Chapter 13
Laysha had made it sound like all was fine, but it certainly wasn’t. She was being followed, and she didn’t like it one bit. It didn’t seem to matter what she did, she couldn’t shake him. She didn’t know who it was or why he was following her, but absolutely nothing good was about this scenario. As she headed toward the border and flew across it, the white truck came into Texas right behind her. She headed through some of the busiest areas of town, pulled in through parking lots and back out into main streets, doing anything she could to shake him. And just no luck. She swore, pulled into a busy restaurant, and sat in the parking lot.
The vehicle pulled in and parked near her. And it sat, just waiting. She didn’t even know what to do. She wanted to ask for assistance, but she wouldn’t leave the truck and her dogs. Yet sitting here made her an easy target too. She waited and watched to see what her stalker would do and then wondered if she could get close enough that she could get a picture of the driver. She pulled out her phone and set it to Camera. With the dogs lying confused beside her, she hit Reverse and backed up until she was parked crossways, right in front of his cab, and started taking photos.
At that, the vehicle drove forward, hitting her driver’s side door.
She just smiled and took more photos as he yelled at her. She took as many as she wanted, knowing that the rental vehicle would take a beating. She hoped that Caleb had taken insurance out on it. But the noise he created had others coming out of the restaurant to see what was going on. And, with that, she pulled forward, toward several men. She stopped and pointed out the vehicle that had followed her, yelling, “That vehicle followed me all the way from Mexico, and I am terrified.”
The men immediately headed for the truck, and, as if seeing that the tide had changed in her favor, the driver hit Reverse and took off. The men came racing back. One said, “I’m a cop. Did you get any photos of them?”
She nodded, immediately typing in his email address as he spouted it off for her. She quickly texted him several of the best of the photos. She looked at him with relief. “Oh, my God,” she said, “I was so scared, I didn’t know where to go.”
“Well, that was pretty brave what you did,” the cop said. “Some people would say it was also stupid as hell.”
She winced. “I know. I just didn’t know what else to do. I figured, if I went home, he’d follow me there, and that was the last thing I wanted.”
“Well, we’ve got photos, and we certainly have witnesses now. Plus, his front end is damaged, from hitting your rental,” he said. “I’m putting out a BOLO to see if we can get the guy picked up. You’ll need to come to the station so we can file a report.”
“Then you want to watch the border,” she said. “I wondered if it had something to do with that murder in that empty house.”
He looked at her in surprise. “What do you know about it?”
“I was one of the pair who found the body,” she said, shaking. “And, ever since then, I’ve had several strangers come to my house in the middle of the night, and one shot at us.” She mentioned the detective’s name handling the case.
“He’s a friend of mine. I’ll contact him.”
“Could you do that?” she asked. “I’m starting to go into shock, I think.” She held up her hand, shivering badly.
“Go home,” he said. “We’ll contact you there. You’ll be fine.”
“Maybe,” she said, but she knew she couldn’t go home until she picked up Caleb. “Maybe I’ll drive somewhere and get a coffee. I’m scared to go home now.”
He nodded. “Hopefully we’ll find this guy right away. I’ll contact Ansel, and we’ll get back to you about it.”
“Good,” she said. “I hadn’t realized, but a friend of mine said that the rental house backed up to the house owned by that nasty drug-running, dog-killing, women-selling asshole on the Mexican border.”
“Huevo?”
“Yeah, apparently. I looked it up on the map, and the properties back up to each other.”
He stared at her in surprise, his look calculating. A thought then came into his head. “You know, that almost makes sense.”
“Well, I’m not sure,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking anything about it. I drove past the place because I felt so bad for the dead guy,” she said. “Then I remembered what my friend said.”
“I’ll have to look into that,” he said. “We’ve been after that Huevo asshole for a long time.”
“When I was just there at the nearby property, I heard gunfire,” she said. “I don’t know how long it takes to hear gunfire, but I was just walking around the back of the rental property, and I heard something in the distance.”
“Huevo’s wanted for at least a half-dozen murders. We’ve just never found any proof of any bodies.”
“Well, if he keeps a pack of dogs, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he feeds the dead people to the dogs,” she snapped. “He’s just an asshole to do that.”
“That would be wrong,” he said, “but it’s not a bad idea.”
“It’s a terrible idea,” she said. “Those poor dogs.”
“Maybe,” he murmured. “But it’s smart on the criminal’s part.”
“Maybe, but just to think of him doing that? I mean, the animals wouldn’t know the difference between what they’re eating, and they would be quite happy to chow down on some guy just because this asshole doesn’t like them.”
“Very true,” he said. “Go home. We’ll handle it.”
“Okay,” she said with relief, and she pulled away
