Chapter 4

“I figured on something like that,” I replied with a nod. “Just how much trouble are we talking about?”

“Thomas, I’m not kidding.” Sharon’s voice quavered, and she sniffed loudly.

I spotted a wide spot on the shoulder, and I applied the brakes to slow the rig down. “Hang on a minute.” I pulled off the road, put the truck in Park, and turned to face her. “Okay, tell me what is going on.”

“I don’t really know,” she said as she stuck her hand into her purse.

I tensed for a split second, and then willed myself to relax. She’d had lots of chances to kill me last night if that were her plan.

Sharon withdrew a black USB drive and held it up. “I think this has something to do with it, but I’m not sure about that, either.”

“Start at the beginning.” My interrogation training kicked in, and I dropped into my official voice, calm and non-confrontational. Inside, I was scared shitless for her.

She nodded. “I came home from shopping...”

“Where is home?” I interjected.

“Phoenix.” I nodded, and she continued. “I was on my way to my apartment, when I saw four men breaking in. I don’t think they saw me, and I ran. I found my friends, and they were giving me a ride to Houston.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I was afraid they were looking for this.” She held up the USB drive.

“Okay, so how did you get the drive?”

“Oh, I found it in my suitcase three, no, four days ago now, along with a notebook that belonged to a girl I’d tutored last month.”

“You were with her in Phoenix?”

“Yes, but her family moved to New York City.” She started to cry. “They were murdered! All of them; parents and both girls!”

I kept my cool. “How do you know that?”

Sharon took a breath. “I was looking at the drive, when a friend of mine she set me up with the family, called me to say that they’d been tortured” she sniffed again, “and murdered. She knows someone in the police department, and she said it was awful. They tore up the house, too, my friend said, like they were looking for something.”

“So, you think that the girl had the drive?”

“Yes, I’m guessing she had it, and left it in my bag. I was helping her carry her things.”

I thought for a moment. “What’s on the drive?”

Sharon shrugged. “I don’t know. Most of it is encrypted, and the only part that isn’t is a brochure for the hotel we stayed at in Kaunas last month. It’s in Russian, though.”

“Lithuania?” My eyes narrowed. “Why were you there?”

“The girls’ father is – was – a businessman. I went with them to watch the girls. We went about a month ago, stayed for four days, and then came back to Phoenix. I think his company sells farm machinery, or products, and he was meeting with some customers.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. “Okay. You go on a trip. The family goes to New York. Why were you still in Phoenix?”

“I didn’t want to live in New York City.”

I nodded. “So, you left the job, and then you find the drive, hear about them, and then your house is broken into?”

“My house was broken into last night – I mean, two nights ago.”

My blood ran cold as I put the events together. “So, where are you going, now?”

“I know an FBI agent in New Orleans. Thomas, I was so scared! If they were able to find that family, and find me! And they tortured those kids!” She started to cry, wrapping her arms around herself.

“We should go to the police,” I said. “Or, the nearest FBI office.”

“I’m scared,” Sharon sniffed. “What if they are looking for me?”

“The police? If they’d been looking for you, that trooper would have arrested you.” The events of last evening at the RV park crystalized in my mind. I had not a shred of evidence, but my instincts prodded at me. “I think the people who are looking for that drive are here, though.”

She started and stared at me. “How do you know that?”

“I don’t,” I said with a shrug. “But, I saw two vehicles last night that gave me the creeps. I don’t know for sure, but I think they’re looking for us.”

Sharon looked at me imploringly. “I don’t want to go to some cop or agent out here that I don’t know. I want to talk to the agent in New Orleans.”

I sighed. “I can’t even begin to tell you how bad an idea that is.”

She nodded. “Will you help me, anyway?”

It’s a totally stupid idea, old man, and you know it. My common sense warred with my desire to help her, and desire kicked ass. “Okay, we will do it your way. But, if we run into trouble, we are stopping at the nearest place with cell phone reception and calling 9-1-1.” A thought occurred to me. “Have you used your cell phone?”

Sharon shook her head. “I took the battery out.” She scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand. “Maybe I’m being paranoid. But people who kill a whole family, tear up their house, and just vanish? And then, four men show up at my apartment? That’s not just random, and if they are that good, and that determined, then they are really bad people.”

I had to agree. “Okay, we can make it to New Orleans in a hard day’s drive, if we just go straight through. The interstate is about ten miles that way”, I pointed out my driver’s window to the north. “We will just jump on and go.”

“Okay,” she nodded.

I opened my center console and handed her a napkin. “We will get there, okay?”

“Thank you,” Sharon took the napkin and pressed it to her eyes, and then delicately blew her nose.

“Just drop it in the door pocket. It’s fine.”

She smiled, discarded the napkin, and then she straightened up in her seat as I put the truck in gear and started out again. “Thank you, again, Thomas.”

“No problem,” I said as I focused on getting us up to speed again. “There should be a turnoff for the interstate a couple of miles up the road.”

“You seem to know this area pretty well.”

I nodded. “I like this part of the country, and I especially like Texas. There is so much variation, from desert to pine forest, mountains to flat open country. You can see snow, and you can go where it doesn’t snow.”

She smiled. “A whole other country?”

“Pretty much. We have all kinds of people, too, not just cowboys and ranchers like people think. I can’t think of an ethnic group or nationality that I haven’t seen here one time or another.”

We reached the turnoff, and I negotiated the turn and accelerated again. My stomach rumbled, and I remembered our original mission was to find breakfast. “I think there’s a convenience store at the interstate with a restaurant attached. I’m getting hungry.”

“Me, too,” Sharon agreed.

The landscape had turned into a series of rolling rises, not even hills, and the road meandered through and over them. We topped the last rise about three hundred yards or so from the interstate highway. The overpass rose above the road we were on, and the highway stretched left and right, demarked by the scattered trucks running both east and west. The convenience store sat to the right, on the southeast corner of the intersection, and I focused on it as we started down toward it.

“Dammit!” I stepped on the brake, slowing the truck quickly.

“What’s wrong?” Sharon sat up abruptly and stared at me.

“It’s them.” I pointed through the windshield at the store parking lot. “That’s the same pair of vehicles I saw last night.”

“Are you sure?” She was alarmed now.

“No, I’m not, but I want to check it out.” I pulled the truck off onto the shoulder. “I keep a pair of binoculars in my hunting gear.” I leaned over the center console, picked up a camouflage-patterned duffel, and heaved it into my lap. A moment later, I extracted a pair of compact binoculars and a spotting scope. I set the duffel into the back, and handed her the binoculars. I lifted the spotting scope, and focused on the vehicles.

A SUV and a sedan were parked one behind the other at the outside part of the parking lot, and there were five people congregated around them. There were three men and two women, all in their early to mid-thirties, dressed in slacks and button down shirts. The spotting scope brought their faces into sharp focus. They looked around as one of them spoke on a cell phone, watching in all directions – like bodyguards or cops. I would have bet my last cent that they weren’t cops, though, and I sighed.