The inside of the house featured an open-concept floor plan, with a living room, kitchen, and a small dining set all tucked into a cozy space. Jerry’s clothes were piled in a heap in the middle of the living room. His newer jeans and shirts were on top, and the red coat I had bought him last fall had been hung over the back of a kitchen chair.
I picked it up and held it close, wishing the man who had worn it was here instead of the evidence he’d left behind. Whatever he’d found hadn’t been worth his life. But he’d died to get it, and I wasn’t going to squander his sacrifice.
Lowering the coat to the kitchen table, I began to search the pockets. There was nothing in the outer pockets—not even an old receipt or used tissue—and I started to panic.
What if someone else had figured this out before I had?
The two inner pockets, tucked behind the outer pockets, were empty too. I put the coat down, about to give up, when I remembered that Jerry had said something in the video about warming his heart. Sure enough, there was a pocket on the inside of his coat, which would have lay directly over his heart. Reaching inside, I found a folded piece of paper and a small, thick, rectangular envelope. Drum Savings and Loan was printed across the front, with a three-digit number stamped on the bottom. Lula’s name was handwritten on the outer flap.
“It’s here,” I said, showing Marco the envelope and the folded paper.
“Did he really have the location of Hank’s gold?” he asked, pointing to the paper.
I opened it up and scanned the words scrawled on the paper. “Yeah,” I said in awe. “I think so. You’re never gonna believe where it’s buried.
“Where?”
I handed him the paper.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” he said in amazement. Then he sobered. “Do you want to take anything else?”
I looked at the pile of clothes. I hated that his life was being thrown away, but Emily had been right. Most of the clothes were worn and not even suitable for a thrift store, but I grabbed a red and white flannel shirt I’d seen him wear dozens of times last winter and held it close. “This is all.”
“Okay,” he said, picking up the coat. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” I asked. “We need to find Hank.”
“We’ll give him the location after you and I go to the Hensen County Sheriff’s Department. We’re going to turn in the phone, the coat, and the safe-deposit box key.”
“What about the location of the gold?”
“What gold?” he said in a sly tone.
I reached for him and pulled him into a hug.
He held me close for several long moments, then kissed the top of my head. “Come on. I hate bein’ out on this land. The sooner we leave the Drummond property, the better.”
“Agreed.”
We walked out of the house and got into the Explorer. Marco opened the console and put in the phone, bank envelope, and the paper with the location. Then he opened the back hatch, headed to the back, and pulled his service weapon out of his vault. He put on his deputy utility belt and inserted his gun into his holster, then got back in the car.
“Do you think Wyatt will come after us?” he asked as he headed down the gravel lane.
I shook my head, but my nerves were still prickling. “No. I don’t think Max will let him go. He was really, really upset.”
“Is Max gonna turn him in?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco looked anxious, checking his rearview mirror and scanning the gravel road ahead.
“Do you think Bart will try to stop us?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think he realizes Jerry had what we found. Otherwise, he would have gotten it himself.”
“Unless he didn’t know where Jerry had hidden it.”
“And he was waiting for you to get it,” he said. “I admit, I’m worried Emily might have set you up.”
So was I, and I was practically biting my nails by the time we reached the main road.
When Marco turned toward town and the turnoff to Ewing, I pushed out a sigh of relief, but he still seemed on edge.
“Are you worried about Wyatt finding us?” I asked.
“Him and Derek Carpenter,” he answered, and I could hear the tension in his voice. He reached for his radio and turned it on, then radioed dispatch that he was coming in with evidence for a case with an ETA of approximately thirty minutes. The dispatcher acknowledged his transmission, and Marco hung up the receiver.
I gave him a questioning look.
“I figure it can’t hurt for them to be expecting us.”
I nodded and sat on my hands, wishing we could teleport to Ewing.
We sat in silence for several minutes, Marco glancing into his rearview mirror regularly for signs of trouble. Finally, I was so frazzled I reached forward and turned on his stereo system. Country music filled the car.
“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t handle the silence.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “Tell me about your talk with Hank this morning. Sounds like it got a little heated.”
That seemed like days ago rather than a couple of hours. “It did, but we worked it out. He told me what happened the day Walter was murdered.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
He prompted me with an expectant look.
“Sorry,” I said, worried about his reaction. “I feel like it’s not my story to share.”
He was silent for a long moment before he nodded. “I get that, and I understand.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. If you felt I needed to know, you’d tell me. Right?”
“As Marco drove through town, we looked searchingly at the tavern and Wyatt’s garage. We didn’t see any sign of Wyatt at either place, and his red truck wasn’t parked in front of the garage like it usually was.
“Where do you think he went?” I asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Had he gone to tell Derek and Louise that I’d found something in Jerry’s belongings?
I still couldn’t believe he’d betray us. Not like that. He’d attempted to protect me enough times that I knew he didn’t want me dead.
Marco took the turn toward Ewing, and he picked up the radio and gave the dispatcher an ETA of twenty minutes. Both of us tensed as he took the twists and turns of the road, but it wasn’t until we were about halfway there, on a particularly twisty part of the road, that a black truck appeared in the rearview mirror.
“Marco.”
“I see it,” he said, sounding strained. He grabbed the radio receiver and told the dispatcher we were being followed by the suspect who’d run Jerry Nelson off the road, sharing the license plate number and Derek’s name and description. The dispatcher told him there had been a multicar accident north of Ewing, but they’d find a unit to send out.
“What’s that mean?” I asked, dismayed when I realized the black truck was gaining on us.
“It means we’re not likely to get backup soon.”
He took the next curve so fast the tires screeched on the pavement. Another one came up, and he took it just as fast, but when we got to a short straightaway, the truck had edged even closer.