Dangerous Refuge

chapter Thirty-six



Tanner hit redial four times, got nothing four times, and pulled out of the gas station fast enough to make the tires bark. He drove Lorne’s truck like it was a wide-stance sports car until a red light stopped him just before he got on the freeway. He thought about blowing through it, but there was too much cross-traffic. As he waited, he punched in the number of the sheriff’s office, hit the speaker, and put the cell phone on the seat.

By the time he got August, the light was green and Tanner was breaking every speed law he could get away with.

“Glad you called,” the deputy said. “The sheriff has been crawling up my ass about Lorne and Shaye and how he doesn’t need that kind of grief right now. What the hell is going on?”

“Shaye’s in trouble. She called me, tried to say something, and then made a sound like someone kicked the breath right out of her. The phone went dead a second or two later. I called four times and got nowhere. Then—”

He broke off, laid on the horn, and shot through a slot between two cars. One driver gave him the middle-finger salute. The second slammed on the horn and brakes at the same time.

“Where the hell are you and what are you doing?” August demanded.

“Just getting on the freeway north of Reno. All the traffic is like me, southbound. It will take me an hour to reach the place I left Shaye—Mountain View Motel, room twenty-three. Ask for a welfare check. Then call and—son of a bitch!”

A red Caddy and a station wagon held together with duct tape and rust were blocking both lanes ahead. Tanner got in the Caddy’s business and flashed his high beams while leaning on the horn. The Caddy guy hit his own horn and flipped Tanner off, but sped up just enough for him to squeeze through.

“Good thing there was a five-car pileup with injuries northbound about twenty minutes ago,” August said blandly. “Otherwise you’d have cops all over you like flies on fresh shit. As it is, southbound ahead of you will slow because all the yahoos just have to have a look at the pretty flashing lights and hope to see some poor citizen’s fresh blood. Now tell me which hornet’s nest the two of you kicked over.”

“Welfare check. Room twenty-three.”

“I can multitask,” August said. “The closest patrol unit will take about twenty, thirty minutes. We’ve got a wildfire in the mountains.”

“Whoever is with Shaye has already killed two people.”

She could already be dead.

But Tanner refused to believe that. “Get someone’s ass down there now!”

“Can you prove that?” August asked hopefully.

“No time.”

“The sheriff told me to stay put and shuffle papers,” August said, sounding angry and disgusted. “And he made it damn clear that everything to do with Lorne, Shaye, or the Conservancy goes through him first.”

Tanner made a sound too savage to be human. “Call the motel. Find out if anyone signed in or out after Mr. and Mrs. Davis in room twenty-three. And if the sheriff asks, you’re trying to find me, not her.”

“I’ll call you back.”

“Thanks.”

Without giving August his callback number, Tanner disconnected. He knew that calls to the sheriff’s station were automatically logged by time and number as they occurred.

He wove in and out of increasing traffic. August had been right. Although the pileup was across the freeway, every idiot just had to slow down and goggle at someone else’s bad luck. Using horn and brakes, he got through the slowdown and went across the rest of Reno at eighty. Apparently there were a few cops not busy with the accident or the fire, because he just missed getting nailed by an officer with a radar gun on the overpass. The three chase cars working with the cop on the overpass were already busy writing tickets.

Then he was out of Reno and on the miserable stretch of 395 that wound through tiny ranches, junkyards, and tourist shops. One car in front of him, someone made a bad left turn, heading across the busy highway for an antiques store. Tanner saw what was coming and aimed for the side of the road where there was just enough room to squeeze by between a stalled driver and a cottonwood tree.

There was a rending, metallic sound as he slid by the tree. The wheel bucked hard, then settled. He shot out of the narrow gap minus the mirror on the passenger side and a few coats of paint.

Behind him, traffic slowed to walking pace.

No harm, no foul.

The mirror hadn’t come completely free. It hung down and banged on the door like someone trying to get in. Tanner ignored it and the unhappy rattle of a fender. He watched the oncoming traffic ahead of him, searching passing cars for any hint of Shaye.

It was a long shot, but when that was all you had, you didn’t sneer at it.

His phone rang. He laid off the horn long enough to take the call. It was August, and he was on a private phone.

“Nobody checked in or out after you,” the deputy said. “The sign outside the room requested maid service, so the kid at the front desk went in. Nobody there. No possessions left behind. He figures the guest took off in the old orange Bronco he saw on his way into the parking lot. Two blondes in the front seat. Couldn’t see if anyone was in the back, but a lot of those old Broncos don’t have a backseat. The blonde drove like it was her first time with a shift car.”

“Shaye owns an old orange Bronco, but she knows how to drive a shift. The other blonde could be Kimberli. Put out a bulletin on the Bronco.”

“I’d have to go through the sheriff.”

“Why?” shot back Tanner. “I borrowed Shaye’s car and it was stolen from the motel parking lot. Nothing to do with nothing important, so why bother him? Get her license number and—”

“On it already,” August said. “But doing you favors is going to get me fired.”

“Working for Sheriff Conrad, breathing could get you fired.”

A rusty chuckle came out of the speakerphone. “I’ll keep you posted, but unless I get something solid, I don’t think the sheriff is all that interested in helping you out. He’s got other dogs in this hunt. Hill, Campbell, and Mason have called him today. Whatever they said didn’t make him happy.”

“Huh. They call him often?”

“Sure. Helped him get elected. Paid for it, actually, along with Desmond and some other casino owners. Conservancy even kicked in.”

“And I’m betting someone in that group is good for murder one.”

Silence, followed by a hissing curse. “Davis, you are a great big helping of shit, you know that? I’ve put out the BOLO on Shaye’s orange Bronco. Now I’ll start looking for work. Don’t call except on my private cell, which should be in your call log now.”

August disconnected.

Tanner drove like he was in second place on the last lap of the Indy 500.