That was news to Judd. But he’d been far too occupied with the actual execution of the job to concern himself with the politics.
“We’re just gathering information in order to make a final decision in short order,” Ed added.
So his tenure as Chief might be drawing to a close? Judd couldn’t deny the sense of relief he felt at that. He didn’t want the job anymore, not beyond closing out this case, seeing Autumn safe. But he couldn’t have his authority ripped away just yet.
Cam Crawford, the youngest Councilman and Sandra’s son, finally spoke. “You’ve got to admit, things have been rather personal the last few weeks.”
“We live in a town of five thousand people. There’s no such thing as doing the job here without getting personal. Getting personal is half of what allows me to do the job well. It’s what allows you to do your jobs. People and their connection to each other are a huge part of what makes Wishful what it is. That’s exactly what your wife-to-be is always preaching.”
“We’re just concerned that being so personally involved limits your objectivity,” Grace said.
“Have there been complaints about my performance?” Judd demanded. “Documentation that I have somehow shirked my duties?” He knew his tone had slid past respect and well into belligerence, but he couldn’t seem to stop it. He had zero tolerance for anyone questioning his integrity.
“We’re just trying to—”
The door flew open, effectively cutting Sandra off. Judd automatically surged to his feet as Clint burst into the room.
“Couldn’t get you on the phone.”
“What’s going on?”
“Sheriff’s Department radioed. There’s been an accident.”
Judd’s blood turned to ice, the sharp shards of it stabbing through his whole body as he waited for Clint to finish.
“The scene’s still being processed, but Judd, it looks like someone ran Autumn off the road. Her car flipped.”
No.
Hanging on to the last bit of his control, Judd managed, “Is she—”
“She’s gone. Not dead,” Clint rushed to add. “She’s not on the scene. I—they don’t think she walked away on her own.”
The strength went out of Judd’s legs, almost dropping him to his knees.
I shouldn’t have let her go. I shouldn’t have taken her protective detail off. A dozen other recriminations rang in his head. But they didn’t matter. Only action mattered. Because the son of a bitch had taken her.
Rage burned through the paralyzing ice.
“Where?”
“Some random county road halfway to Lawley.”
Why the hell hadn’t she been on the highway? He’d figure it out. He had to figure it out.
Turning back to the City Council he said, “The personal’s interfering with my objectivity, huh?”
A few of them had the grace to look abashed.
“I’m done here. You do whatever the fuck you need to do about the job. I don’t care anymore. Because I will go to hell itself to bring her back, with or without the badge.”
He stalked out with barely a glance at the cool-eyed stranger in the hall. Autumn was in danger and the clock was ticking on finding her alive.
Chapter 18
“Come on, baby.” The voice sounded familiar and very far away.
Chasing it took too much effort, so Autumn let it slide, choosing instead to sink back into the black.
“You have to wake up. Please.” Worry laced the tone.
Instinctively wanting to reassure, she fought through the suffocating dark. Breaking back into consciousness brought with it a stunning pain. Everything ached. She nearly dove under again, but she felt the warm hand clasping hers, felt the tremble in those fingers.
“Please wake up.”
She forced her eyes open, almost slamming them closed again at the onslaught of light.
“Darcy.” Relief saturated his voice and his hand tightened on hers.
Risking another glance, she turned toward the familiar voice, waiting for the fuzzy image to resolve itself into a person.
His hair was in total disarray and his shirt was spattered with blood. The sleeve was torn. His face looked wrong somehow, despite the concern in those pale blue eyes.
His glasses. He’s not wearing his glasses.
“Mark?” Her voice sounded rough as tree bark.
He frowned reaching out to smooth the hair back from her face. “You must’ve hit your head harder than I thought. It’s Fletcher, baby.”
“Fletcher? I don’t…”
Her brain was so fuzzy. Had he called her Darcy? Maybe she was caught in some kind of whacked out dream. But she couldn’t remember a dream ever hurting this badly.
“There was an accident. Manigault ran you off the road. I don’t know how he found out about the article, but he’s bound and determined to stop you from publishing that list of people in the administration who are involved.”
Manigault?
She struggled to remember. Pieces came back to her. The truck. Turning off the highway. Not being able to turn around. Being rammed from behind.
“Nothing’s broken. You’re scraped up some, pretty bruised. And you’ve probably got a concussion, but we can’t get to the doctors to check.”
“Why not?” It was a dream, so at this point she expected to hear almost anything.
“It’s not safe. I barely got you away. We had to go to ground and hide.”
“Hide?” she repeated. She couldn’t keep up. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to. She hadn’t gotten this far in the narrative, hadn’t finished plotting out the final climactic sequence.
“It’s the only way to keep you safe. I did that, Darcy. I saved you. Cooper isn’t the only one who can protect you. There’s no reason to fall back into old patterns with him, just because of that. You’re meant to be with me. I’ll protect you. I swear it.”
Okay, lucid dreaming with the character I didn’t pick as the final love interest. He’s pissed. I get it.
It didn’t feel like a dream, but the alternative was too bizarre for Autumn’s battered brain to contemplate. For now, she’d play along, see if she couldn’t take control of the dream narrative. She did that sometimes, hanging out in that half asleep, half awake state where she was still dreaming. Sometimes she could nudge events to change them.
She tried to sit up and felt every muscle in her body protest.
“Whoa there. Easy.” Mark…Fletcher? helped her get vertical on the sofa.
“Could I have some water?”
“Of course.” He leapt to his feet and she took the opportunity to look around.
The cabin was one room. A full-size bed was tucked off into one corner. The door to a tiny bathroom stood ajar. The couch she sat on was a God-awful Naugahyde monstrosity she absolutely had to remember to describe when she woke up. It faced a little fireplace that probably served as the only source of heat in the place come winter. A tan and brown window AC unit stirred the tepid air from one of the three windows in the place. There was only one door.
The galley kitchen held a rough wood island that looked as if the pieces had been hacked out of the wilderness with a machete. A set of plain, camping style dishes sat on a shelf above the little counter. Mark—she couldn’t make her brain think of him as Fletcher—grabbed one of the speckled tin cups and filled it from the faucet, opening the freezer of the avocado green fridge and adding a few cubes of ice from a plastic tray. He brought the water back.
She sipped slowly, grateful for the cool slide of liquid down her throat. “Where are we?” A hunting cabin. That much was obvious.
“My great uncle’s place. He died a couple of years ago and left it to me. It’s in the middle of nowhere, far enough out that Manigault shouldn’t be able to track us.”
Not a detail she’d planted in the story, but who knew what other secrets Fletcher had been keeping? It wouldn’t be the first time a character surprised her with something useful.
“So, what, w
e’re going to just hole up here like the Alamo and wait? How will we defend ourselves?”
“I’m armed.” He said it simply, with no explanation, and that bothered her. She’d never designed Fletcher to be comfortable with weapons.
“We can’t just leave Manigault to continue his reign of terror.”
“You’re in no shape to go head-to-head with him right now.”
Dream or no dream, that was the absolute truth. At the moment, she wasn’t even certain she could stand. Her ankle throbbed. Only sprained, she hoped. He’d wrapped it in an elastic bandage.
“I did what I could with the first aid supplies I had. How are you feeling?” His expression of concern was mixed with a sort of fretful hope, as if waiting for some kind of praise for his efforts.
“Like I’ve been hit by a truck. But I’ll live, thanks to you.”
He came back to sit beside her. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. I should’ve come for you the moment I realized you were a target.” Gently, he cupped her cheek, brushing against some scrape or other.
Autumn winced and pulled back. “I’ve pissed off a lot of people in my time as a journalist. Telling the truth does that. It’s never been enough to stop me. But we’re in over our heads at this point. We should go to the police. The FBI. Something.”
“The authorities can’t be trusted. There’s a mole in the department, hampering the investigation.”
Again, not a detail she’d planted, although not a bad idea. She filed that one away, too, for when she woke up and got back to the book.
“Who?”
He looked away. “You’re not ready to hear this.”
Autumn set the water aside. “Tell me.”
Mark sighed and took both her hands in his. “It’s Cooper.”
She jerked her hands away and stared at him. “You’re insane. Cooper would never—”
“You don’t want to see the truth about him,” Mark snapped, and there was more than jealousy in his gaze. Something dark glittered behind his eyes.
That, too, bothered her. But this didn’t seem to be one of the dreams she could control.
“You’re too personally involved, too blinded where he’s concerned. But he’s been in on it all along. Who else could so effectively control the investigation? Cover Manigault’s tracks?”
“You’re trying to tell me Cooper’s the one who ran me off the road?”
“No. Manigault did that himself because you were getting too close. I concede he’d never physically hurt you. But he’s involved, Darcy. When we take down Manigault, Cooper’s going down with the rest.”
Okay, this little detour was nowhere in her subconscious. Whatever else she’d written about Cooper, he was a man of integrity and unshakable principles. He’d never be colluding with the villain. Which meant that either the concussion was screwing with her ability to plot or…
Her heart began to thud. “What time is it?”
Mark looked startled by the change in topic.
“What time is it? How long have I been unconscious?” she asked.
“A few hours. It’s nearly noon.”
“Where’s my purse? I have to have my purse.”
“Darcy, calm down. Why do you need your purse?”
“Because I have a heart condition and my meds are in there.” She rubbed at the tightness in her chest.
“Your purse is back at the accident site. I couldn’t get to it when I pulled you out. But it’s fine. I’ve got your meds right here.”
He crossed to the bathroom, opening the mirror to reveal a small medicine cabinet. A moment later, he handed over a couple of pill bottles. She flipped them over, read the labels.
Autumn Buchanan.
If this were a dream, wouldn’t they say Darcy McClintock?
“Where did you get these?” she asked.
“I snagged them for you. Been hanging on to them for just in case. Good thing, huh?” He smiled, pleased with himself.
Numb, she opened both bottles and shook out the necessary medication. She knew where he’d gotten them. From her kitchen counter. Before he set her house on fire.
With a shaking hand, she reached for the water again, swallowed the pills.
She wasn’t caught in a dream. She was living a nightmare.
~*~
The sight of Autumn’s crumpled car had bile rising in Judd’s throat. The crash could’ve killed her. The vehicle had rolled at least twice before a tree slowed it down. Blood streaked the airbag. Not a lot but enough.
But if she were already dead, he wouldn’t have taken the body. There’d be no reason to. And if he took her, she served some purpose to him alive. Judd had to believe that.
Still, a lot could happen in four hours. That was the estimate for how much time had passed since the wreck. Which meant that the text he’d gotten before his City Council meeting had been sent by someone other than Autumn to throw him off the trail.
If he’d just called her back right then…
Then what? The kidnapper wouldn’t have answered. Neither would Autumn. He might’ve called Nanna directly. Might have found out an hour sooner that she’d never arrived at the farm. Even if he’d had sufficient suspicion to skip the meeting and go track her down, he’d still have been chasing his goddamned tail until a farmer from Chapel Springs happened down that lonely county road and saw the car.
What was she doing out here in the first place?
Another SUV pulled into the long line of vehicles stretching down the gravel road as Spence strode over. “Just got confirmation from the forensic guys. Those are Jebediah Buchanan’s prints on the car. Tyrell said he missed his check-in this morning.”
“Because he was busy abducting his daughter,” Judd growled. He called back to dispatch. “Where are we on the canvas at the Mockingbird Motel and surrounding area?”
Darius’s voice came back. “Nothing more specific than his car was here last night and not this morning. Still looking.”
“Somebody saw Buchanan leave, and I want to know who it was and when.” Judd knew he was all but snarling like a dog and couldn’t bring himself to care.
Spence laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find her. Sheriff Riggs is mobilizing every available unit, every reserve officer. There’s already a regional BOLO out.”
Regional. Because in four hours, Jebediah could’ve driven her out of state, to Alabama, Arkansas, or Tennessee. Coordinating all those jurisdictions would be a nightmare.
“I can help with that.”
Judd turned to see the stranger he’d passed in City Hall. The competition, he realized. He noted the outline of a shoulder holster beneath the suit coat as well as the cowboy boots
“Ethan Greer. U.S. Marshal Service.” He flashed his credentials.
“What the hell is a federal marshal doing down here?” Spence asked.
Why was a federal marshal applying for a position as a small town chief of police? “He had business in town,” Judd said.
Something like approval flashed in those steel gray eyes. “I heard about the trouble and wanted to offer whatever assistance I could.”
A tall man, if not quite as broad as Judd, Greer exuded a quiet confidence. A man who could handle himself and didn’t feel the need to throw around his rank or his weight to prove it.
“I’m not here to step on any toes, Chief Hamilton. I just want to help.”
It was a county-level investigation, but everyone was looking to him for direction.
Judd extended a hand. “At this point, Marshal, I’d take help from the devil himself. Welcome aboard.” He made introductions to Spence.
“Catch me up.”
Judd gave him the overview, outlining the particulars Greer would need to know in order to tap his federal resources and expedite the coordination of agencies.
“And the victim, Autumn Buchanan, she’s your wife? Girlfriend?”
“She’s my everything,” Judd said quietly.
“Then we’ll find her. I’ll make s
ome calls, get the ball rolling on the regional coordination.”
Judd scrubbed a hand over his head. “I don’t think he’s left the area. Tyrell said Jebediah’s stuff is still in his room at the motel. If he were planning on bolting, he would’ve taken his things.”
“So you’re thinking it was a crime of opportunity?” Greer asked.
“Maybe. But he’s a convicted felon on parole. Taking her across state lines is risky. Too much chance of being spotted. More likely he’s holed up somewhere. Probably somewhere still within the county. Before his conviction, he’d lived his whole life in Wachoxee County.”
“A lot could’ve changed while he was on the inside,” Spence observed.
“We’ve got six hundred square miles of woods and farmland. He doesn’t have to leave the area to find a place to hide.”
“That’s a lot of territory to cover. Needle in a fucking haystack without some kind of direction,” Spence said.
“Then we work on winnowing it down.” Judd radioed back to Wishful PD and put Raines on a property search, giving Jebediah’s name and the name of every Buchanan relative he could remember.
“It’s a start. But we need more eyes, more boots on the ground.”
“More eyes,” Judd muttered. “And I know how to get them.” He reached for the radio again. “Inez, organize a press conference in half an hour, out front of the station. Make copies of Jebediah Buchanan’s latest mug shot and find a recent picture of Autumn—there will be some in my office. See that they’re circulated by the time I get there.”
“Yes, Chief.”
Greer frowned. “How can you mobilize the media that quickly?”
“Because they’ve been camped out on my doorstep for days, like a bunch of damned blackbirds. I’m about to make them earn their keep.”
By the time Judd made it back, it seemed the ranks of reporters had tripled. Good. For once in his miserable dealings with them, he was grateful they seemed to multiply like weeds. He didn’t even hear the babble of shouted questions, just plowed through the center of them, with Spence, two other Wachoxee County deputies, and Ethan Greer bringing up the rear.