Cover Of Night

Neenah was moving bags of feed around, and though she was stronger than the average woman, Cal took over the job. Some days he didn’t get around to using the free-weight set he had in his bedroom, so lifting fifty-pound bags of feed helped keep him in shape.

Neenah had been quiet and a little withdrawn since the episode with the two men in Cate’s house. She was a quiet, serene woman anyway, but friendly. Cal suspected that had been the first time she’d experienced violence firsthand, and she’d been left reeling. She was trying to handle it herself, and he didn’t think she should, but he wasn’t the person to help her.

Night had fallen when Creed finally returned his call, and Cal was pissed. "Took you long enough," he snapped.

Greed paused, and Cal could almost see his eyes getting squinty, and his back teeth grinding together. "I’ve spent six days with the biggest fucking asshole this side of the Rockies." he finally said. "He was supposed to have left yesterday, but the son of a bitch sprained his fucking ankle, and I had to fucking carry him five fucking miles to camp, then hold his fucking hand until I could get him to a clinic and get him X-rayed and on a fucking plane home at five fucking o’clock this afternoon. So what’s so fucking important?"

Over the years, Cal and the others on their team had learned that Greed’s mood could be measured by how many times he inserted the word fuck into a sentence. Judging from the number of F-bombs he’d just spit out, his mood was a centimeter short of homicidal.

"Two guys got rough with Neenah and Cate," Cal said. "A couple of days ago."

The silence on the line was black and icy; then Creed said softly, "What happened? Were they hurt?"

"Scared, mostly. One jammed a pistol against Neenah’s temple and she’s sporting a bruise. I bashed the other one in the head with my Mossberg, then got a bead on the guy holding Neenah."

"I’ll be right there," Creed said, and crashed the phone down in Gal’s ear.

Chapter 15

Teague was almost in position outside Creed’s cabin when the front door banged open. He froze in place, wondering if the place was rigged with motion sensors or night-vision cameras that he hadn’t spotted during his reconnaissance, and whether or not Creed would shoot first, and try to identify him later. As a result, Creed had slammed into his pickup truck and was fishtailing down the rutted lane that was his driveway before Teague could react.

"Shit!" Teague grabbed his Motorola CP150 two-way hooked to his belt, thumbed the "talk" button. "The subject just left in his pickup, coming toward the road. Follow him."

"What about you?" came Billy’s reply, his tone very quiet but his voice clear.

"Send someone back for me. Don’t let him give you the slip – and don’t let him see you."

"Roger that."

Still swearing, Teague carefully reversed the path he’d taken. He could have made better time if he’d moved down into the lane, but he would also leave boot prints, and he preferred staying in the rough. He wondered what had happened to cause Creed to take off like a cat with its tail on fire, and whether he’d be better off waiting here and taking his shot whenever Creed returned, instead of following.

The problem was, Creed might be gone for days, and Teague had no intention of sitting on his ass that long. He wanted to know where Creed had gone. Even more to the point, he’d rather chase the action than wait for it to come to him – more fun that way.

Less than half an hour after Creed had hung up on him, a thunderous pounding on his door made Cal wonder if the thing would come off its hinges before he could get it open. It wasn’t locked, so he yelled, "For God’s sake, turn the doorknob!"

Creed powered into the room like an avalanche, his jaw set and his fists clenched, just as Cal had known they would be. "What happened?" Creed demanded in a hoarse growl.

"It started last Monday," Cal said, turning away to grab a couple of long necks from his beat-up, avocado-green refrigerator. He popped off the tops and handed a bottle to Creed, who took it in a grip that made Cal wonder if he intended to crush the bottle in his bare hand. "A guy staying at Cate’s bailed out the window and drove off, left his stuff behind."

Immediately Creed’s hazel eyes took on the analytical expression Cal knew so well. "I was there Monday morning," Creed said. "She was busier than usual. Who was he running from?"

"Don’t know who or why. He didn’t come back. On Tuesday, Cate reported him missing, but because he left under his own steam, the sheriff’s department didn’t do much more than check the area hospitals and instruct deputies to be alert for signs of an accident. Also on Tuesday, some guy called Cate pretending to be from a car rental agency, trying to track this guy down. Later Cate called the rental agency but found they had no record of this guy ever renting a car from them."

"Caller ID record?" Creed asked.

"Unknown name and number. I guess the phone company could give us more info than that, but why would they? No crime was committed, no threats made. Same with Cate’s customer – he hadn’t run out on his bill, so no crime was committed, so the cops aren’t interested."

"What was the guy’s name?"

" Layton. Jeffrey Lay ton."

Creed shook his head. "Never heard of him before."

"I hadn’t either." Cal tipped back his head and poured down some cold beer. "Then, on Wednesday, these two guys checked into Cate’s." He explained why Cate had been suspicious, and that one of the men had evidently overheard her and Neenah talking in the kitchen. "Next thing they knew, the guy calling himself Mellor came through the door with a pistol in his hand, demanding Cate give them the stuff Layton had left behind."