feeling as he crashed his body into the other man’s back he would never forget. They went down hard together, with Ray on top. He put the gun up under the other man’s throat.
“Stay back! Stay back or I’ll blow his head off!” he shouted to the crowd of milling police. If they simply grabbed him, he knew, his plan was forfeited.
All around him, a loose circle of tense people appeared with guns drawn. He wondered vaguely if any of them had sharp-shooting medals. Perhaps one of them would soon decide to play the hero and shoot the crazy on the floor.
“Ray!” cried a familiar voice. It was Vasquez. “Ray, this won’t work. Let him go.”
He paid no attention. He might die soon, but he hardly cared anymore. His son might be dead. He might be going to jail for a very long time. His wife might even have betrayed him. But he was going to have his say.
“Are you fucking nuts, man?” hissed the addict.
“Yes.”
Ray watched the other’s reaction and enjoyed it.
“Tell me where my son is. Don’t lie-I already know most of it. Tell me or I’ll blow you away right now.”
“You’ll go down for Murder One,” hissed the addict.
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying, man.”
“You don’t know how much pressure is already on this trigger. I’ve got the safety off and these cops would have already pulled me off if it wasn’t loaded.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, you are the one is going to get fucked, one way or the other. They’ll hold you after this. You know they will. And they will find out who did it when my son’s body is recovered. Murder. That’s what you’ll be up for. Kidnapping, burglary and murder.”
“Spurlock?” asked a voice astonishingly near. Ray jumped, finding that Vasquez had gotten down on her haunches beside the two struggling men.
The addict reacted. His eyes gave him away. He glanced at her, then looked quickly away again. But that moment was enough for Ray. He looked at Vasquez and saw that she had caught the reaction as well. The man was named Spurlock.
Spurlock simply could not believe his bad luck. Here, he had this maniac Vance on top of him with a gun just seconds before he made a clean get away. He chided himself for not having killed the bastard instead of leaving him in the canal. He recalled what a crazy con told him once in prison: ‘When you step onto the murderer’s path, there’s no turning back, no washing away of the blood. Instead, only more bloodletting can keep you free.’
He decided to look into Vance’s eyes and see what he could. He found determination there. It was right there, plain as day, and easy to read. Vance was a normal guy, but pushed to his limits and beyond. He had gone mad, in a way, but for good reasons. Spurlock had seen it before in prison, on mornings in the laundry room or afternoons in the showers, when men who had been beaten and raped vowed revenge. Normal men, family men, even accountants, could turn savage at times. You could see it in their eyes.
The look of madness was there in Vance now. He had been pushed too far. Spurlock wondered vaguely if Ingles had seen that same look in his eyes earlier today. Perhaps he had. He decided not to make the same mistake that Ingles’ had. It was best not to call a desperate man’s bluff.
“He’s buried,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Is he on Ingles’ land?” asked Vasquez quietly.
Spurlock rolled his eyes up to her. Since he was laying on his back, he tried automatically to look up her skirt. He could see a hint of white satin up there. He leered. Then he leaned forward as if to kiss Vance’s ear. “In an orchard,” he whispered. “Look for backhoe, about a hundred yards away from the main road.”
“Where?” growled Vance.
“Ingles’ land,” Spurlock whispered. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
Vance smiled down at him. “No,” he said.
… 1 Hour and Counting…
Vasquez and Hansen drove back out to Ingles place. They circled the property on the main roads, looking for a backhoe. Driving at less than thirty miles an hour while Vasquez hung her head out the window and peered into the green gloom of the trees, Johansen was becoming impatient.
“We need support,” he said.
“We’ll get it, after we find the site,” replied Vasquez.
“The sheriff’s office is coming to beat the bushes. They’ll be out here in less than an hour for one of their own lost kids.”
“What if the kid doesn’t have an hour left?” she asked.
“I’m just hoping we have jobs to come back to next week.”
“I’m just hoping that we find Vance’s kid.”
“You seriously think he could be buried alive out here somewhere?” he asked.
She turned on him and the look on her face said it all.
“I’m sorry, Letti,” he said quietly. “It’s just been a long day for everyone.”
“Don’t call me Letti,” she said, turning back to the orchards. “I hate that.”
“Okay. Sorry. Let’s find that kid.”
The two of them drove for some time. They passed the house, went to the canal which bordered the property, then turned and rolled along the dusty embankment. A tow truck was hauling the Lincoln up the side of the canal with a winch. They maneuvered around the truck and kept on to the back road, then worked to search the entire region. There were two sheriff’s vehicles in evidence, but they were parked at the house.
When they had made it back to the place where they had started, Johansen braked gently and looked at her with eyebrows upraised.
“Let’s do it again,” she said.
“Um, about the other night,” he began a few minutes later. She tensed visibly. Here it came. The talk.
“I think it’s clear that we’re still working together reasonably well.”
She nodded, but didn’t take her eyes off the orchards.
“Well, what I wanted to ask was-” he paused, and she expected him to clear his throat like an adolescent. But he didn’t. “Can we get together again sometime? Or was it just a freak thing?”
She was silent. She wanted to speak, but couldn’t come up with anything to say. Her throat felt locked.
“Do you want me to drop it for good?” he asked quietly. “‘Cause I will, if that’s what you want.”
“A freak thing?” she responded belatedly. She gave him an appalled look.
“Okay, it was wonderful thing. I can drop it if you want. No pressure.”
She liked that. She thought it over for awhile. Outside the car, the quiet orchards rolled by.
“Well?” he asked.
“I’m thinking.”
When she finally did see the backhoe, she didn’t react right away. They had passed it and gone another hundred yards before she said, “Stop the car!”
The brakes squeaked and the hood nosed down. She was out of the car and running before they had come to a complete stop.
“Bring your cell phone!” she shouted.
He was right behind her, crashing through a thicket of weeds and weaving through the lanes of trees. They reached the backhoe and circled it in a pattern. Soon, she came upon a white PVC pipe that thrust up from a mound of disturbed earth. One spot had sunken in like a gopher-hole.
Johansen handed her his cell phone. “It’s not working for some reason, maybe we’re too far from a tower. Keep trying to call an ambulance. I’m going to get that backhoe started.”
As she watched him run for the backhoe, she made her decision. She decided that it wasn’t just a ‘freak thing’. She decided that she liked this thing, and they would make whatever they could of it together. Bureau policy be damned.
Then she returned herself to the emergency at hand. She froze for just a moment staring down at the
