Jodi Thomas - Twisted Creek

Tim grinned. “He threw a fit when I moved out here, but he’s been out twice this month and hasn’t said a word about it.”

We ate for a few minutes in silence, then he added, “Mrs. Deals told me I reminded her of her son.”

“How many children does she have?”

“I don’t think she has any anymore. I think her only boy died. You know what else she said?”

“What?”

“She said I’d make a good teacher. Imagine that.” He ate the rest of his biscuit and mumbled between bites, “You know, I think I might like that. High school maybe. I liked talking to Dillon.”

I decided old Mrs. Deals had done something no one else seemed to be able to do. She’d given him a direction.

Willie banged in carrying two fishing poles he claimed washed up near his place during the last storm. He dropped the poles like he thought I ran the local Lost and Found. “Morning, Tim.” He sat down on the other side of Timothy at the bar. “You going out to the middle of the lake this morning?”

“No,” Tim answered. “I’m heading over to Mrs. Deals’s. I hoped I’d see you here. Any chance you could give me a ride? I won’t get another boat out before Monday.”

“Sure, be glad to.”

“Should you take her cookies over?”

Both men said no at once.

Willie spoke first. “Mrs. Deals doesn’t want to admit she has a sweet tooth. Jefferson always said she wanted to come in and be treated like a stranger when she was on her weekly cookie runs. Like he wouldn’t notice she bought the case one bag at a time.”

Nana handed Willie two biscuits wrapped in waxed paper. I didn’t miss the way he touched her shoulder in a silent thank you.

Willie thanked me for the coffee and followed Tim out.

I slipped my arm across Nana’s shoulders. “Willie’s a nice man.”

Nana put her arm about my waist. “That he is.”

I hadn’t been fair to the old man.

Tuesday

October 1

2100 hours

Luke strapped the small Colt to his ankle. He’d spent the day piecing together theories about the operation at the lake and talking the agents in Lubbock into believing the threat was worth checking out.

“Ready?” He glanced at Nathan McCord, a young agent out of the Lubbock office. Nathan was runner-thin and would be able to keep up no matter what they faced, but his inexperience worried Luke. He’d spent most of his two years since the Academy doing office work.

“Almost.” Nathan tugged on his bulletproof vest. “I think you’re on to something big here, Morgan.” He muttered as he worked. “That guy you call Skidder sounds just like a man we hauled in a few months ago but couldn’t get enough evidence to make a charge stick. He kept saying his boss would flatten him if he so much as said ‘good morning’ to a cop. When we asked who his boss was, he went all wild-eyed and crazy.”

“Did he have a record?”

Nathan shook his head. “Funny thing, three years ago he was a respectable car dealer. We don’t know how he got messed up with drugs, but we could trace the slide. His business went to shit, then his wife left him. Six months ago he lost his house and disappeared off our radar. Word on the streets is his habit is so big that he works for product.”

Luke had seen it a hundred times before. Once they started to fall, there was only one of two endings: prison or death. A few make it through rehab, but only a few.

“If he’s the one blinking the light in the trees, we’ll pick him up.” Nathan went over the plan one more time. “Nobody will probably miss him for a few days, and by then he’ll be needing a fix so bad he’ll tell us anything we want to know.”

“I want the top man on this.” Luke wasn’t in this for a quick, small-time bust.

“We’ll get him,” Nathan promised.

Luke hadn’t told them Dillon’s last name when he’d related the story about the high school kid falling in the lake. He’d learned that the Lubbock office had had reports of drugs at the lake before and every time the sheriff had said he’d handle it. This time, the ATF would go around Sheriff Fletcher. They couldn’t wait until some kid died driving back from the lake with drugs running in his blood.

“What time is it?” Luke asked.

Nathan grinned. “What does it matter? You got a date tonight?”

“Something like that.” He’d had no time to let Allie know that they’d decided to go in tonight after last night’s search had turned up nothing. If she’d had a phone, he would have called. As it stood, if this went down as planned, he’d be lucky to get back to the office and finish paperwork by breakfast. She’d be madder than hell at him.

He smiled. She’d probably be so mad she wouldn’t talk to him.

There was a chance they’d find no one in the trees. If so, he might just make that midnight date with her. Otherwise, he’d explain everything to her later.

“Ready?” Nathan said as he lifted his pack. “You sure we have to use the canoe to get there? I’ve never been comfortable in water.”

They moved out of Luke’s cabin and toward the lake. “Anyone hiding in the trees by the dam would see a car go over the road. In a boat we can slip in behind him and catch him by surprise.”

A few minutes later they were in the water. Nathan got the rhythm of paddling and they silently crossed the lake. Luke went over the plan in his mind. Paul Madison and Mary Lynn had told Willie that they had spotted a car crossing the dam bridge just before dark, but it never passed Mary Lynn’s place. There were no occupied cabins between her place and the dam. So the chances were good Skidder, or one of his friends, was in place.

Luke grinned. Or else they were about to scare the hell out of kids coming out to make out in the woods or some fisherman who didn’t want to buy a state license and thought he could fish near the north shore without anyone noticing.

The canoe slid against sand and Nathan jumped out like he couldn’t wait to get out of the water. Luke slid the canoe out of sight in a cove he’d found a week ago while Nathan checked the gear. They didn’t know what they’d find here so they were going in well-armed.

Luke took the lead as they moved into the trees. He knew most of the areas around the lake better than this one. Even as a boy he’d always found the campground and lodge around the old Baptist retreat spooky. Maybe because when he’d visited here as a boy the campers had always told ghost stories after evening services.

Stories so frightening he still looked behind him now and again.

The big, old lodge peeked over the trees, its roof spotted with dark holes where the tiles had blown away over the years. It reminded Luke of what a place would be like if houses had acne. Pitted and scarred. The little cabins huddled around it as if for warmth, but Luke felt only the stale stillness of neglect.

“When was the last time this place was open?” Nathan whispered as they circled on forgotten trails between the buildings.

“Twenty years, I guess. But even then it was falling down with neglect.”

“Looks like they would have fixed it up. I’d think this property would be valuable.”

Luke nodded. “The church who owned it folded after their preacher was killed in a hotel room with a woman he’d hired for the night. It seemed everyone left the church at once with no one claiming any part of it, including this land.”

Nathan moved closer so that his voice only carried a few feet. “I remember hearing about that from some of the guys. The couple was blown away with one shotgun blast. Some thought the preacher’s wife did it, but if I remember right, she killed herself with pills less than a month later.”