Jesus Christ, if I don’t find that plane soon, that bastard Ramos is going to have me killed. Preston had no doubt whatsoever of that. He was running out of time and, it looked like, running out of options.
For a long moment he let his gaze drift over the central Texas landscape. This state road, not as busy as the Interstate, still seemed to be busy enough. Preston thought it might be a good idea to get moving. No sense just standing around taking the chance they’d be noticed and reported.
He headed back toward his men. “There’s an IHOP listed at the second exit off I-35. Let’s head for it. Dennis, I want you to ride with me and let Jimmy drive your truck.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
Dennis got in the backseat with him. Lorne swung the Buick around, heading away from the small ranch owned by one G. Hornsby, and back toward the Interstate.
“Okay, tell me everything again,” Preston said.
“I did as you ordered, and drove back and forth past the house, and then took a tour around the area. I stopped at the Gas ‘N’ Go because it’s only a couple of miles from Hornsby’s place, and I figured he might be known there. Hornsby has an old Jeep parked at the side of the garage, looks like it’s been there for a while. So I pretended I was interested in buying it, asked if the store owner knew the guy.”
Preston nodded. Dennis was smarter than he’d originally thought. “That was good thinking.”
“Yeah, well, the store clerk knew Hornsby’s name well enough but had no idea where the man could have gone. Mentioned he lived with his niece, that it was just the two of them. As we were talking, another customer came in and overheard us. He claimed Hornsby was away for at least the next few days. Said he’d spoken to him just before he rode off in a sheriff’s cruiser. He told the store owner how he’d thought it must have been a joke because of the name on the side of the cruiser, and that maybe Hornsby was on his way to pull some kind of prank on someone. But the store owner said no, there really was such a place.”
“Such a place as where?”
“Lusty, Texas. That’s what the guy who came into the store said was on the sheriff’s car. He’d thought Hornsby was pulling a prank on his niece by showing up in a phony sheriff’s department car, because that’s who he said he was going to go join, his niece.”
“Lusty, Texas.” Preston had never heard of the place. “We’ll get Jimmy to look it up on the Web, see what we can find out about the place.”
“Well anyway, when I heard that, I decided not to go back to the man’s house and break in. If he’s connected to cops, they might be keeping an eye on his property while he’s gone, or something.”
Preston looked over at Dennis. “I agree. We can’t take a chance, at least not during daylight. But I do want you to go on foot onto the property tonight, have a look in that barn. It’s big enough to hold a Piper.”
“Yes, sir.”
They arrived at the IHOP a few minutes later. As with most eateries found at the end of an Interstate off-ramp, the place was busy for mid-morning, but not stand-in-line crowded. They grabbed a table in the back, ordered only coffee.
Preston sat beside Jimmy, who got his laptop working, searching out information on Lusty, Texas.
“They’ve got a Web site,” Jimmy said quietly. “Looking at the map, I’d say it’s about a hundred miles north. Doesn’t appear to have a direct Interstate ramp. Incorporated as a town in the 1880s. They do have a sheriff’s department, but that agency doesn’t have a separate Web site, so it can’t be very big, or very up to date. Yeah, population’s only a couple of thousand people.”
“So why would the sheriff of a pissant Texas town come all the way to San Marcos to pick up Hornsby? You figure he’s been arrested?” Preston asked.
Dennis shook his head. “That’s what the store guy asked the other guy. He said, no, Hornsby and the sheriff seemed real friendly-like. Hornsby sat in the front, which he wouldn’t have been doing if he’d been under arrest.”
Jimmy had stilled and looked over at Preston, a smile on his face.
“What?”
“They have an airstrip. It’s only a small, private airfield, but it’s capable of handling small jets. It’s cross-referenced on an FAA list.”
Preston looked down at the information Jimmy had up on the screen. “Show me the map again.” When his man complied, he said, “Can you pull back, so I can see a larger…yeah, like that. Look, this Lusty is about halfway between Abilene and San Marcos. Maybe whoever was flying that Piper had trouble and had to set it down?”
“Let me search for any small plane crashes,” Jimmy said.
His fingers flew over the keyboard. “No, there’s nothing. So we know it didn’t crash.”
“Good damn thing or we’d all be in a world of hurt right now,” Preston said.
He looked up at his men. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll grab a couple of rooms over there at the Barn Swallow Inn. Tonight, when it’s dark, Dennis and you will go have a look around Hornsby’s place. See if the Piper’s there. At this point we don’t know that it’s not. If it’s not, tomorrow we head to Lusty. Check out the airstrip. I’ll come up with some sort of a story, as we’ll likely be dealing with more than one person.”
While his men nodded their understanding, Preston stepped back, mentally, and looked at the big picture. Tomorrow would tell the tale. He either found that plane and retrieved Miguel Ramos’ property, or one way or another, he disappeared.
* * * *
“Looks like quite the addition you’re building here,” Goodwin said.
Morgan stood beside Tamara’s uncle as he looked around the airfield. This morning,
