrie here in Marionburg? For that matter, how did they know where she was? Why’d they want her?”

“Because she was getting close to something?” he asked. “Something more important than their drug operation?”

“That’s my take,” I said. “They’ve held off the DEA for some time now, with Mingo’s help, of course, but suddenly they have two strangers causing problems.”

“But how would they know Carrie was looking at this new angle?” he asked. “Did either of you talk to them or anyone else about selling kids?”

“No,” I said, but then remembered that, yes, we had. “Wait-we did. We were helped by the old lady I mentioned, named Laurie May Creigh. Carrie did tell her about what she suspected.”

“Creigh? You guys talked to one of them?”

“She lives in the adjoining cove. Hates Grinny Creigh. Related, but has nothing to do with her. Hid us from the black hats when we had nowhere else to go. Showed me the best place to set up a watch on the Creigh compound. I think she’s all right.”

But even as I said all that, I still wondered. Nathan had known exactly where to find me, and they had somehow found out about Carrie’s quest. King saw my sudden doubts. Laurie May had either set a trap or was maybe now lying injured or worse in her cabin after a beating at the hands of Nathan.

“What?” King asked. I laid it out for him.

He sighed and made some more notes. “Well,” he said, “our problem is just what you said. I’ve got an asset inside Mingo’s office, but so far all we have is a bunch of stories backed up by zero physical evidence. Even now, all we got is a raft with some holes in it. We can’t legally go busting in on any of the Creighs without court paper, and I don’t think we’d get the paper.”

“How about conducting a general, wide-area search for Carrie, then?” I said. “You have a credible report that she’s been shot. Even Mingo says so, and I sure as hell say so. Search the whole damned county, and make sure you get into Grinny Creigh’s compound while you do it. Urgently. That’s what I’m going to do.”

“You have no authority to do anything, here or over there. You know that. And Mingo would love to get his hands on you again. And if he does, this time you won’t make it to any damn jail.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I said, with more confidence than I really felt. “I’ll get the Big brothers to help out. Carrie may be out there in the woods right now, waiting for help. And you can be damned sure Mingo will have people looking just as soon as he thinks you guys have given up.”

The phone rang. King asked me who had this number, and I told him lots of people. I picked it up. It was the front desk in the main lodge. “Taking calls now, Mr. Richter?” the operator asked. For a moment I didn’t understand him, then remembered that I’d asked them to block all calls earlier while I got some sleep.

“Yes, I am-who’s calling?”

“No name, sir, but he’s local and I’d guess he’s been up in them thar hills for awhile.”

“Give me ten seconds,” I said, nodding with my head toward an extension phone on the kitchen counter. King understood immediately.

“On three,” I said after hanging up. The phone started ringing again, and we picked up simultaneously.

“I gotcher woman,” a rough voice declared.

I was about to say she wasn’t “my woman,” but finally my feeble brain engaged. “Prove it,” I said.

“Prove it? Awright, I will.” King had the handset jammed under his ear while he worked his cell phone frantically, probably trying to set up a trace.

I heard shuffling noises in the phone, the man’s voice barking some orders, and then Carrie was on the line. “Hello?” she said in a weak voice.

“Carrie? This is Cam Richter. Are you injured?”

“Head hurts,” she said. “Hair’s all sticky. Hurts.”

She wasn’t entirely there for the conversation, which confirmed a head wound. I wanted to ask her where she was, but she’d have no idea and was probably wearing a duct-tape blindfold anyway. There was more noise on the phone, a grunt of pain from Carrie, and then Mr. Personality was back.

“Satisfied, are ye?”

King was making keep-him-talking gestures. “Actually,” I said, “I’m not sure who that was. It might be her, but she’s out of her head.”

“Yeah, she is. Got her a real nasty hairdo, she does. By rights, she oughter be dead.”

“And you would be-Lucas?” I asked.

“Ho-o-o-o!” he exclaimed, making an owl noise. “How d’ye figger that?”

“Your deputy buddies told me you shot her and you’d gone to find her body.”

There was just a fractional pause before he responded to that. I saw King mouth an expletive and shake his head.

“I ain’t Lucas and I ain’t shot nobody and I don’t have no truck with no damn deputies,” he said. “You want yer woman back or not?”

“If it’s her, yes, I want her back.” And I want you dead, I thought. “What’s the deal?”

“Deal? I ain’t proposin’ no deal. I’m a’tellin’ ye what yer gonna do, you want this woman back alive.”

“Okay, then, shoot,” I said amicably. I didn’t need to challenge this guy. Remember the objective, I told myself. Get her back, then you can take other action. King had closed up his cell phone. No go on a trace, but he continued to listen in.

“You’n me’s gonna meet up,” he said. “You gonna bring a bag’a money. Cash money. Five thousand greenback dollars, cash money. I get the money, I’ll tell you where she’s hid at. No money, I leave her there to die. Plain as that.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s plain, all right. I can do that. Meet where?”

“Where you was this mornin’,” he said. “Where them cops was parked, a’waitin’ for ye.”

“So you are Lucas,” I said. “You missed me this morning. How do I know you won’t be sitting in the trees with that rifle, waiting to try again?”

“ ’Cause I want that damn money. I was s’posed to git paid for killin’ the both of ye. Y’all got lucky. Then I figgered, hell, more’n one way to skin this here cat. But you gotta come alone, now.”

He’d given up pretending he wasn’t Lucas. “I don’t know, Lucas,” I said. “I come up there alone, carrying a bag of money, you shoot me down from ambush, then kill the woman, you get my money and your paycheck. Now why should I take chances like that?”

King was giving me a strange look, but he was back on his cell phone, trying something else.

“You looky here, lawman,” Lucas said. “I don’t need to go puttin’ you down, or this woman, neither. Didn’t know she was a cop, awright? Nathan and them’re gonna git you for what you done to Rowena. Far’s they know, this here woman’s puffin’ up in the damn river, but they ain’t payin’ me nothin’ without no body, an’ the way I figger it, they’s all so stirred up right now, I take them a body and then it’s gonna be me in the damn river.”

“That doesn’t solve my problem, Lucas,” I said. “How about this-I come in one vehicle, my backup comes in a second one. We get there together, in the dark. The place where you said. Can she walk?”

A pause, as if he were thinking about it. “Maybe.”

“Then we’ll arrive together, two cars. One plain car, one cop car. You send her out of the woods, she gets in the plain car. My partner then gets out, puts the money out on the ground, opens it up in the headlights so you can see it’s really there, and then we both drive away. You come out when you want to and we’re done with it.”