—
SHE PUT DOWNthe shotgun, looked shocked, worried, and maybe softened up by the blood, so Lucas popped the question: “Is your husband really gone?”
“He was out of here at dawn,” she said, with a blink of an eye. “He’s gonna be darn upset when he gets back and sees what happened to the house.”
“Well, maybe he’ll call from the highway somewhere and you can tell him about it,” Lucas said.
She said, “Maybe.” She didn’t look even slightly embarrassed.
Lucas couldn’t think of anything else to say, so while they waited for the local cops, he excused himself to call Forte in Washington and told him what had happened.
“How bad are you hurt?” Forte asked. “On a scale of one to ten?”
“No more than a one. Maybe less. I’ll have to stop by an ER somewhere and get patched up, but not that bad.”
“Okay, listen. I’m not gonna let you run around out there alone anymore. I’ve talked to SOG, we’re sending a couple more deputies out there, Bob and Ray... Where do you want to meet?”
“I’ll have to call you when I find out how bad my car’s screwed up, but... I’m thinking Nashville, depending on what happens with running down these cartel people.”
“Call me every five minutes and tell me what’s happening,” Forte said.
“Bob and Ray... wasn’t that a comedy team or something, on the radio, back years ago?”
“Yeah, maybe—but these two aren’t funny,” Forte said. “Call me when you know where you’ll be.”
—
A SHERIFF’S CARrolled up the driveway a minute later and Lucas and Janice Darling went out to meet the deputy, who introduced himself as Glen Long. When he was sure Lucas wasn’t bleeding from any major wounds, Long said, “I’ll ride you back into the hospitaland get you fixed up. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of that Toyota, though.”
“We can’t leave Mrs. Darling where these guys could find her if they come back...”
“I’ve got a sister with a different last name across the line in Tennessee,” Darling said. “I’ll pack up right now and stay with her until it blows over.”
The deputy said they would put a car in her driveway until she was gone. And he asked, “Where’s Sturgill?”
“Gone to Canada,” she said. Her eyes flicked to Lucas: “We’re hoping he’ll think to call back before he gets there, but you know Sturgill. Once he starts rolling, he just keeps going. Probably won’t stop before he gets to the border.”
Lucas said, “Yeah, right.”
—
ANOTHER SHERIFF’S CARarrived, this one carrying the deputy, Aaron Clark, who’d called Lucas during the fight. “We’ve got the tow truck pulling your car out of the ditch. It’s gonna take a while, they’ve got to edge it out sideways,” Clark said. “If they try to pull it straight out, they think it’ll roll. Not that I think it’ll make much difference—I’d be surprised if it’s not totaled. Every piece of sheet metal on the car has got at least one hole in it.”
“You gotta tell everybody to take care if they spot that Toyota,” Lucas said. “These people will kill you, cops or not.”
“Everybody knows,” Clark said. “I don’t know exactly how they got past us, if they did—maybe they’re hiding out in the woodssomewhere. We had cars coming from all directions as soon as you called.”
“Better start checking the local farms,” Lucas said. “They could have pulled into one, hid the car in a barn... wouldn’t be good for the farm people.”
Clark looked at him, then said, “Oh... shit! Shit!” He turned and ran back to his car, got on the radio.
Darling asked, “You think...?”
“I worry,” Lucas said.
—
LUCAS WASeventually hauled back to his truck by a sheriff’s deputy. The Benz was sitting up on the road again, where the wrecker driver was getting ready to pull it up on the wrecker’s flatbed. The deputy walked around the truck, shaking his head, and the driver said, “I gotta tell y’all, pulling it out of there sideways didn’t do the truck any good. But there was no other way to do it. If I’d tried to pull it straight out, forward or backward, she was gonna roll, and then... well, it wouldn’t have been good for nothin’ but parts.”
