Chapter 4 - The Quarry Road
I caught the black pickup three miles from the quarry.
I stayed far enough back that they would not immediately notice me.
No headlights.
Moonlight was enough.
Rex stood behind the passenger seat, body rigid.
“Easy.”
His ears twitched.
I did not want a fight.
I wanted time.
State police were coming.
Morales was coming.
But the truck kept moving.
The quarry road narrowed.
Trees on both sides.
No houses.
No witnesses.
Exactly where you take someone when you want the world to believe nobody saw what happened.
The pickup slowed near an old bridge.
My stomach tightened.
Paul Vance had died after his vehicle left a bridge.
History was not repeating by accident.
The truck stopped.
Two men got out.
Cody.
And Butch.
My jaw clenched.
They dragged Nora from the back seat.
Her hands were tied.
She kicked one of them.
Good woman.
Butch shoved her toward the guardrail.
I stepped from my truck.
“Let her go.”
Both men spun.
Cody reached toward his waistband.
“Don’t.”
My hands were visible.
“I’m unarmed.”
Butch laughed.
“You really are stupid.”
“Probably.”
Nora looked at me.
“Jack, leave.”
“No.”
Butch stepped closer.
His knee still bothered him from the diner.
“You humiliated me.”
“You did that yourself.”
His face tightened.
Cody pulled a pistol.
Rex growled from the truck.
Low.
Dangerous.
I did not command him out.
Butch looked toward the sound.
“Your mutt again.”
I kept my eyes on Cody.
“Point that gun somewhere else.”
He laughed nervously.
“Or what?”
“Or you’re going to make a bad situation irreversible.”
Butch shoved Nora closer to the rail.
“She knows too much.”
I stared at him.
“About Paul?”
Cody’s head snapped toward Butch.
That was useful.
Butch realized it too late.
“What about Paul?” I asked.
“Shut up.”
“You had his knife.”
Cody looked furious.
“Butch.”
I continued.
“You took it after he died?”
“Stop talking.”
“You were there.”
Cody’s gun wavered.
I was not trying to scare them.
I was trying to make them argue.
Stress fractures teams.
Butch looked at Cody.
“Keep the gun on him.”
“You said nobody else knew.”
“Nobody did.”
“He knows about the knife!”
“Because you pulled it in a diner, idiot!”
There.
Division.
Nora saw it too.
She shifted slightly away from the rail.
I kept talking.
“Dalton told you Paul’s evidence was gone?”
Both men froze.
That confirmed everything.
I took one slow step.
Cody raised the pistol.
“Stay back.”
I stopped.
“Dalton’s done.”
Butch smiled.
“You don’t know Dalton.”
“State police do now.”
That landed.
Cody looked toward the road.
Butch grabbed Nora’s arm.
“You called them?”
“Yes.”
Lie.
Morales had.
But details did not matter.
“Then we go,” Cody said.
Butch stared at him.
“We finish this.”
“No.”
Cody lowered the gun slightly.
“We leave.”
I saw opportunity.
So did Rex.
He barked.
Cody flinched.
Nora drove her heel down on Butch’s foot.
He cursed and released her.
I moved.
Not toward Cody.
Toward Nora.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her behind the engine block of my truck.
A gunshot cracked through the night.
Glass shattered.
Rex exploded into barking.
“Stay!”
He obeyed.
Even with gunfire.
Even with adrenaline.
Because that was who he was.
Cody fired again.
The round struck metal.
Then sirens appeared in the distance.
Real ones.
Many.
Cody panicked.
He ran toward the woods.
Butch jumped into the pickup.
I stayed with Nora.
I was not chasing anybody with a gun.
Not anymore.
State cruisers tore around the bend.
Butch accelerated.
He made it thirty yards before another cruiser blocked the road.
He slammed the brakes.
Officers surrounded him.
Cody disappeared into the trees.
Troopers followed with dogs.
The scene became lights.
Commands.
Weapons.
Hands.
Questions.
Nora sat beside my tire shaking.
I cut the rope from her wrists.
“You hurt?”
“No.”
Then she slapped my arm.
Hard.
“What was that for?”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I’ve heard.”
She hugged me immediately afterward.
That hurt more.
Troopers arrested Butch.
Cody was found forty minutes later hiding in a drainage ditch.
His pistol matched shell casings recovered near the bridge.
Inside the black pickup, investigators found something worse.
Paul Vance’s old badge.
Wrapped in cloth.
Nora saw it.
She stopped breathing.
Morales arrived while paramedics were examining her.
His forehead had been bandaged.
When he saw the badge, he turned away.
“What does that prove?” I asked.
A state investigator named Special Agent Karen Bishop answered.
“Possession alone? Not enough.”
She looked inside the pickup.
“But we also found a bloodstained flashlight.”
Nora went pale.
“Paul’s?”
“We don’t know.”
Bishop looked at me.
“Mr. Mercer, from this point forward, stay out of the investigation.”
I almost laughed.
“I was trying to leave town this morning.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She softened slightly.
“You helped save Mrs. Vance.”
“I kept people talking until you arrived.”
“That was still dangerous.”
“Yes.”
Rex finally jumped from the truck after I released him.
Nora knelt and hugged him.
“You’re a good boy.”
Rex looked at me.
I nodded.
He accepted the affection.
Bishop watched.
“He really stayed in the truck during gunfire?”
“Yes.”
“Better discipline than half my agents.”
“Don’t tell them that.”
For the first time that night, someone smiled.
Then Bishop’s phone rang.
Her expression changed while listening.
“What?”
She looked toward Morales.
Then me.
“Sheriff Dalton is gone.”
“Gone how?”
“He left his house ten minutes before troopers arrived.”
“Vehicle?”
“Department SUV.”
“Where would he go?”
Morales answered immediately.
“The plant.”
Bishop turned.
“Why?”
“Paul’s evidence.”
“What evidence?”
May you like
Morales stared toward the dark road.
“The stuff Dalton told us never existed.”
