Tess said, “He’d kill them and take off. Cut his losses.”
“And if he couldn’t get away?” Moran asked.
“He would kill as many as he could. And then he’d kill himself.”
Deputy Moran nodded. “That’s what I figured.”
Tess liked him. He had been very quick to stop and take stock of the situation, and had not turned around to go after Poole. He’d thought his actions through with the information he had at the time.
One word from her, and he’d pulled over to the side of the road.?He could have been a much different type.
Tess was glad she’d found him.
“He knows you pulled off,” Tess said. “Either he thinks you were just patrolling—routine—or that you’d been called off. Any way you look at it, he’s going to be wary. But at least we haven’t scared him off. I’m thinking I should go ahead. My Tahoe’s unmarked. He won’t necessarily be looking for a car like this.”
“Then I’m going to have to wait for backup, ma’am.”
“You’ll call it in?”
“Yeah. SWAT.”
“SWAT,” Tess said.
He was right. They would need SWAT.
Deputy Moran said, “I’m worried about the hostage.”
“Me, too.” Tess was certain Wade Poole planned to shoot Jaimie if Michael DeKoven didn’t cooperate.
“Think we should get closer?” Moran asked.
Tess decided to share her real fear with Deputy Moran. “We think that Poole is going to extort money from the DeKoven family. He’s using Jaimie as a hostage, but what would scare a guy like DeKoven the most? What ultimate threat?”
“That he’d kill her right in front of him,” Moran said. “As an example.”
Tess nodded. “I agree.”
He said, “The message would be that DeKoven would be next. I think we should get closer. I think we’ve got probable cause.”
“Or at least ‘possible cause,’” Tess said.
Moran laughed at that. “‘Possible cause.’ Sounds good enough to me.”
Tess looked up the road. From where they were they could see Zinderneuf’s lighted windows. The Moorish- slash-Pueblo-style building dominated the landscape. At one time, there was no Thunderhead Ranch, there were no homes anywhere nearby. That was before some of the land was sold off and subdivided. At one time, Zinderneuf had dominated the valley. But now it didn’t look all that different from the McMansions farther down the road. Clinging to the top of a hill, lighted windows. Except that Zinderneuf was all by itself.
“Wouldn’t take much to climb up there.” Moran nodded toward a shallow wash that crossed under the road and meandered between two scrub-covered hills. “We follow the wash around that hill and then go up cross- country.”
There was a moon already, and it was almost full.
Moran called in and said they would be observing, and when SWAT came, they would identify themselves. The estimated time for the SWAT team was inside twenty-five minutes.
They followed the arroyo along the hillside and found a horse trail leading up. They kept low to the ground and tried to stay as quiet as possible, stopping often to listen.
It took them about fifteen minutes to traverse the distance. They reached the blacktopped area where Tess had first seen Michael’s expensive Fisker Karma. It must be garaged now. Jaimie Wolfe’s ranch truck was parked closest to the gate. Poole and his hostage hadn’t been here long.
They worked their way toward the side of the house. The only noise was the sound of crickets. A bat fluttered past them and dipped down into the pool and up. Tess saw low decorative lights at intervals through the sparse mesquite limbs. They followed a dirt path along the ridge, lighted occasionally from recessed lamps set into the low wall of the pool area. The pool reflected the lights from the house. Across the way, screened by a garden and a royal palm, the guest house was dark. Tess wondered if Michael’s estranged wife and children were in residence. It was a little early to be asleep. They might be out somewhere.
They duckwalked along the desert side of the house and under a massive eucalyptus tree. Two windows were lighted on the far end, casting rectangles of light on the bushes and cactus. There was a space of about two and a half feet below the window, so they crawled under, careful of the thorns. They reached the corner and followed that around. No windows on that side. On the far side was an entrance—locked, and a porch overlooked the city lights. They went from dirt to flagstone paving and came upon a kitchen entrance. Tess checked the door: unlocked.
She looked at Moran and he looked at her. She tilted her chin in the direction of the city, and he gave her a curt nod: they would wait for SWAT.
They followed the porch around to the garden entrance, with steps down to the pool.
The house had been large for its time but not by modern standards. The buildings followed the profile of the ridge. Everything was quiet. No movement across the long pool area or at the guest house. The wife’s house was still dark. Tess hoped she was gone.
The only sound was the hum of the pool filter. The adobe walls to the house were probably two feet thick.
They circled the house again. Heard voices from one of the rooms on the east side.
Getting louder. Garbled. Angry?
Tess and Moran looked at each other. Weapons at the ready, drawn and at their sides.
“
Then they heard a crash, echoing through the thick walls—
A gunshot.
They couldn’t wait. They were going in.
CHAPTER 53
Michael had been in his study looking at his bank accounts online when he heard a door open and close.
He almost called out Martin’s name.
But Martin had wanted to go to a show at the convention center in downtown Tucson, and Michael hadn’t felt like it. He was too tied up in knots. He looked at his watch. The show had only been going for about thirty-five minutes—no way it could be Martin unless he decided not to go at all.
He thumbed his phone and tapped in Martin’s number.
“How’s the show?” he asked when Martin answered.
“It’s okay. The production values need some work—”
“Something’s come up,” Michael said. “Got to go.”
He kept quiet, his ear tuned to the front door. It was the front door. Jaimie knew the combination to the keypad by heart. Maybe Poole had been lying. Maybe Jaimie was fine, and maybe she’d run here so he could protect her.
But he didn’t think so.
He could feel his stomach tighten. Could almost feel his organs shrink, as if they were clenched in gelid fingers—fingers of the dead. Blood seemed to race from his extremities, and adrenaline poured through him. An electric river of fear.
He’d never been afraid before.
Even when his father raped him.
Even when, a couple of times, he thought someone might catch on to what they were doing. There was always that danger of slipping up. Which made it scary, but also fun.
But now he knew that the man called Wade Poole was in the house. He had Jaimie and he was creeping around, looking. Opening doors—he heard one creak—and coming his way. Seeing the light under the door. The light to his office.
Part of him yelled
