Lauren hung up on her, dug another quarter out of her pocket, fed the phone, and dialed home.
The phone rang . . . and rang . . . and rang . . .
53
Leah could see the man through the glass in the door. He looked like a detective, she thought. He had broad, square shoulders and a broad, square jaw. He was dressed like Don Johnson on
She pressed the intercom button beside the door. “I’m supposed to ask to see your badge,” she said nervously, afraid that she was just wasting valuable time. Of course the man was a detective.
In the back of her mind she thought he looked familiar, but she didn’t know any detectives here, so that didn’t make sense to her. It didn’t matter anyway. The only thing that mattered was getting to her mom.
“Good girl,” the detective said with a nod. He lifted a badge and showed it to her through the glass. “I’m Detective Houston. You can open the door now.”
Relief flooded through Leah and she opened the door.
The second Detective Houston stepped inside, Leah had a bad feeling. Why would he come inside if he was supposed to take her someplace?
Immediately, she tried to dismiss the bad feeling. She was nervous because something had happened to her mom. And she was always uneasy around men she didn’t know. She chided herself for being stupid. He was a detective. He’d shown her his badge. Not every man on the planet was a kidnapper.
Instinct made her take a step back from him, just the same.
Behind her the telephone began to ring.
Leah took another step back and started to turn to go to it.
The detective grabbed hold of her arm.
“Let it ring,” he said.
Leah thought he would draw her toward the door. They had to leave. Her mother was hurt. She had been taken to the hospital. They had to get to her.
But the detective didn’t move toward the door, and fear burst into flame inside Leah.
She tried to pull away from him. He held tight. “What are you doing? Let me go!”
The phone rang again. The answering machine would pick up soon. Why would he not want her to answer the phone?
Leah twisted and jerked her arm free, her hand swinging up and knocking the sunglasses off his face.
It struck her then why he looked familiar. He had come to the barn. He had been dressed differently. He hadn’t been wearing sunglasses. He had smiled at her like she was supposed know him and be glad to see him. He hadn’t said anything about being a detective. He hadn’t used the name Houston.
Leah bolted for the phone on the kitchen counter. The answering machine had kicked on, but the caller would still be able to hear her if she could only get to the phone. She could scream. She could yell to call 911.
Houston grabbed hold of her ponytail with his left hand and jerked her backward off her feet. She fell back into him, arms swinging, flailing. She hit him in the mouth. She hit him in the chest with her elbow.
“Stop it!” he snapped at her.
Leah scrambled to get her feet back under her. Tears spilled from her eyes as he pulled her hair.
“Let me go!” she screamed. She kicked him in the shin as hard as she could, the heavy toe of her clog hitting like a baseball bat against the bone.
“Fuck!” he yelled. “You fucking little bitch!”
He slapped her hard across the face, then a second time and a third.
Leah felt like her head would explode. The ringing in her ear was as loud as a gong. Her field of vision turned to black lace. The coppery taste of blood burst into her mouth.
She was sobbing now, though she could barely hear herself. The sound seemed to be coming from someone else. She felt dizzy and weak. And then she was falling, backward and down. He had let go of her hair and shoved her away from him.
She hit the floor and the back of her head banged hard against a thick table leg. She struggled to sit up, her fingernails digging for purchase against the floor. Her hand brushed against the steel hoof pick that hung from the belt loop of her breeches. Instinctively she pulled the tail of her polo shirt down over it to hide it.
Houston’s big hand grabbed her by the shoulder, fingers digging in as he hauled her to her feet. He backhanded her across the other side of her face, then grabbed one small breast and squeezed as hard as he could.
Leah cried out at the pain. “Stop it! Stop it!”
He let go of her then and shoved her roughly down onto a chair.
Hysterical with fear, with shock, with pain, she doubled over and wrapped her arms around herself, sobbing.
“Sit there!” he shouted. He was bent over her, his mouth not a foot away from her ear. “Sit there or I will fucking rape you!”
Leah choked on her tears and on her terror, and wished with all her heart someone would come and save her.
54
Tanner’s eyes narrowed as she stared hard at something on the page in front of her.
“What was the name of the guy we thought might be a private dick?” she asked.
“Gregory Hewitt,” Hicks said.
Mendez went to an empty section of whiteboard. His adrenaline was pumping. He wrote MICHAEL CRAIG HOUSTON/GREGORY HEWITT in the center of the board. From Houston’s name he drew a line to the left and printed out BALLENCOA, and to the right he put a question mark and LAUREN LAWTON.
“If Houston is Gregory Hewitt, why would he have been watching Ballencoa in San Luis?” Hicks asked. “They know each other. They were in contact while Houston was finishing his stint at the Men’s Colony. Why would he tell the neighbor lady he was a cop?”
“What’s he supposed to say?” Mendez asked. “I’m Roland’s friend from prison? He tells her he’s a cop, she goes away.”
Tanner came up to the board and stood beside him. “So if we follow Houston, Houston knows Ballencoa is moving to Oak Knoll. If we follow the Hewitt thread under our original suspicion that he might be a private investigator, that potentially links him to Lauren.”
She picked up a marker and made a broken line connecting Hewitt and Lawton with Mendez’s question mark in the center.
“Lauren knows Ballencoa is in Oak Knoll because she got the info from Hewitt,” she said. “Ballencoa knows where Lauren lives through his connection to Houston.”
“The con man is playing both sides,” Hicks said.
“But which side is he really on?” Mendez asked. “And how did Lauren connect with him? If she was going to hire a PI, how would she happen to end up with this guy?”
“He had to go to her,” Tanner said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. He goes to her and says, ‘Hey, lady, I can help you out with this for a price. I know where Ballencoa is, I know where he’s going . . .’ It’s never been a secret that the Lawtons have money. Maybe he’s angling to somehow get his hands on the fifty grand.”
“Double-crossing his old buddy?” Mendez said.
“Or was it a setup from the get-go?” Hicks asked.
“They couldn’t count on her moving to Oak Knoll to pursue Ballencoa,” Mendez said.
