But that wasn’t the story Purdue had told her. The boy had said that two of the killers he’d seen were cops. And yet he’d also admitted that it was night and he couldn’t see clearly. His emotions were running high. He’d witnessed a shocking crime. He’d been injured and his memory shattered into broken pieces. There was no way to know how his young brain had dealt with all that trauma.
What if he was wrong? In that case, the longer Purdue stayed with her, the more she was putting him at risk.
But what if he was right?
Then she would be delivering him into the hands of the people who wanted him dead.
She glanced at the windows of her pickup truck. The boy was hiding, just as she’d told him to do. She found herself frozen with indecision, like a high-wire artist in the wind, unable to go forward or backward. But standing still wasn’t an option, either.
“If I let you take him with you, I want to go, too,” Lisa said softly. “He trusts me. If you separate us, he’ll just run away again.”
Deputy Garrett exchanged a glance with his partner. Something odd flickered across his face that made Lisa uneasy with her decision. “Yes, of course,” he told her. “That’s not a problem. You can come with us.”
“Good.”
“You’re doing the right thing, Ms. Power.”
Lisa still felt anxious. “I hope so.”
“Where is he?” Garrett asked.
She hesitated before answering. She could picture Purdue’s face in her mind. That mop of blond hair; that smart, serious, quizzical expression as he analyzed everything. That fear and panic when she first saw him through her bedroom window. He was definitely running. Running from death. Running from murderers.
Running from the police.
Lisa thought, What if the boy is right?
“Ms. Power?” Deputy Garrett said again. “Please. Where is he?”
She opened her mouth to tell him. It was the only thing she could do. Then her phone started to ring in her pocket, making a loud, jarring noise in the still air. She took a step backward, away from the two deputies.
“I have to get this,” she said.
“Ms. Power, the boy.”
“It’ll just be a minute, I promise.”
She grabbed her phone and answered it. “Hello?”
“Lisa, it’s Will Woolwich with the FBI.”
“Oh, hi,” she said, not taking her eyes off the police officers in front of her. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“I wanted to let you know that I’ve investigated this story you told me about human trafficking. I talked to our field office in Grand Forks. Believe me—if something was going on, they’d be on top of this. This would be a major interdepartmental operation.”
“What did you find out?”
“Well, I don’t know who told you about this manhunt, but nothing like that is happening up there.”
Lisa didn’t answer right away. She breathed the cold air in and out, and she felt the icy rain landing in wet drops on her face. She watched Deputy Garrett and Deputy Stoll, whose faces were darkening with concern. She tried to hide her reaction, because she didn’t want to give them any hint that she’d found them out.
“Lisa?” Will went on when she was silent. “Are you there? Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m here. Are you absolutely sure? There’s no possibility of a mistake?”
“There’s no mistake,” he told her. “Whatever is going on in your area, it has nothing to do with human trafficking.”
14
Lisa had five seconds to decide what to do. She smiled at the two deputies. She shoved down her fear and summoned complete calm to her face. If she exposed the truth, Will would send help, but help was miles away. There was no FBI to rescue her in this place. Meanwhile, these two men would kill her and kill the boy. Life or death was going to happen in the next few moments, and a voice on the phone couldn’t save her. She had to act alone. She didn’t care about herself, but she wasn’t going to let them harm Purdue.
“Thank you for the information, Will,” she said in the calmest voice she could muster. “I really appreciate it.” Then she hung up the phone and said to the two men, “Sorry about that.”
“Is there a problem?” Deputy Garrett asked her.
“Oh, no, it was a work call. That was my agent in New York. We’ve been going back and forth on one of the clauses in my latest contract.”
“The boy, Ms. Power,” the deputy reminded her. “Please.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Where is he?”
Lisa’s mind raced as she tried to decide what to do next. She was cornered, with nowhere to run and no way to grab Purdue and escape. They wouldn’t believe her if she lied and told them that he was somewhere else. They also outnumbered and outsized her, and they both had guns.
“Ms. Power?”
She gestured over his shoulder. “He’s in that little shed behind the garage.”
Deputy Garrett’s gaze flicked to the large aluminum shed and its latched door. He flagged the other deputy to accompany him, and then he stepped forward to Lisa and extended his hand to be shaken. She was nervous about taking it, but she let him crush her own hand with a fist that looked like a bear’s paw.
“I know this was hard for you, Ms. Power, but you’re doing the right thing. We’ll take good care of him.”
She forced a smile onto her face. Liar. “Remember your promise, Deputy. I’m coming with you. I don’t want the boy to be alone.”
“Yes, of course.”
Then she glanced down at Deputy Garrett’s hand, where something bright white drew her eyes. When she saw it, she struggled to hide her reaction. He had a tattoo emblazoned on the back of his hand, starting at the bumps of his knuckles and winding onto his wrist.
It was an alligator.
A snow-white, albino alligator, its mouth open, showing long teeth, its eyes black and beady, full of violence. When the deputy dropped Lisa’s hand and flexed his fingers, the jaws of the alligator snapped open and shut. As his wrist moved, the tail seemed to swish, as if it were pushing the reptile forward to its next helpless prey.
She heard Purdue’s voice. The white alligator shot him in the head.
“Is everything okay?” Garrett asked, watching her face.
“Yes. Everything’s fine.”
“Deputy Stoll and I will go get the boy.”
“Of course. I’ll come with you.”
She tried to make her legs move to follow them, but her limbs felt like rubber. She had to act right now. She had to do something. If she and Purdue got in the SUV with the two men, their next stop would be a grave site. The remote lands offered plenty of places to hide bodies that would never be found. Evil men dug up the ground all the time in her books.
Deputy Garrett headed across the gravel toward the shed, with his partner following just behind him. With horror, Lisa realized that they were going to walk right by the driver’s door of her pickup, and she held her breath to see if they would glance inside and spot Purdue hiding below the passenger seat.
They didn’t.
They were focused on the aluminum shed.
Lisa rushed to catch up with them, but she let them walk ahead of her. Deputy Garrett got to the metal door and undid the latch, and as he pulled the door open, the hinges squealed. Even with the door open, the shed was dark and deep. There was no light. The rusty machines sat on the floor like dead animals, and the smell of dust and fertilizer seeped into the fresh air.