Shelter for Sharla Page 16

  “How long is that going to take?”

  Carter sighed. “I don’t know. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. It’s got to be pretty simple, and yet I don’t know what it is.”

  “Carter?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you love me?”

  “Yes. I do. With all my heart.” He’d never said that before, and it felt good.

  “Good. Because I love you with all my heart, and I’d hate to think I’m wasting my time.”

  “You are not wasting your time, girl. It’s just that you and the kids … you’re my priority. My job is to keep you safe, to make sure you’re protected and sheltered, to make sure your lives are as good as they can be. This is just a little bump in the road, sweetie. Nothing more.”

  Sharla sighed loudly and slumped in her chair. “Well, okay. Whatever. Do what you have to do.”

  Carter had heard that before, and it was time to find out exactly where he stood. “My ex-girlfriend used to say that shit to me too. Are we going to do this for several years until you finally just walk out one day?” He hoped his stare was piercing enough to let her know he wanted her to think about her answer.

  But she didn’t. She didn’t even hesitate. “Nope. I’m here for the duration, Carter Melton. I don’t give a shit if you don’t come home for three days. As long as I know you’re not in bed with Penny Tadlock, it’ll be―”

  “Who told you about―”

  “You did, silly. Remember?”

  “Oh … yeah. Well, then, you should know that she’s the Methodist minister’s ex-wife, and I’m not interested in that at all.”

  She laughed aloud. “What, you don’t like a bit of a scandal?”

  “Nope. Don’t need that mess at all.” He grinned. “No re-election for me if that happens.”

  “I guess not.” She sat silent for a little while before she looked up and into his eyes. “Carter, I love you. Do whatever you think you have to do. I’ll still be here.”

  Reaching across the table, he took her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you. I love you, and that means everything to me.”

  “So how long are you staying?”

  “I’ll leave in about twenty minutes, but I really think I need to call my mom and talk to her for a few minutes.”

  “That’s a good son,” she said with a grin. “You do that.”

  As soon as the phone call was over, during which he managed to deflect almost every question Wilda Fern asked, he kissed Sharla goodbye and headed back to the office. Lewis and Edwards were on patrol that evening. He liked it when he could arrange it that way, Lewis being his senior deputy and Edwards being the rookie. If Mike had a question, Gray could most certainly answer it. He’d only been there for about fifteen minutes when the door opened and Edwards strode in. “Sheriff! What are you doing here?”

  “Going over stuff in this case.” Carter slapped his hands together, then opened them and rubbed them down his face before dropping them to his lap. “And I think it’s about to whup me. What are you doing?”

  “Found this.” Edwards held up a backpack that had obviously seen better days. “It was lying near a dumpster, but it’s got some jewelry and electronics in it. I’d say somebody got robbed and doesn’t know it yet.”

  “Sounds like it. Log it in and if they come looking, we can get their particulars.” He stared at the rows of marks again. God, he wished he could piece that mystery together and solve it.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Concentrating on the markings, he didn’t hear Edwards come up behind him until he sensed the deputy there. “Shit!” Carter yelled and jumped. “You scared the hell out of me! What are you doing?”

  “Looking over your shoulder,” Edwards said with a grin. “What is that?”

  He started to rail at the young man, then thought about it for a split second. What could it hurt to show him? “It’s some kind of clue or message or something. We found it in connection to a crime, and we’re trying to figure it out.”

  “Huh.” He could practically see the gears turning in Mike’s mind. “Got a ruler?”

  “Yeah.” Carter dug around in his desk drawer and produced one.

  “Mind if I sit down with this for a minute?”

  “Don’t make any marks on those pages!”

  “I won’t, sir. I would never do that. I just want to check something.” Reluctantly, Carter handed off the journal and the ruler, and Mike sat down at another desk with it. In a few minutes, he stood and headed to the copy machine.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Hang on, sir. I think I’m on to something here.” He watched as Mike made several copies of the page, then took them back. Carter tried to busy himself with something else, but curiosity was getting the better of him. “Scissors, sir?”

  “Sure.” Okay, this is ridiculous, Carter thought, but he handed Edwards the scissors and sat back down. The young deputy cut the copies into strips and began to arrange them oddly. “What exactly are you doing?”

  “I think I figured it out, sir.”

  No fucking way! Carter wanted to yell. “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “Yeah. Come look.”

  Carter watched as Edwards drew a line on a plain sheet of paper. Each strip he’d cut had two horizontal lines on it that bordered the marks there. He put the plain paper on top of a strip, lined up the lines on the paper with the lines on the strips, and traced the markings on the strip. When he finished the first one, he moved on to the second strip, doing the exact same thing.

  Carter’s mouth flew open. They were digital numbers, the kind seen on an LED clock or a gas pump. As Edwards traced each strip in turn, they became clearer and clearer as they went from their original chaos into complete organization.

  “There you go, sir. Does this mean anything to you?” Edwards said and handed the paper to Carter.

  They were strings of number, but he recognized them immediately, held them up, and turned back to Edwards. “What do you see, deputy?” he asked, praying Edwards confirmed his thoughts.

  “Looks like GPS coordinates to me, sir.”

  Carter couldn’t believe it. The twenty-four-year-old rookie had solved a puzzle that he and Cruz had been looking at for days. Not only that, FBI analysts were working on it with no luck. They’d all tried to turn it into its own language and make it harder than it had to be, but it was simple―too simple. “Well, I’ll be damned. Mike, I owe you a steak dinner.”

  “Thank you, sir!” the young man chirped, beaming. “Glad I could help!”

  “You earned it. And say nothing, do you hear me? Nothing to anybody.”

  “Yes, sir. Got it, sir. Nothing to anybody. My lips are sealed.”

  Carter took the paper and looked at it, then opened his laptop and started typing. For some reason, it crossed his mind to use a proxy server, so he found a free one and typed in the information. There were several different formats for latitude and longitude coordinates, and he needed to figure out which one was correct. Ten numbers―decimal degrees, but without the decimals. They would go after the first two numbers in each five-number string. No letters, but he knew north came first and then west. If they made no sense when he looked them up that way, he’d reverse them on the outside chance that Taliq had done the same. He found a site on which to enter them, took a deep breath, and waited.

  And he almost fell out of his chair. The site was about five blocks from the courthouse in O’Fallon, right where they’d been just days before. Then he typed them into a map of aerial photography and waited. What the hell was that? It was weird looking, that was for sure. He zoomed in as closely as he could and stared at it. That weird object …

  It was a scrap yard. The odd things he was seeing all around? Crushed cars. And the object in the center? A crane. Taliq had buried the money and the body in plain sight, and no one had ever detected it. Matter of fact, if the picture was accurate, it was dead in the middle of the drive that ran straight through the yard. How had he buried it there and nob
ody noticed? Had there been a connection between Taliq and the scrap yard? Carter could ask Sharla, but he didn’t think she’d know. She seemed to have little knowledge of her sister’s life until Imogen moved back due to her illness.

  But there was a bigger question. Who was he going to tell? Nobody. As he thought about it, he decided he had to tell Cruz, but that was it. No one else. Until they could figure out how to lure Cabo Paolo and his henchmen to the site and arrest them, Cruz was to say nothing to anyone. Not one word. There was more at stake than just his reputation. He had to think about Sharla, Chelsea, and Lionel’s safety, and if that information got out, they wouldn’t be safe. No one could know.

  No one.

  Chapter 9

  Morning came too soon. He said goodbye to Sharla as she left for work and then headed back into the kitchen. Ten minutes later, Cruz wandered in and got a cup of coffee. Twenty minutes later, he knew everything Carter knew.

  “Why the hell didn’t you call me and tell me?” Cruz almost screamed. “My god! You broke the code and―”

  “I didn’t break the code. Edwards did.”

  “So he knows?”

  “I told him to keep his mouth shut, and he will.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Cruz sat there for a few seconds, deep in contemplation, and Carter wanted to dance. His own deputy, a wet-behind-the-ears rookie, had figured out what everyone else had struggled with. It was true―sometimes a fresh perspective was all that was needed.

  “I suppose I should call the analysts and―”

  “No!”

  “Yes. I don’t want government funds wasted when we’ve figured it out.”

  “Then tell them we determined they were meaningless scribbles.”

  Cruz frowned. “You know they’re not going to buy that.”

  “Try. I’d rather they―”

  The ringing of Cruz’s phone interrupted Carter’s sentence. “Hang on. This is my boss in San Antonio.” Carter watched as Cruz hit the button to accept the call. “Livingston. Hey, yeah, still here. We … What? Yeah, the other day.” Cruz’s frown deepened and Carter wondered what was up. “But he was in solitary. Uh-huh. Yeah.” Something was going on, and Carter wanted to know what it was. “Oh, how coincidental, huh? Yeah. Let me know. Sure. Thanks.” Cruz hit end and stared at Carter. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Try me.”

  “The prison had my contact info, so they called the office. Estevez and McCutchen?” Carter nodded. “Dead.”

  Carter was sure he’d heard wrong. “What?”

  “They’re dead. Estevez was involved in a fight in the dining room and knifed in the stomach by another inmate.”

  “But McCutchen was in solitary.”

  “Yeah. Hanged himself from the bars in the window with a bedsheet.”

  Carter could feel his eyebrows shoot up. “You don’t believe any of that, do you?”

  “Not for a minute. I think we need to go back to that self-storage facility and pull everything that belonged to Imogen, bring it to your office, and lock it down.”

  “Let’s go.” Carter ran to the bedroom, dragged on a pair of jeans and a tee, and met Cruz back at the front door.

  And when they drove up in front of the building, Carter’s heart froze. The door was wide open and things were strewn everywhere, boxes overturned and items broken and dashed against the walls. “Holy fuck.”

  “I think the holy fuck is that we’re here between a bunch of aluminum buildings where no one on the street can see us. We’re sitting ducks. Get us the hell out of here,” Cruz hissed, and Carter threw the truck into gear and tore out between the buildings and back onto the street. As soon as the truck was a block down the street, Carter heard Cruz sigh before he asked, “Why do I get the feeling we were being watched?”

  “Because I’m pretty sure we were. And if they know that journal was in Sharla’s building and it’s not there anymore, they’re watching her too. My god. What do we do?”

  “We make sure she’s safe and then check on the kids. There’s little else we can do.”

  “You could assign agents to her and the kids! We could take them to a safehouse! We’ve got to do something!” Carter screamed at Cruz.

  “But they’ll be the ones who flush La Tana del Lupo out. They’ll come looking for that information. When they do, we’ll be ready.”

  “I don’t like this. I don’t want people I love used as bait.” And it was true―he cared about Chelsea and Lionel because Sharla loved them. Tamara had already been used as a pawn. What else would these men do?

  “I’m calling my superiors. We need some help down here, Carter. I know you didn’t want anybody else to―”

  “Call them! Call the fucking National Guard! Call anybody you can! I want them safe, understand? I want them SAFE!”

  Carter watched as Cruz flipped through the contacts on his phone and placed a call, but he had to leave a message. Fuck it all. Leaving a message wasn’t good enough. Carter needed to do something, but he didn’t know what. Sharla was in danger and she had no idea. He had to tell her. And he had to keep her safe.

  There was no other option.

  “What? What are you saying? All of this was about Taliq?” Sharla’s eyes were almost popping out and her jaw dropped.

  “No. It’s about fourteen million dollars and a dead guy, Sharla. A very important dead guy, at least in the gangland world. And fourteen million dollars. A lot of people would kill for fourteen million dollars.” Carter’s hands were shaking as he tried to explain to her. He knew he was repeating himself, but it didn’t matter.

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Stay here. At the hospital. As long as you stay here and we alert security, you’ll be safe.”

  “What about the kids? They’re at school.”

  “Not for long, they’re not,” Cruz answered before Carter could.

  “Sam’s already headed that direction to check on them. He should―” Carter’s phone rang and he looked down: Sam. “Yeah?”

  “They’re fine. We’re leaving a pair of plainclothes with them. When are the rest of those FBI guys coming?”

  “I have no idea, but I hope it’s soon.” Carter was bouncing his heel on the floor as he spoke. He couldn’t help it. It was as though his whole life was coming unraveled and he was powerless to do anything about it.

  “Okay. Well, our guys will keep an eye on them, but we need to get them out of here. This place is the worst place in the whole world that they could be.”

  “I agree. Campuses are impossible to lock down. Keep in touch with me and your guys out there. And thanks, Sam.”

  “Sure thing. We’re on it.” The phone went dead.

  “That was Sam. The kids are fine and they’ve got guys watching them.” He thought Sharla would breathe a sigh of relief, but she didn’t.

  “Agents are coming in from Louisville and Lexington as we speak,” Cruz said, looking at the screen of his phone. “Just got the text.”

  “Okay. You stay here. Don’t leave for any reason, do you hear me?” He squeezed Sharla’s hand. “You’re in the middle of a hospital full of people. You’ll be fine.”

  “But the kids―”

  “They’ll be fine. We’re handling it. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you in a little bit, okay?” Carter kissed her forehead before turning to the door. “We need to go. We’ve got things to do.”

  “Yeah, things to do,” Cruz echoed, and Carter could tell he was wondering what those things were. Oh, buddy, if only you knew, Carter told himself as they went. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to my office. There are some things we need to go through.” God will forgive me for lying just this once, Carter thought as they rolled that direction. As soon as they cleared the office door, he looked around and knew it had worked out just as he wanted it to―Edwards was the only other deputy there. “Cruz, can you go to the conference room and find that evidence list? From the robberies?”

  “U
h, sure. No problem. Hang on.”

  As soon as he disappeared, Carter wheeled on Edwards. “Do you remember those coordinates?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good.” Carter pulled the journal from his desk drawer and ripped the page with the markings out of the back. Then he dug through the trash can until he found the strips of paper and Edwards’ work. Lastly, he went to his computer and deleted his cookies and history. That left them unable to trace the proxy server. If they wanted that information, they’d have to work for it.

  Stepping outside the front door, Carter stared at the paper. He’d always had an uncanny ability to remember numbers, and these were no exception, especially since lives depended on it. Then he pulled a book of matches he’d found in his desk drawer out of his pocket, struck one, and stood there on the sidewalk, burning the papers. I hope you motherfuckers see me doing this! Carter wanted to yell. I hope you know I’m your only hope, and you’ll have to come through me to get to them! There was a sound behind him and he heard Cruz yell, “What the hell are you doing?”

  Carter spun on him. “Me. I’m the only one who has the coordinates now. They want them, they’ll have to come to me. They can leave Sharla and the kids alone, because they can’t do anything for those bastards. It’s me and only me.”

  “Carter, what have you done? You might as well have a bull’s eye on your back!” Cruz barked.

  “Let them come. They hurt those kids, Sharla, or me, and they’ll NEVER get those coordinates. Never. And I have no intention of giving them up anyway.”

  “They’ll torture you until you give them what they want.”

  “Then let them come.” Let them come, Carter told himself again. He wasn’t afraid. He’d told that women he’d keep her and those kids safe, and he’d just insured it.

  “Jesus Christ!” Cruz yelled from behind him and threw the office door open so hard that it banged against the brick. Oddly, Carter felt a strange measure of peace. He’d done what he had to do. When he stepped inside, Cruz was on the phone. “This idiot just set himself up to get killed! What’s the ETA on those agents? Dear god. Okay then. We’ll be waiting like fish in a barrel.”