One-Two Punch (22 page)

Pushing herself to her knees, she reached for the flat, round cactus and then hesitated. It looked a little dangerous to touch. Beth tried to grasp in between the sharp spines but sliver-thin needles worked their way into her skin, making her fingers itch and burn. Gritting her teeth, she twisted it hard. The cactus was surprisingly resilient, bending instead of breaking. Beth struggled with it for a few seconds before releasing the spiny plant with a frustrated huff.

She stared balefully at the small green thing as she stood, giving the cactus a final, aggravated kick and immediately feeling guilty.

“Great,” she muttered. “No water and I’ve probably killed the poor thing.”

Beth realized that, while she had been fighting a cactus, Ed could have been tracking her, might even be over the ridge right behind her. Swallowing down a surge of panic, she forced herself to sit back down on her uncomfortably rocky seat.

Stumbling around during the day was only going to dehydrate her further. Beth knew that she had to rest sometime—it was better to walk at night, when the sun wasn’t sucking everything that resembled liquid from her body.

Trying very hard not to think about Ed, Beth sat on her rock and waited for darkness.

Harry really wanted to hit something. He had circled the park over and over, asking everyone he passed whether they had seen Beth. No one had. The day was slipping by and the typical afternoon storm clouds bunched in the western sky.

“Shit,” he muttered. Rain would clear out the park and he would be left by himself with only a soggy picture for company.

He blinked.
Wait
, he thought. Rain—it had been pouring the previous day. What if Beth had been caught in the storm? Where would she have gone? Harry broke into a trot as he started his umpteenth pass around the park, this time looking for possible shelter.

He dismissed options as he passed—the overhang on that building was too narrow, that tree wouldn’t have blocked the wind tossing rain and hail into Beth’s face. When he saw the bus shelter, he ran faster, knowing in his gut that this was it, that this would have been the prime place for her to wait out the storm.

One older woman was sitting in the shelter when he pulled up, breathing hard from his sprint. She looked at him curiously.

“No reason to run. The bus won’t be here for five minutes at least,” she told him.

He just nodded and pulled out Beth’s picture. “Did you see her here yesterday?”

The woman was shaking her head even before she looked at the photo. “Didn’t take the bus yesterday. My sister drives me to church on Sundays.”

Even after the thousand “nos” he had heard that day, Harry still felt a pang of disappointment. “Thanks,” he muttered, sitting heavily on the bench.
So what if she had
been here?
he wondered, discouraged and exhausted. What would the shelter tell him?

His head tilted back until it bumped the wall behind him. The clouds were closing in on the sun but a few bright rays escaped around the edges, highlighting the dirt that coated the glass of the shelter. Harry stared sightlessly through the dingy panels, trying to beat back the overwhelming dread. Could it be too late? Was she already—

He broke off the thought immediately but nausea still rose in his throat.

He tried to clear his mind, focusing on the glass in front of him. The sunrays emphasized the grime layered across the window and Harry’s mood sunk even lower.

Was this dirty, depressing sight the last view that Beth had?

“Knock it off,” he growled out loud and the woman darted a nervous glance at him and shifted down the bench, away from him. Harry looked straight ahead.
What’s my
next step?
he wondered. He had always been cool under pressure, ready with Plan B

when Plan A didn’t work, or Plan Z just to take everyone by surprise. Beth’s disappearance had hamstrung him, taking away his calm, his ability to think, and replacing them with hysterical worry.

“Fuck,” he sighed under his breath, glancing through the sunlit glass again. Harry’s gaze sharpened when he noticed a clean smudge, an arched line through the dirt.

Shoving himself to his feet, he moved toward the glass. He bent a little, his eyes so close to the mark on the window that his nose almost touched it.

There.

It was two curves and a point below—a heart, he realized. Harry’s heart pounded and his breath came quickly, fogging over the glass and bringing out the shape more clearly. There were letters—a “B” and an “H” and a “K”—connected by plus signs.

Harry’s shaking hand came up, as if to touch, but he carefully held his fingers away from the heart, not wanting to smudge this message that he knew was from Beth, who had taken shelter here from the rain, who was always sketching…

Who loved both “H” and “K”.

Ky told Harry that he’d meet Hammer at the gym and they’d drive over to the bus shelter. Harry paced, alarming the waiting woman again. The bus finally pulled up with a squeaky groan and several people piled out.

Harry pounced, thrusting Beth’s picture under one startled face and then the next, but he only got head shakes and blank looks. With a frustrated exhale, he turned away from the departing bus to see a passenger he hadn’t questioned. The man was hurrying away, his head tucked low.

Harry jogged after him, calling out, “Excuse me?” When the man just moved faster, Harry yelled, “Hey! Stop!”

Sprinting forward, Harry caught the stranger’s arm and pulled the man around to face him. “Didn’t you hear me?” he demanded and then held out Beth’s picture. “Did you see her yesterday?”

The man ducked his head and shrugged, mumbling, “I gotta go.” He tried to pull away but Harry held fast.

“Look at it,” he ordered. The man’s eyes darted to the picture. “Did you see her?”

Harry saw him swallow. Sweat was beading across the bridge of the stranger’s nose. “Listen, I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just harmless flirting, you know—”

Harry grabbed his other arm and hauled him off his feet. The man yelped in panic.

“You saw her? Where is she?” Harry gave the man a hard shake. “What the fuck did you do to her?”

“Nothing! Nothing!” Harry could feel the man quaking in his grip. “I was just being polite! She said she had a couple boyfriends already and then she left. I didn’t touch her, I swear! Ask the guy who picked her up if you don’t believe me.”

“What guy? Who picked her up?” Harry pulled him up another few inches and the man gave a terrified whimper.

“Some guy in a van. She climbed right in, so I figured he was her boyfriend.”

“
I’m
her boyfriend, asshole,” Harry growled. “What’d this guy look like?”

“I—I don’t know. It was pouring and—” His teeth clicked together as Harry gave him another hard shake. “Just a guy—white guy. Blond, maybe? Short hair. Skinny.

Kind of goofy-looking—even through the rain I could see that his ears stuck way out.”

“Tattoos? Scars? Birthmarks?”

The man just shrugged as well as he could in Harry’s grip. “Not that I noticed.

Sorry, man.”

“License plate?” Harry’s heart sank when the man just looked at him helplessly.

“Okay. What color?”

“White—one of those service vans, like painters or plumbers use. You know—no windows in the back.”

Harry nodded and released the man, who took a few stumbling steps backward before he caught his balance. “If you didn’t do anything wrong, why’d you run?” Harry asked him.

“Figured you were the pissed-off boyfriend. All I did was hit on her a little, though—I swear.”

Narrowing his eyes, Harry debated punching the man but restrained himself. He had more important uses for this guy. “Come with me—you need to give a description to a sketch artist.”

“You mean cops?” the man asked, shaking his head and backing away. “Uh-uh, no cops. I told you everything I know.” He whirled and darted away. Harry started to chase after him.

“Harry!”

The shout made him pause and look back to see Ky and Hammer hurrying toward him. With one last glance at the fleeing man, Harry let him go and waited for Ky and Hammer to catch up to him.

“She got in a van with some skinny white guy with ears that stick out. Blond. White van—he didn’t get the plates. She knew him—got right in.”

Ky stared at him. “How’d you know she was here?” he asked.

Harry gestured toward the shelter. “She drew a heart on the glass with her finger—

put all of our initials in it.”

“Always drawing,” Ky said quietly.

“Yeah.” He turned toward the other man. “Hey, Hammer. Thanks for coming.”

Hammer just nodded. “No problem, Cap’n. Was that your witness running away?”

Blowing out a frustrated breath, Harry nodded. “He bolted when I mentioned going to the cops to do a sketch.”

“Wait—you said his ears stuck out?” Ky asked.

“Yeah. Said he was kind of goofy-looking.”

“Short hair?”

Interest caught, Harry looked at Ky intently. “Really short—what’s up? Do you know this guy?”

“No, but we already have a sketch of him.”

“Her bus driver.” Harry held Beth’s sketchbook open to the page with the skinny, goofy-looking driver who saw Beth every day, a guy Beth would have known, would have trusted enough to get into his van during a rainstorm.

“Thanks,” Ky said into his phone, holding it against his ear with his shoulder as he scribbled something on a piece of paper. He ended the call and immediately made another.

“Ed Worlsby,” he told Harry and Hammer while he waited for the person on the other end of the call to pick up. “He never showed up to work this morning.” Shifting the phone back up to his ear, he said, “Dad. I need you to run a guy named Ed Worlsby.

W-O-R-L-S-B-Y. Address, priors, every fucking jaywalking ticket he’s ever gotten.” As Ky listened, his face lost all expression, twisting a knot into Harry’s stomach.

“Hang on.” Ky grabbed his paper and pen. “Okay, go ahead.”

The room was silent except for the scribble of Ky’s pen for what felt to Harry like an endless time. As he shifted his weight, blowing out an impatient breath, he felt a hand settle on his shoulder. Turning his head, Harry looked at Hammer, who just gave him a nod and a squeeze on the shoulder. Returning the nod, Harry felt a little calmer.

Hammer wasn’t a big talker but he got things done. It was good that Ky had called him.

“Okay.” Ky dropped his phone into his pocket as Harry’s attention snapped back to him. “This guy was arrested six years ago in Kansas City but the charges were dropped.”

“What charges?” Harry asked, pretty sure he knew the answer.

Ky met his eyes. “Menacing.”

“Hard to prove,” Hammer commented. The other men looked at him and he elaborated. “Stalking. Menacing. Whatever. Usually doesn’t get to trial ’til someone’s dead.”

Silence surrounded the three men until Hammer winced slightly. “Sorry.”

“She’s not dead,” Ky and Harry chorused.

Shaking his head, Ky continued, “He rents a room over in the Capital Hill area—

one of those hot plate and shared bathroom kind of places.”

“Not somewhere you could stash someone,” Harry said, closing his eyes for a brief second before pivoting toward the door. “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Ky told him. “He also owns a hunting cabin and some land in the mountains just west of Jefferson.”

“That’s it.” Harry was out the door, Ky and Hammer close behind.

“Were you able to get the exact location?” Hammer asked Ky as they pounded down the stairs.

“Better. Dad’s going to call once he gets the GPS coordinates.”

Hammer gave an approving grunt as he followed the other two men out of the gym.

The drive took an eternity. They took Hammer’s SUV, since it was equipped with all the tools of the trade, including a GPS mapping system. Hammer drove, pushing eighty despite the twists and drop-offs of Highway 285, and Ky navigated, leaving Harry with nothing to do except go insane with worry.

“Can’t you go faster?” he grumbled, wedging himself between the two front seats so he could see the speedometer.

Hammer shoved him back with an elbow to the chest. “Put your seat belt on, dipshit.”

Muttering to himself, Harry complied.

“I brought a few things I thought you guys might need,” Hammer said, accelerating as he passed a mammoth RV, squeezing in front of it just in time to dodge an oncoming car. “Beneath the seat.”

Harry reached under and hauled out a duffel bag. He unzipped it to reveal an assortment of guns.

“Shit,” he said. “You got hand grenades in here too?”

In the rearview mirror, Harry saw the corner of Hammer’s mouth twitch. “They’re in the other bag.”

Harry jumped and started to bend over to check under the seat before catching himself. “Very funny.” Hammer just shrugged.

Ky twisted around to examine the duffel’s contents. “Got a nine mil?” he asked.

“What is this, a drive-thru?” Harry asked but handed him the gun and ammunition.

As Ky loaded the gun, he shook his head as his mouth twisted in a humorless smile.

“Thought it’d be a little longer before I was armed again.”

Harry looked at him closely. “Okay?”

“Shouldn’t you ask me that before you give me the gun?” Ky asked mockingly but Harry’s gaze didn’t waver.

Ky shrugged, dropping his eyes to the weapon. “Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s just find the son of a bitch and get Beth home.”

When the cabin came into view, shadowed dark gray by the early evening sun, it seemed almost unreal. They had driven through so much uninhabited wilderness that the sight of the man-made structure was jolting.

Hammer had slowed the SUV to a crawl as he navigated the rocky terrain and he stopped completely when he saw the cabin.

“Go,” he told the other two men but they were already out, carefully closing the vehicle doors so that they latched silently. Harry and Ky disappeared almost instantly into the shadows. Hammer put the SUV into reverse, backing up until he was out of the line of sight from the cabin windows, and then circled around, following the faint remains of a logging trail through the evergreens behind the cabin.