Trust No One (46 page)

“What’s up?” the sandy blond cop in the passenger seat asked. “Forget something?”

“Nah, the car’s losing power.”

Tasha looked at MJ. She came to attention.

“I’m going to pull over here and call for back up."

Officer Johnson pulled to the side of the road, killed the engine and got out to make a phone call. MJ noted he didn’t use the police radio in the car, which had been eerily silent the whole time. After speaking on the phone for a few minutes, his gaze zeroed in on MJ. He disconnected the call and come back toward the car. He opened the back door.

“You’re a mechanic?”

Who’d told him that? MJ cocked her head, thinking a little more information would be useful. “That’s my day job.”

The cop in the passenger seat chuckled.

“Shut up, asshole,” Officer Johnson said.

Just who were these guys?

Johnson reached in, took MJ’s arm. “Come look.”

“The prisoner looking at the cop car? Highly irregular don’t you think?” Tasha said. “Probably illegal.”

“Probably is,” Officer Johnson agreed. He tugged on MJ. “Get out.”

“Are you kidding? It’s freaking cold out there. I don’t even have on my jacket if you haven’t noticed.” She pulled her arm out of his grasp. “Besides, I don’t need to get out to tell you what’s wrong.”

“What? Are you some psychic mechanic?” the sandy-haired wannabe cop drawled. “The car speak to you?”

MJ was glad the guy wasn’t a policeman after all. She was going to enjoy taking him down. For now, though, she ignored him.

“Make sure the heater is off, and then start the car.”

Johnson—MJ could no longer think of him “officer”— got back in and cranked the key. The car started as if nothing had been wrong.

“What the–” sandy-haired wannabe cop said.

“Not only am I psychic, I’m magic too.”

He turned to glare at her. She gave him a tight-lipped insincere grin while Tasha stuck out her tongue.

“It will run out of power again,” MJ said, “and faster if you use the heater. The alternator’s going bad.”

“So we can keep driving?”

“You might have to stop every few miles, but yes, you can.”

“What about calling for a back-up car?” Tasha asked.

MJ shot her a look, Tasha smiled. They’d both figured out these guys weren’t cops, but Tasha was being troublesome.

Both men ignored her.

“We’re close enough, we’ll keep going,” Johnson said.

MJ looked around. Close enough to where? They’d left the business section miles back, and now they appeared to be leaving civilization. Especially when less than a mile later, they made a turn on a winding road, more red dirt than gravel. The road grew increasingly steep as they drove further up into the foothills.

The car slowed, then died again.

“Almost there.” He got out, made another phone call.

“Can we put our jackets on here? It’s getting cold,” Tasha complained.

Tasha had a point. The air did have a definite chill up here at higher altitudes away from civilization. MJ was wearing a sweatshirt but she could feel chill bumps developing on her arms.

“Let’s try this again,” Johnson said, climbing back into the car. “We’re close enough to walk if it won’t start.”

Walk? Well, maybe if they were walking, they wouldn’t be so cold.

“An alternator will be here in an hour, and you can change it,” Johnson told MJ.

Oh, yeah? “Who exactly are you working for? It’s obviously not the Tulsa PD. Why are we here?”

“You’re on a need to know basis. And that’s something you don’t need to know.”

Wasn’t he just too cute. Not. More than likely the long term plans for them weren’t very long term and involved a sudden brutal death.

The thought didn’t distress her. She’d been in life or death situations before and come out alive, if not a little scarred and battle worn. Just yesterday in fact. Or was it day before? Her days were running together she’d been so long without sleep. Mentally, she sighed. Another day at the office.

But with Tasha on her side, she’d rather face a life or death situation than have to wrangle with the legal system over keeping Angelina if real cops had been involved.

The odds of making everything work out were suddenly better.

But who had set this up? Had Ben really been involved?

At last a small wooden cabin came into view. The car sputtered and died about a hundred yards away from the front door.

The phony cops got out of the car, each opened a back door. MJ made certain to read the sandy-blond cop wannabe’s name tag. Cantrell. She was tired of thinking of him as the sandy-blond cop wannabe.

“What rustic accommodations,” Tasha murmured, sarcasm dragging her tone down to a low timbre.

MJ grabbed her jacket, but holding it and wearing it were two different things, and her teeth started chattering. Tasha seemed calm and collected and MJ wondered if anything ever ruffled that woman.

They marched at gunpoint up the wooden front porch steps and inside, which was only marginally warmer than the outdoors.

“Nice. Early hunter.” Sarcasm lowered MJ’s voice as well. Deer antlers, a bear head and a large mounted fish decorated the walls. A rust colored vinyl couch and two matching easy chairs sat around a . . . “Bear skin rug?”

“I like your decorator. I must have his name.” Tasha plopped down on the vinyl couch and puffs of dust floated in the air around her. With a ‘do you fucking believe this’ look tossed to MJ, Tasha turned to the men and asked, “Now what?”

“Ladies, welcome to your new home,” Cantrell said. “At least for the next few hours.”

Hours, not days. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen fast. Especially since the sun was on the down side of the day. Good. She hated long waits.

Johnson knelt down to start a fire in the fireplace. And maybe they’d get warm in the meantime.

“Does your momma know you’ve chosen a life of crime, Billy boy?” Tasha asked curling her feet under her on the couch.

MJ took a careful seat on the sofa arm and shot Tasha a look. So did Cantrell.

“My name’s not Billy,” he said.

“Oh, sorry,
Officer Cantrell
. You look like a Billy Bob to me. So what about that life of crime?”

He frowned. “What the hell you talking about? I ain't breaking no laws. And you leave my momma out of this,” he growled.

“Last I heard it was illegal to impersonate a policeman. Or pretend to arrest someone. Of course, perhaps it’s legal in this state. I’m not familiar with the laws here.”

“I’ve been deputized. I have authority.”

Stupid man, he believed his own story. “You’ve been conned,” MJ said, understanding Tasha was fishing for information. So they’d still be tied up, held prisoner, but it’d help to know who was in charge, pulling the strings of these monkeys.

And while MJ debated whether Ben was involved, she didn’t think he was the one directing these guys.

“Conned?” Cantrell laughed. “Only ones trying to con is you two.”

So he wasn’t quite as stupid as he seemed.

“Oh, no, she’s right,” Tasha said. “We’re the good guys here. You’re working for the wrong side.”

“We heard you two went rogue.”

“Who told you that? Maybe we’re not the rogue ones and you’re going to be responsible for our deaths.”

“He didn’t say nothing about no one dying.”

“And who would that be?” MJ asked.

Johnson, finished with the fire, slapped Cantrell upside the back of his head. “Shut up.”

Cantrell frowned.

“Do you know this man personally? Can you trust what he says?” MJ pursued, not really hoping for information.

But both men clammed up. Obviously willing to take the money and turn them over.

Leaving MJ to wonder who would show up later to get them.

Would Ben be there? She hoped not.

She didn’t want to have to kill him. That would be too ironic. Though she didn’t love Ben as she’d loved Keith, killing two lovers didn’t bode well for a future love life.

Tasha stretched her legs toward the fire. “At least it’s warming up in here.”

MJ knew Tasha’s calm was deceptive, that like a cat waiting for a chance to pounce on an unsuspecting rat, Tasha was waiting on her chance to make a move and get the hell out of here.

MJ was waiting, too.

Chapter 27

Abby Walker watched the policemen cart away the two women in the unmarked car. One was stunningly beautiful with long golden hair, even features and womanly curves that would grab anyone’s attention. The other woman, with her wavy dark hair, and lean, long, athletic build, was a beauty as well, but had more of an all-American wholesome look. From the way the woman was looking at the baby, along with Ben’s description, Mrs. Walker knew the dark-haired woman was MJ, Angelina’s mother.

What on earth had those women done? Ben hadn’t mentioned police involvement. And where was Ben?

Something didn’t seem right. Abby had both a daughter and a son-in-law who were cops and something just seemed . . . off about this picture. She frowned.

Her concern turned to alarm when moments later the other two policemen carried Ben, obviously unconscious, to another unmarked car.

What the hell? The hair raised on the back of her neck as she got the kind of psychic warning that mothers often had when an offspring was in danger. She adjusted the baby on her hip and reached into her purse for her cell phone. She squinted to see the tags or car number on the unmarked car so she could relate the information to her daughter, the detective. That’s when she noticed the car had regular tags, not government tags.

Phony cops?

If that were the case, they were about to drive off with Ben in a car that had no tie to the police. It would be impossible to track them.

She needed to follow them. And fast. She tossed the phone back into her purse. No time to call now, she needed to follow that car. If she didn’t have the baby with her, she could call and follow, but with a baby she was short a hand—the lament of mothers over the millennia.

Mom-mode kicked in, Abby scraped Angelina’s uneaten food into the sack, snatched the sack in her free hand and burst through the door, all the while talking to Angelina, keeping her calm through the sudden flurry of speed.

“Good baby, we’re going to go for a little drive and find Ben, and then we can find your mom, because if it’s phony cops holding my son, no doubt it’s phony cops who have your mom and that other pretty lady.”

What the hell was going on?
She’d never heard of such a thing beyond a T.V. show or fiction novel.

Keeping a steady stream of chatter, she buckled Angelina into the car seat before the toddler realized how it’d happened.

“That’s the advantage six kids and three grandkids gives you,” Abby said, remembering Ben’s struggle earlier. “Plenty of experience, though with my older children there wasn’t such a thing as these fancy car seats.”

Turning on the musical dog Angelina liked, Abby unlocked the front door and quickly slid into the driver’s seat, grateful she’d asked Ben for the keys before he left, in case she needed a diaper for the baby.

Before she put the car in gear, she pulled out her phone again, punched the number for her daughter.

“Hang on, honey,” she said to the baby as she sped through the parking lot, dodging pedestrians and other cars on the way to the exit. Although she’d gone as fast as she could, the other car disappeared. Frustration sank into her stomach, making the coffee she drank earlier slosh around.

She looked left and right, searching for any sign of the white Impala.

Dana Sue answered the phone; Abby almost forgot it’d been ringing.

“Hello?”

“Damn.”

“Mom?”

Abby saw the car. There, to the right. She looked left to see if traffic were clear. The light at the corner had just changed to green and a whole line of cars headed her way. No time to wait on them.

“What’s going on?” Dana asked.

“Hold on,” Abby replied to her daughter, muttering as an afterthought to the toddler, “Hang on again, baby.” So she could use two hands, Abby pitched the phone to the seat, then stomped the accelerator and turning the wheel hard right. The car swerved into the street with a squeal of tires as it bounced off the curb. Straightening the wheel, she accelerated beyond the speed limit, fastening her gaze on the car in the distance.

Abby heard Dana’s voice screaming at her from the phone on the seat. Picking it back up, she barely uttered a word before her daughter interrupted, “Mom, are you trying to talk and drive again?”

“It’s necessary.”

“Pull over somewhere, talk and then drive.”