“Exactly.”
“So here we have someone who was once suspected of conspiracy to commit murder. That might make him prime-suspect material in this case, but the problem is, he didn’t take off until
“Which would mean that he isn’t our killer after all.”
“May not be our killer,” Joanna corrected. “But even if he himself didn’t kill Alice Rogers, he may know something that would help lead us to whoever did. And we have to find him before someone else gets to him first. Or else we have to find Detective Garfield.”
“Did the call to Casey come in through the regular switchboard?”
“As far as I know.”
“Well, then,” Frank said. “How about if I work with the phone company and try to find out where that call came from?”
“Can you make inquiries like that after hours?”
“Watch me,” Frank replied.
The radio was quiet for a moment as Joanna considered her next move. “Do that if you can,” she said at last. “In the meantime, we’ve got another problem.”
“I gathered that much from what Tica said. What’s going on?”
Joanna reeled off everything she knew as well as what she suspected concerning the disappearance of Lewis Flores. “What’s the next step then?” Frank asked when she finished. “If you’ve got deputies at both Childers’ house and at Brainard’s, what else is there to do?”
“I’m on my way out to Sierra Vista right now,” Joanna told him. “I want to talk to the deputies in person and find out what, if anything, they’ve discovered. If it goes bad, though, I’m going to need you on the double.”
“Okay,” Frank said. “I’ll stand by. Call if you need me.”
Going back to Tica, Joanna asked for detailed directions to the two houses in question. Karen Brainard lived near Huachuca City. Childers’ house, in Sierra Vista Estates, was far closer, so Joanna headed there first. She was about to turn off the highway when she was hit by a sudden stroke of inspiration. All of Lewis Flores’ difficulties seemed to stem from the controversy swirling around Oak Vista Estates. Maybe that’s where the answers lay as well.
Switching off her turn signal, Joanna continued on down Highway 92. At the entrance to Oak Vista, she found that a makeshift barbed-wire gate had been pulled across the road and stretched between the two upright posts of the cattle guard. There was a padlock hanging on a chain around one end of the gate, but when Joanna checked, she found it wasn’t fastened. If the lock was supposed to keep monkey wrenchers out, it wasn’t going to do much good left open.
Joanna opened the gate, drove across the cattle guard, then doused the Blazer’s lights and turned off the engine. “Tica,” she said into the radio. “I’m out at Oak Vista Estates right now. I’m stopped just inside the entrance, and I think I’d better have some backup.”
“I’ll get someone right there. What’s happening?”
“I’m not sure. The gate has a chain and a padlock, but it wasn’t fastened shut. I’m afraid someone may be here ahead of me.”
“The monkey wrenchers?” Tice asked.
“Maybe, but l don’t know. That’s why I want backup.”
“I’ll send the deputies who are already at Mark Childers’ house. They should be able to get to you in under ten minutes.”
“Have them come ASAP,” Joanna said. “But no lights or sirens. I don’t want to advertise our arrival.”
“Got it,” Tica said.
Joanna stepped out of her car. A raw autumn wind was blowing down off the Huachucas. Shivering against the cold, Joanna returned to the Blazer and pulled on her sheepskin jacket-the one with the bullet hole still in the pocket. Fingering that hole and remembering how the weapon she had carried there had once saved her life, Joanna pulled the Glock out of her small-of-the-back holster. She was just putting it in her pocket when she heard first one shot, then another and another. The shots were followed by something else-a woman’s terrified scream that floated down to Joanna carried on the icy wind. The sound of it raised the hairs on the back of her neck and sent her scrambling into the Blazer.
Waiting for backup to arrive was no longer an option. The deputies summoned from Mark Childers’ house were still minutes away. The terror and desperation in the woman’s scream left no margin for delay.
“Shots have been fired,” Joanna declared into her radio microphone. “I’m going in, Tica. Tell my backup to use the hell out of their sirens. I want Flores to know we’re coming. I want all of them to know we’re coming.”
With the gas pedal shoved to the floor and with her own siren screaming, Joanna tore up the freshly bladed road that wound uphill to the construction shack. And that’s where Joanna’s headlights zeroed in on a silver Taurus station wagon. Lewis Flores sat on the hood, leaning back against the wind-shield. One weapon lay across his lap. From a distance, Joanna couldn’t make out if he was holding the shotgun or the rifle, but it didn’t really matter. Either one of them was sufficiently lethal.
She parked, cut the lights, and opened the window, but she didn’t step out of the Blazer. If it came to a shoot- out, she wanted the benefit of whatever cover the engine block might provide.
“Lewis,” she called as she drew the heavy-duty Colt 2000 out of her shoulder holster. “That’s enough. Lay down your weapon.”
For an answer, Lewis Flores reached out. Joanna thought he was going for his other gun, which lay beside him on the hood. Instead, he picked up something else. By then Joanna’s eyes were adjusting to the lack of light and she was able to make out that he had picked up a bottle-a tequila bottle perhaps-and was taking a swig.
“Lewis.” Joanna tried to make her voice sound authoritative but calm. “More deputies are on their way. They’ll be here in a few minutes. You’ll be surrounded. Give up before someone gets hurt.”
“I already am hurt,” he said.
Joanna breathed deeply. She had him talking. That was a good sign. “Where are Mark Childers and Karen Brainard, Lewis? What have you done with them?”
There was a sudden pounding. It seemed to be coming from one of the Porta Potties. “I’m in here,” Karen Brainard yelled. “I’m locked in the toilet. He’s been shooting at me. He’s crazy. Get me out of here.”
Relief spilled over Joanna. At least one of the two was still alive, still safe. “Where’s Mark Childers?” she asked. “Why don’t you ask him?” Lewis responded.
But Joanna didn’t want to talk to Mark Childers. She didn’t want to take her focus off Lewis Flores. He was the one with the guns. “Why are you hurt, Lewis? What’s happened?”
“They lied to me,” Lewis answered. “They told me that it wouldn’t matter if the process got hurried up a little. They said they’d make it worth my while, and no one would care. But people do care, and as soon as there was trouble, they turned it all on me. Tried to make out that it was all my fault-all my responsibility.”
“That’s not true,” Karen responded from her prison. “We didn’t do any such thing, did we? Tell her, Mark. Tell Sheriff Brady that Lewis is lying.”
But if Mark Childers had anything to add to Karen Brainard’s denial, he wasn’t saying. In the distant background, Joanna heard the sound of at least one siren. Reinforcements were on their way. The cavalry was about to ride to the rescue.
“Please, Lewis,” she begged. “Think about Carmen. Put down your weapons. Move away from the car with your hands in the air.”
“I am thinking about Carmen,” Lewis Flores replied. “I was thinking about her and all those steps and her having to climb them every day. Of her having to carry groceries home just the way her mother did. I wanted a better place for her, something really nice. And Mark Childers was going to help me get it. But it’s not worth it. I finally figured that out. I’ve lost everything now-my job, my family, my self-respect. They’ve taken it all away.”
“You have to let us out of here,” Karen Brainard pleaded.
“He locked us in here, and he’s been using us for target practice. Please let us out.”
Half a mile away across the desert, a patrol car rumbled across the cattle guard and then roared up the roadway.
