“If she remembers it, then why are you askin’ me?” he asked, back to being annoyed.
“Because you must have been the one to call the cops. Bruce Abernathy and Joe Carpenter were both arrested.”
He lifted his hands and took a step back. “I never called them. Involving the sheriff’s department would have been bad for business.”
“So who did?”
“I don’t know. All I know was they were roughin’ each other up, and a couple of sheriff’s deputies busted in and arrested ’em.”
I tried to piece it all together. “So it was a setup.”
“Beats me.” He took another step backward, suddenly looking like he was in a hurry to get away from me.
“Did you see who threw the first punch?”
He rubbed his forehead. “Seems to me it was Big Joe”
“You’re sure?” I glanced over at Hank standing next to the open driver’s door.
“Yeah. Abernathy was sitting at the bar, mindin’ his own business. Then Carpenter walked in and had a few words with him. Carpenter gave him a shit-eatin’ grin and then marched over to Bingham and threw a punch, sayin’ it was from Abernathy. Even went to the trouble of pointing him out. Bingham went after Abernathy, of course, and the deputies came in about a minute later.”
I looked over at Hank again. “Anything else you’d like to know?”
Fire flared in his eyes. “I think I’ve heard enough.”
“What’s this all about?” Wyatt asked.
“None of your concern,” Hank snapped, then got inside the car.
Wyatt’s irritation was back, and he turned the force of it on me. “Whatever he’s up to, you need to stay out of it. I have reason to believe he and his old cronies are cookin’ up something for Louise Baker, and you don’t need to be any part of that.”
Before I could respond, he turned around and headed back into the garage, only to immediately head out the back door.
What was he up to?
I opened the passenger door, but instead of getting in, I leaned down to talk to Hank. “Wyatt’s acting weird. I’m gonna sneak around the building and see what he’s doing out back.”
“Maybe he’s meetin’ the truck that pulled in back there,” he said with a smug look.
“What truck?”
“It drove past us on the highway. Hell, Wyatt looked at it, then it turned the corner and drove around to the back of the building.”
Horror built in my chest. “What color was it?”
“Black.”
“Shit.” I didn’t even bother shutting the door. I just ran, my foot slipping on a couple of pieces of gravel on the asphalt. I ran alongside the building and stopped at the back corner, staring in shock as I saw Wyatt leaning into the driver’s window of a black truck. A black truck with a missing taillight. I stood fixed, hardly able to breathe.
The driver of that truck had broken into Marco’s house, and I was nearly certain he was the same person who’d run Jerry off the road. I made a mental note of the license plate number, repeating it over and over in my head.
Should I confront Wyatt? Would he admit to being involved, or would he make one of his many excuses?
The best use of my time was to follow that truck and see where it went.
I ran back to Hank’s car and slammed the door shut, just as the black truck drove down the side road toward the highway.
“What the hell?” Hank barked.
“Follow that truck!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“That’s the guy who broke into Marco’s house and threatened me!” I shouted as the truck turned onto the highway in the direction of the Ewing turnoff.
Wyatt appeared in the garage opening, staring at us with wide eyes. He ran for Hank’s car, but Hank pulled out of the parking spot and turned before Wyatt could reach us.
“Why’s he chasing us?” he asked as he maneuvered onto the highway.
“I think he realizes I recognized the truck,” I said, bitterly disappointed.
“How would he know . . . ?” Hank cursed a blue streak. “That’s why you ran back there. To catch him talkin’ to the fucker.”
I studied the road ahead of us. The truck wasn’t in sight, but after we rounded a curve, there would be a straight stretch of highway. “Do you think he’ll realize we’re tailing him?”
“I’ll hang back enough that he won’t.”
I lifted a hand to my forehead. “This is one time I’m grateful for no cell phone service. At least Wyatt can’t call him and tip him off.”
“No, but he could radio him,” Hank said, his gaze focused on the road.
“So is this too risky?”
He looked in the rearview mirror. “Drummond ain’t followin’ us, so yeah. I think we should try it.”
I wasn’t so certain. Would it be better to let him go and have Marco run the license plate? Realizing that I still hadn’t written it down, I pulled out my notebook and scrawled it from memory. “I need to get this license plate number to Marco.”
“We might not need him to look it up,” Hank said idly, fiercely concentrating on driving.
I tapped out a text on my phone to Marco, telling him that we’d spotted the truck at Wyatt’s garage and had the license plate number. I typed the number out, then pressed send, knowing it wouldn’t go through unless we passed through an area with coverage.
Hank stayed at least fifty to seventy feet back, so we nearly missed which direction the truck took at the turnoff to Ewing.
“It’s up ahead,” Hank said, grabbing the steering wheel and pulling himself up straighter in the seat. “He’s headed in the direction of Louise’s cabin.”
My stomach dropped. “None of this makes sense. How is Wyatt involved with this guy?”
“I don’t know. I’m as surprised as you are.”
I gestured to the side of the road, pointing out a tree that had part of its trunk gouged out. The weeds around it looked trampled. “That must be where Franklin ran off the road a couple of nights ago.”
“Franklin Tate?” he asked in surprise. “Tater? Ruth’s fella?”
“Yeah. He claims a black truck ran him off the road. Marco worked the accident.”
He frowned. “Huh.”
He sounded skeptical, and I could hardly blame him. If someone was after the people closest to me, Franklin wouldn’t be one of them. I shot him a sidelong glance. “You can’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”
“Okay.”
“Marco said there’s no evidence to back up his story.”
Hmm,” he said, his brow furrowed.
“What does that mean?”
“Don’t know. Just filin’ it away for later.” Hank focused on keeping the truck in sight, and I told him about following Franklin to the resort construction site and that Marco saw him talking to someone—most likely Bart. Hank was listening, but I could see the gears turning in his head. I was just wrapping up my summar of last night’s events, telling him that Bart or whoever had gotten away, when sure enough, the black truck turned onto the county road leading to Louise’s cabin.