Page 59 of Shane
Tuesday pointed down the rows of corn.
“Still East?” he asked her, the pad of his index finger on the phone’s microphone.
She nodded at the same time Mother said, “Exactly. Keep the ridge to your right and your phone handy. I’ll check back in twenty to see how you’re doing, understood?”
“Copy that. You’re the best.”
“Damned right I am. You do understand that it’s not how many times a man falls off a horse that counts, don’t you? It’s how many times he gets back in the saddle and keeps trying.”
God, she reminded him of his Mom. “I do know that, yes, ma’am, and thank you for reminding me. Sounds like you’re a horsewoman.”
“Not exactly, but I recently discovered I like to ride, and Maverick’s got some gentle mares I like, and he’s taught me a few things, and…” Her voice trailed away. She seemed to have run out of things to say.
Shane filled the silence between them with a heartfelt, “Thanks, Mom.”
“No thanks necessary.” She cleared her throat. “Helping my TEAM is what I do. I’m only a call away. Talk to you soon.”
“Copy that.” He ended the connection. Shane was beginning to like Sasha Kennedy. Turning to Tuesday, he asked, “Are you sure you’re ready for whatever comes next?”
She gave him a tired smile. “Doesn’t matter if I’m ready or not. It’s coming at us either way. Let’s go get Agent Yeager back. And thanks for treating me like a person instead of a killer.”
“Like I told Sasha, I believe you, Tuesday, and I trust you.”Please don’t make a liar out of me.He nodded sideways in the direction they’d be walking. “And I’d be honored to help you clear your name.”
That earned him another smile.
“Come on, then. We need to be a helluva lot closer to Everlee’s location before Mom calls back.”
“You call Sasha mom?”
“Yeah, I guess I did,” he admitted.And from now on, I always will.
“Why? You didn’t call her that before.”
Shane had to chuckle. “I have no idea. It just feels right.”
Chapter Twenty-One
With that shot still reverberating inside the over-sized, empty barn, Everlee took a chance and leaped off the silo’s wall with her chair leg in hand. She was determined to get out of this whacked-out version of Crazy Town before someone shot her. With a heart-pounding whoosh, she dropped to all fours, the distance to the barn floor deceptively farther than she’d guesstimated. So far, so good.
But damn. A thick, hefty male body in gray pants and a bloodied dress shirt lay sprawled on his back to her right, blocking the barn door from closing all the way. No one else was in sight. The silo itself was a wide, squat concrete thing that took up one entire corner of the front of the barn. At least, she thought that was the front corner, given that was where the only door was that she could see. Taking advantage of the silo’s curved wall, she ran around it and tucked herself between its far side and the barn wall, hidden in the shadows from the dead guy and his killer. That woman.
Breathing hard, she took stock of her new predicament. Sturdy rafters ran the length of the roof, but the roof itself was no more than a see-through conglomeration of missing and broken timbers, laths, and shingles, all pieced together by a ton of rusty nails.
An empty hayloft stood on twelve eight-by-eight wooden stilts across from Everlee. No windows anywhere. Below the loft, wooden-slatted stalls stood in a single row along the rear of the barn, just as old, unused, and forgotten as the rusted farm implements parked nearer the partially closed door. Dusty tack that looked like it had been hanging there for years, decorated the half-wall to the right of the door. Ropes. Chains. Bridles. Halters. Leather-wrapped poles Everlee had no idea what they were used for. No farmyard animals, just sparrows and swallows coasting between the desiccated walls and roof. This place wasn’t a barn as much as a disaster waiting to fall down. One good breeze and it’d be rubble. It’d be damned nice if she’d found her boots before then. Who knew what she might step on?
Keeping out of sight, Everlee crept far enough toward the door to take a quick peek at the dead guy. Another muscle-bound man, dressed in an identical black business suit had arrived by then. Leaning in from outside the barn, he grabbed hold of the dead guy’s ankles while telling someone at his right, “Understood, yeah, you bet. Yes, ma’am. Get the right woman. Kill the one we got. I’ll handle it from now on. Uh-huh, yeah, no problem. Never shoulda left these two numbskulls in charge in the first place.”
Everlee found it interesting that these guys, including the dead one, fit the description of the man who’d followed Ms. Smart in Texas. Heavy weight. Black suits. Black polished dress shoes. It didn’t take much to connect the dots between the victim burned to death at her house with the guy murdered here. Was that guy just expendable muscle? Was he killed by the same hot-tempered woman? Made sense. But that meant Smart was telling—the truth.
Everlee let that take root for a couple seconds. She guessed it was possible, but the evidence against Tuesday was damning and eyes didn’t lie. Neither did security cameras. Yeah, no. Everlee chalked these new revelations up to coincidence. Smartwasguilty, damn it.
No one answered the guy now in charge, at least no one close enough that Everlee could hear. He must’ve been on the phone. Did that mean the woman was already gone? Didn’t matter. This might be her only chance to escape. The thug outside the door would have to climb into the silo to kill her, right? She’d escape then, and, somehow, she’d find her way back to Shane. Wherever he was. He’d probably been hurt in that rollover, maybe Ms. Smart, too. They needed her, and Everlee meant to get back to them as quickly as she could.Ifshe could figure out where they were. Hell, if she could figure out whereshewas.
Her pockets were empty. She had no phone. Plan B. Rush the creep, hit him over the head with her trusty chair leg, steal his phone, and run for her life. Nothing to it. Sounded impossible, but she’d been in impossible situations before.
Stealthily, she inched forward, keeping her back to the silo, the chair leg on her shoulder, and her body obscured in shadow as long as possible. She could almost taste the freedom beyond that open door. ButJiminy Christmas!Now that she’d gotten closer, she could see that door was narrow, damned narrow. Weren’t they supposed to be wide enough for tractors and wagons and horses and stuff like that to fit through? Not this one.
Her unspoken rant stalled when another big, burly gorilla stepped over the raised door sill and into the barn. Shit. Now it was two against one, maybe three if that demented woman was still out there. Everlee had no way to know for sure how many she was up against. Whatever she did next would be risky. And these guys were big and wide and mean and…