Chapter 5 - THE TOBACCO BARN ON ROUTE 55
"Stay in the closet, Martha," I said, already slamming my truck into drive andfishtailing onto the highway. "Do you remember the combination to the biometric box under my bed?"
"No, David, and I'm not leaving this child to go into your bedroom," she whispered fiercely. "I locked the deadbolt on the hallway fire door you installed after Sarah got sick. They can't get past the hall without a battering ram. Just get here—and don't turn your sirens or lights on until you hit the cul-de-sac."
I didn't call 911. If Deputy Russell Vance was on the night shift dispatcher's roster, calling the county sheriff would only tell Troy how many minutes he had left.
Instead, I hit the speed-dial for Arthur Pendelton.
"David, it's one in the morning," the old auditor rasped.
"Call your contact at the State Bureau of Investigation," I said, watching my speedometer climb past eighty-five. "Tell them Thomas Sterling's company is dumping condemned prison livestock at my house right now."
I killed my headlights as I turned into Oak Creek Estates.
Sure enough, a heavy black dually pickup sat idling under the willow tree fifty yards from my mailbox. The driver's door was cracked open, the interior dome light taped over.
I didn't stop at my driveway. I aimed my three-ton steel bumper directly at the pickup's front left quarter-panel and floored the gas.
The impact sounded like a cannon shot in the quiet suburb.
Metal shrieked as my grill crushed the dually's wheel well, pinning the driver's door shut and shoving the truck sideways onto my neighbor's lawn. The airbag hit my chest like a mule kick, filling the cab with white cornstarch smoke, but I had my door kicked open before the horn stopped blaring.
Inside the dually, Deputy Vance was slumped against the steering wheel, blood trickling from his nose where the dash had caught him.
At the side of my house, the wooden gate burst open. Troy sprinted across the grass, a crowbar in one hand and my home office laptop tucked under his other arm.
He reached for his waistband as he saw me coming around the tailgate.
He never cleared the leather. Eighteen years of close-quarters combat drills took over. I stepped inside his reach, drove the heel of my palm under his chin, and swept his knee out with the side of my steel-toed boot. He hit the concrete driveway hard enough to rattle the teeth in his head. The crowbar skittered into the bushes, along with a small silver pistol.
Porch lights were snapping on all up and down the street. Dogs were barking.
I knelt with my knee across Troy's collarbone, picking up my laptop with my free hand.
"You broke into an Army veteran's house while his sick eight-year-old daughter was asleep upstairs," I said quietly, my voice barely above a whisper. "Give me one reason not to break your arm before the neighbors walk over here."
"It wasn't the laptop!" Troy choked out, his eyes rolling toward the street. "Margaret found out your kid's friend—the little boy, Benjamin—his mom works third shift at the Apex cold-storage plant! She thought the woman brought the shipping manifests to your house after school!"
My blood turned to ice.
"Benjamin's mother?" I demanded, grabbing the front of his Carhartt vest. "What's her name?"
"Maria! Maria Morales!" Troy gasped. "She cleans the offices at the Route 55 barn at midnight! Uncle Rich went out there twenty minutes ago because the night watchman caught her taking pictures of the veterinary quarantine tags with her phone!"
I looked over at the crumpled dually. Deputy Vance was stumbling out the passenger side door, holding his ribs, his face pale under the streetlights as half a dozen neighbors in bathrobes emerged from their front doors with cell phones held high, recording everything.
"Stay right there, Deputy," I called out loud enough for the phones to catch. "Tell the nice folks on the camera why a county officer is sitting in the getaway truck while Richard Collins's nephew burglizes a parent from Oakridge Elementary."
Vance didn't reach for his gun. He looked at the glowing red camera lights surrounding him, then slowly sat down on the curb and put his head in his hands.
"They told me it was just tax fraud," Vance muttered, loud enough for my neighbor Tom's iPhone to pick up three feet away. "I swear to God, Mr. Walker, I didn't know about the kids getting sick until Eleanor said it tonight. Richard's got Maria Morales locked in the drying shed behind the old tobacco barn on 55. If she doesn't give him the SD card from her phone, he's gonna call ICE and tell them she stole a truck."
Five minutes later, Raleigh city police—not county deputies—pulled into the cul-de-sac, lights flashing red and blue.
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I handed Troy over to a sergeant I knew from the VFW post, kissed Lily's forehead through the doorway while Martha held her tight, and showed the sergeant the orange hazmat label from the dumpster.
"Keep two cruisers on my front lawn until dawn, Greg," I told the sergeant. "And send every state trooper you can raise on the radio to the old Sterling tobacco barn on Route 55."
