The barn door was closed. It had been open before.
Tess held the Maglite in her left hand and drew her weapon. She felt the familiar adrenaline rush. Where she’d been tired and sleepy a moment ago, she was all nerve now. Every sense bristling.
Maybe he’d taken the truck.
Or maybe not.
She made her way around the barn. The couple of windows were too high, and no way to get up to them. She heard a snort. It wasn’t a frightened sound, more like a horse just…sighing. She listened through the wall and heard a rhythmic munching.
A horseman, though, wouldn’t scare these horses. A ranch guy—and Wade certainly looked as if he’d spent time on a ranch somewhere—would not raise any alarms.
Tess decided not to take any chances. She called for backup, and within ten minutes a couple of deputies arrived from the substation in town.
They took it slow. They were careful. Weapons drawn, one going low—Deputy Walsh—and one going high– Tess. And one standing on the other side of the double doors, Deputy Agel.
Tess pulled the right hand door to the side—it slid on a groove.
Agel, from the left, covered them. Yelled, “Police! Don’t move!”
One single lightbulb cast light from the rafters. No hayloft—Tess had seen the separate feed shed away from the barn.
The horses looked over their stalls. Four on one side and three on the other. The last stall empty. Or someone hiding in it.
Walsh duckwalked out from under Tess, aiming to the right. Tess to the left, along with Agel. Checking each stall.
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
The last stall was empty.
But they had something—confirmation.
Backed in to the far wall at the end of the aisle was Wade Poole’s stolen Ford truck—the front bumper mashed against the wheel well.
“Looks like he’s been in a fender-bender,” Tess said.
She called it in. “No license plate,” Tess told her detective sergeant. “He must have put it on the farm truck.”
She gave him the VIN number and waited.
Twenty minutes later it was confirmed. The white Ford F-350 belonged to a construction site in Nogales, Arizona—Redline Construction. The truck had been stolen eleven days earlier.
“They didn’t lock it up?” Usually construction sites, even out in the boonies, set up chain-link fence enclosures for temporary parking lots.
“Apparently not. Where do you think he’s headed?”
Tess didn’t know. But she could guess. “Wade Poole is after the DeKoven family. I think he’s planning to shake them down. So I would send a TPD unit to Brayden DeKoven’s address, and Pima County should check out Michael DeKoven’s place out on the Spanish Trail.” She rattled off both addresses.
“You remember them?” Messina said. Added, “I guess you would, huh? That’s handy.”
He still wasn’t used to her, still saw her as a freak. But she was a useful freak.
“I would set up surveillance if he’s not there yet,” Tess added. She made a mental note to call Cheryl Tedesco. Cheryl would want to know what was going on, and might even be able to move things along at TPD.
“We have an Attempt to Locate in both counties now for a brown 1978 GMC pickup.” He read off the license plate belonging to the white Ford.
“Sounds good. I’m on my way.”
“What address?”
“Michael DeKoven’s.”
Tess thought, if she were Wade Poole, that was where she’d go.
Tess was almost to the Vail exit outside Tucson when her detective sergeant contacted her again.
“We have a description of the truck, but the license plate isn’t the same.”
He’d switched plates again? The license plate didn’t come back to the ranch truck or the stolen Ford. Somewhere along the line, he’d stolen another plate.
“Where is he?”
“He’s on Spanish Trail. Pima County Sheriff’s unit is following.”
“Ask them not to alert him.”
“Will do. I’ll tell him to turn off.”
Tess’s heart was beating so hard she wondered if it would burst through her chest cavity. Wade Poole was armed and dangerous. If he was cornered, he would not hesitate to kill.
He was a killing machine.
Wade saw the Pima County Sheriff’s car coming in his direction. He saw the body of the car feint slightly—a reflex action—and continue on smoothly. He guessed that someone had put out a BOLO on the ranch truck. He watched in his rearview as the radio car slowed and pulled off onto the verge. Knew it would turn around and pursue. There was no place to go to ground. But he was close to Michael DeKoven’s castle on a hill—probably not three miles overland. He could see the lights up on the hill. He thought about ditching the truck, but he wanted Jaimie as a hostage. He kept his gaze glued to the rearview mirror. The curve in the road hid the sheriff’s car. Any minute he expected headlights to appear. But they didn’t.
Maybe he was hypersensitive. He kept driving. The turnoff was up ahead, and he wanted to keep Jaimie with him. He glanced at her. She leaned as far as she could away from him, up against the passenger side. From her posture you’d think she was cowed, but he saw the hatred in her eyes. Even in the dark of the night, he could see it. He would not take her for granted. Hatred like that could overcome a lot.
Momma didn’t raise no fools. He’d have to watch her every minute.
Wade knew that Michael would call back. He was sure that Michael would be frozen, that he wouldn’t know which way to jump. The rich little turd couldn’t get help from law enforcement. He couldn’t get help from anyone. Michael thought that he could draw Wade to go to him, that on his home turf he’d have the upper hand. But Wade had all the cards.
Tess’s Tahoe was a plain wrap. But she knew, if anyone had antennae for a plain wrap, it would be Wade Poole. She pulled off the road at the little general store, now closed, and waited. She knew where Wade was headed. Meantime, the Pima County sheriff’s deputy who had spotted him rolled in. He introduced himself as Wiley Moran.
They discussed what they were going to do. There was time for backup.
But that wasn’t the only consideration. Wade Poole was loaded for bear, and Jaimie Wolfe was almost certainly his hostage.
“What do you think Poole would do if he was turned down?” asked Deputy Moran.
He knew the right question to ask. Tess had been a deputy not too long ago, and she knew how important it was to think a situation through. Especially if you were ambitious, and Deputy Moran clearly was.
Tess said, “He’d kill them both.”
Deputy Moran’s eyebrows rose in an arch. He didn’t have to ask a question.
