Nine Lives (28 page)

“Laredo. We're about fifteen miles outside of Nuevo Laredo now. We need to get Presley back across the border, but neither one of us has any authority here.”

“You don't make this easy,” Flannery muttered.

“On the contrary, Detective. Cat Dupree made this easy as hell for you. Presley is the one who's been leaving bodies in his wake. She's been doing clean-up for you all the way.”

Flannery winced. The police department had been a little hard on Cat Dupree, and yet, despite her far-fetched story, it appeared that she'd been right.

“Yeah, yeah, I read you,” he said. “Here's what I want you to do. Give me about fifteen minutes to make some calls, then head back to the border crossing. I'll have police on the US side waiting to take Presley into custody. Whatever the hangups might be with red tape, we'll handle.”

“All right,” Wilson said.

“When you get back to Dallas, I would appreciate it if you and Miss Dupree came in and gave us a full report.”

Wilson glanced at Cat, who appeared to be operating on little else but sheer will and determination.

“After she gets some rest.”

“Yeah, all right,” Flannery said, and then added, “Hey…McKay.”

“What?”

“Tell her she did a damn good job.”

Wilson eyed the tic at the side of Cat's mouth and frowned. “I will.”

“See you soon,” Flannery said, and disconnected.

Wilson laid the phone back on the console. “Flannery said to tell you that you did a damn good job.”

Cat shuddered. The adrenaline rush that had carried her from one end of the state to the other was crashing and taking her with it. She felt as if she could sleep for a week.

“I did it for Mimi,” she said, then exhaled slowly.

“What did Flannery say?” she asked.

“We get to the border. They'll take it from there.”

“Fine,” she said, as she glanced back at Presley, who was still unconscious. “I hate to think I would have to ride all the way back home with that piece of shit in the back of my car.”

Wilson tilted her chin up just as he leaned toward her.

“Come here, Catherine. You might not need this, but I damn sure do.”

He kissed her. Once because he just needed to feel her breath against his face, then again because he'd been so afraid he wouldn't get there in time to find her alive.

“I'll have to drive my truck back to the border. Are you okay to drive on your own?”

Cat frowned. “Of course I'm all right. You can't believe I'd wimp out at this point?”

He grinned. “On the contrary, Miss Dupree. I don't think you know the meaning of the word, okay?”

Wilson kissed her once more for good luck, then got out of her car and headed for his own.

“I'll follow you,” he called.

She watched, waiting until he was inside and turning around, then she drove north. She'd gone several miles and was just coming up on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo when she saw what she could only call a parade of Mexican police cars awaiting them at the edge of town. She didn't stop, and they didn't try to stop her, but by the time she got to the border, it was evident that Flannery's phone calls had been fruitful. Not only were the Mexican police behind them, but others were awaiting them at the gates. Besides them, she saw officers from the Laredo Police Department, as well as a Texas Ranger who'd just pulled up on the U.S. side of the gates. Wilson parked beside her and was heading toward the lawmen as she walked to the back of her car and opened the hatch.

Presley was awake. “Get out!” she said sharply.

He moaned. “My head hurts, these cuffs are too tight, and my feet are still tied.”

Cat grabbed him, cutting the rope as she pulled. Presley came halfway out, then tried to sit up, at which point he bumped his forehead on the hatch.

“Ooww. Damn it, woman. What are you trying to do? Kill me?”

It was a poor choice of words.

Cat leaned forward, grabbed him by the collar and whispered, “If that was an invitation, I would be happy to oblige.”

Presley paled but went mute as she dragged him the rest of the way out. He started to complain when she took him by the back of his belt.

“Walk, damn it,” Cat said. “Walk, or I'll end your misery right where you stand and let someone else worry about feeding your sorry ass to the worms.”

Presley's belly rolled. This woman was scary—almost as scary as that crazy Tutuola.

“Answer me one thing,” he said, as they walked toward the waiting officers.

“Like what?” Cat asked.

“Who are you?”

“Catherine Dupree.”

“I never heard of you.”

Her eyes narrowed as she yanked at his handcuffs.

“I would have thought you were a smart enough man to know your enemies.”

Presley paused, then looked over his shoulder, staring at her in frustration.

“But how did you become my enemy? I would swear I've never met you.”

“You lied to my friend, got her pregnant, fired her, then killed her and your child. You're lucky I wasn't alone today. If I had been, I would have shot you dead right there on the patio and left you to roast in that fire.”

“Marsha Benson? This is all because of her?”

“Yeah, smart man. It's all because of her.”

At that point she looked around for Wilson. When he motioned her over, she shoved Presley in the small of the back.

“Move,” she said.

He did.

W
ilson rolled over in the bed and became aware of the empty space within his arms. He felt for Cat, then pulled her close against his chest before settling back into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Cat sighed as she spooned against Wilson's warmth and strength, and then, once more, let herself relax.

For the time being, she'd quit fighting herself about Wilson. He'd gotten her through the last three days of coping with the police reports while living with the satisfaction that Mark Presley was no longer a free man. Despite her fears that he would find a way to get out of this, given his power and money, she'd been proven wrong.

She'd heard through the courthouse grapevine that Presley's lawyer was trying to make a deal that would keep his client off death row. Personally, Cat wanted to see him executed, but she knew it would be years before that ever came about. She was at the point of accepting that making a man like Mark Presley live out a long life behind bars just might be a worse punishment than a swift death.

At least he was in prison, which was the justice she'd wanted for Mimi all along.

From time to time, she couldn't help but think of the tattooed man who'd burned up in that fire. There was a part of her that wished she'd been given the chance to watch him die, just as she'd had to watch her father die. Obviously it wasn't meant to be.

She settled into the warmth of Wilson's chest and started to go back to sleep. There was plenty of time to call Art and let him know she was available again. For now, she felt as if she could sleep for a week.

 

Pete Yokum was fiddling with one of his laptops and realized it was the one that had the duplicate tracking program on it.

He had just finished booting it up when the screen suddenly came alive with a map of Northern Mexico and a slow-moving blip on a westward track.

He frowned, trying to figure out what was happening. He knew all about Cat's big capture. It had been in all the papers and all over the news for the past three days. He also knew that Presley was safely behind bars.

But that didn't explain the activity on the map.

He glanced at the clock. It was fifteen after three in the morning. Too early to call Cat. He figured she would have an explanation and decided to leave it until later. He would call her right before he went to bed for the day.

Having made up his mind, he got up and made himself a sandwich, then settled down to watch a rerun of an old John Wayne movie. The way he figured it, nobody beat The Duke when it came to a story with lots of action.

 

“I've got to go by my apartment,” Wilson said, as he paused at the front door to kiss Cat goodbye. “There was a message from my receptionist, wanting to know why the hell I don't answer my phone anymore.”

“Did you tell her it was because you were in bed with a witch.”

He frowned.

“I only called you that once, and it was in self-defense.”

Their sexual sparring was uncomfortable for Cat. It smacked of intimacy, of a relationship—which, as far as she was concerned, wasn't about to happen.

“I'll probably check in with Art myself,” she said.

He swept her hair away from her face with both hands, then ran a thumb along the curve of her cheek.

“Ease back into it slowly. This took a lot out of you.”

Every time Cat looked in the mirror, she knew the truth of his words.

“I'll call you,” Wilson said.

She ignored the slight leap of her heartbeat.

“Leave a message if I'm not around.”

Wilson frowned. She wasn't going to let him get under her skin. Damn it.

“Later,” he said.

“Yeah,” Cat said, and then locked the door after he left.

She was standing at the window, watching for him to emerge from the building and drive away, when her telephone rang. Reluctant to give up her spot, she let it ring a couple more times; then the answering machine came on. It wasn't until she heard Pete Yokum's voice that she ran to answer.

“Hello,” she said breathlessly.

“Hello yourself,” he said.

“You sound sleepy. I can't believe you're still up,” Cat said.

Pete yawned. “I won't be long. Just had a quick question to ask you.”

“Ask away,” Cat said.

“You know that program on that computer I gave you…the tracking one?”

Cat frowned. “Yes. What about it?”

“Have you looked at it lately?”

Cat suddenly shivered, almost afraid to ask.

“No. Why?”

“Well, last night I was fooling with one of my laptops and forgot that I had a duplicate program on it.”

“So?”

“So can you tell my why the tracking system would still be active? In Mexico?”

Cat felt as if all the air had been kicked out of her lungs.

She leaned against the wall and then slowly slid downward until she was sitting on the floor with her knees beneath her chin.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know…I bugged a lot of Presley's property. I just wondered what you might have left behind down in Mexico that would be on the move. Maybe someone found his clothes or is wearing a pair of his shoes, something like that.”

Cat was starting to shake. She thought of all the stuff that was supposed to have burned up in the fire.

“You said Mexico?”

“Yep.”

“Are you sure?”

Pete frowned. “Well hell, girl, of course I'm sure. I'm looking at the map right now. So is there something still down there that could account for this?”

“Wait a second while I go get my laptop,” she said, and raced for her office.

She hadn't touched it since the day they'd come home. Now she was frantic to bring the program back up. It didn't take long for it to load, and when it did, she saw it, just like Pete claimed.

“Yes. I see it, too,” she said.

“What do you think?” he asked.

She thought of the car Presley and the tattooed man had driven across the border, and the money Pete had bugged that had been taken from Presley's office. Although she'd never seen it, she had assumed that it had burned up in the fire. However, the car had been at the back of the house, a distance away from the fire. What if it hadn't burned up? What if Presley's stuff had still been inside? What if they only thought Tutuola had died? She had a very sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that she should have overridden Wilson's urgency to get away and gone back to search the ruins for a body.

Pete frowned. She wasn't answering, which didn't bode well.

“Cat?”

“What?”

“What do you suppose we're seeing?”

She knew the man's name now. Mark Presley had given that up along with everything else when his lawyer had bartered for his life.

Solomon Tutuola had killed her father. He was supposed to be dead. But what if he wasn't?

She rubbed a finger along the scar on her neck and had to clear her throat twice before she could speak. Even then, her voice cracked when she answered.

“I'm not sure, but it just might be a ghost.”