Secure Location

chapter Eighteen

Cruz felt the blood drain from his head. She had to be mistaken or he had to have heard it wrong. But none of the other women at the table looked shocked. They were nodding, a couple had a distant look in their eyes that suggested they were reflecting back.

“How did it happen?” he asked.

“Poor baby choked. People said Margaret got careless and left a bag of marshmallows on the table. Baby stuffed a whole bunch into her mouth and couldn’t get any air. Margaret came back into the room but the poor baby was already turning blue.”

Cruz had been accused by more than one perp that he didn’t have a heart but at that moment he knew it wasn’t true because he felt it crack in his chest. Poor Meg.

Now Pink Shirt leaned forward. “As I recall, the older boy told the police everything that had happened. Of course, he was just a child himself, can’t imagine how that must have affected him.”

“Were the police involved?” Cruz asked. Had Meg gone to prison?

“As I recall, there was some sort of an investigation,” Pink Shirt said. “But there were no charges filed. She made a mistake. It was as simple as that.”

The death of a child was never simple. Meg had carried a heavy burden. And carried it alone.

“You said something about the trouble carrying over to the tire plant?” Cruz asked.

“Mr. Percy was friends with Mr. Gunderson’s supervisor. It was just months before Mr. Gunderson found himself in the street. They lost their house shortly afterward. They left town and never came back. I don’t know where they ended up.”

No one spoke up. Suddenly a small woman sitting in the middle sat forward in her chair. “I’m the only one at this table who has lost a child. I can tell you, it’s no wonder that the Percys didn’t stay together after that. Heartache changes things.”

How had it changed Meg? And why had she never told him? He could feel the hamburger in his gut churning.

Pink Shirt wiped her eyes. “I thought Gloria Percy was a lovely woman. I didn’t know her husband as well. I heard that she remarried a few years later but by then, I had lost touch with her. I can’t even recall her husband’s name.”

Ted Blakely. That was his name. Gloria Percy had become Gloria Blakely. But her obituary hadn’t mentioned any children.

“Whatever happened to the other child?” Cruz asked. “The brother.”

“I don’t know,” said Tattoo Lady. “I’m not sure if T.J. ended up with his mother or his father.”

T. J. Percy. “What did T.J. stand for?” Cruz asked.

The ladies looked at one another and shook their heads. “I never heard him called anything but T.J.,” said Tattoo Lady.

Cruz mentally reviewed all the information he’d seen on Blakely. Nowhere had there been any mention of a middle initial or name. But he was willing to bet that the T stood for Troy. The boy had stayed with his mother and taken his stepfather’s last name. T. J. Percy had become Troy Blakely.

And something had happened to set him off, to make him seek vengeance on Meg. It had probably been his mother’s and stepfather’s deaths. The timing was right. He’d somehow managed to track Meg down, realized she was in San Antonio, and had gotten the job at the hotel. He’d lost it just months later. Maybe that had made him even angrier. Maybe he hadn’t cared. After all, he’d already learned Meg’s routine, had copied the key to her office, figured out where she parked. Followed her home.

The vision of a man breaking all the windows in his mother’s house as she looked on made the blood in Cruz’s veins run cold. What kind of son did that to his parents? A crazy man. Maybe he’d been crazy for some time. Certainly somewhere along the way, something had gone south in the Blakely house. To the point that Gloria and Ted Blakely didn’t even claim T.J. as their son.

The women were all staring at him. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing at the head of the table, trying to figure out the whole horrid mess.

“Thank you,” he managed.

“Would you like to join us for a piece of pie, young man?” Pink Shirt asked. She pointed to the empty chair.

He shook his head. He didn’t need pie. He needed air. To clear his head so that he could figure out what to do next.

There was no need for panic, he rationalized. Nothing had happened for weeks. Meg wasn’t in any more danger today than she had been yesterday, the day before, or last week. Maybe much less. Blakely could well have tired of the game and moved on.

Of course, Cruz was going to make sure of that.

And by the time he got back to his hot car, he had a plan. Blakely’s mother and stepfather were dead. But that still left his biological father. He might know where his son was hanging out.

Cruz pushed a button on his cell phone. Sam answered on the third ring.

“I need some more help,” Cruz said.

“Name it,” Sam said.

“I need to find somebody. A man by the last name of Percy. He lived in Maiter, Texas, in 1995 or 1996. He was married to a woman named Gloria. They had a son whose name was Troy and also a deceased infant girl. Her name was Missy. They got divorced and the wife later remarried a man named Ted Blakely.”

“Okay, it’s probably enough. I’ll find him.”

It took Sam twenty minutes. Computers were wonderful things. Lawrence Percy had been twenty miles outside San Antonio for the past ten years. He was single and he had steadily been employed as a machinist in a factory.

Cruz put his now-cool car in Drive.

* * *

LAWRENCE PERCY ANSWERED his door wearing sloppy sweatpants and a stained T-shirt. His hair had specks of green paint in it. He was holding a brush. “Yeah?” he asked.

Cruz immediately decided a direct approach might work best. “I’m Detective Cruz Montoya. I’m investigating a series of events that occurred in San Antonio.”

The man blinked once. “I don’t go into the city.” He moved to shut the door.

Cruz stuck an arm out. “Margaret Gunderson,” he said.

The man’s jaw dropped. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time,” he said, his voice soft.

Cruz considered and took a chance. “She’s my ex-wife.”

The man’s eyes turned watery. “How is she?”

It wasn’t the response Cruz expected. “I wasn’t sure you’d care. I recently heard the story about your child’s death.”

The man nodded. “I was so angry with her. Hated her. She was alive, walking down our street and our sweet Missy would never get that chance. I wanted her to suffer. I wanted her whole family to pay.”

“Past tense?” Cruz questioned. “You still want her to suffer?”

The man shook his head. “No. She suffered enough. We all did.”

“Why did you leave Maiter?”

“My son, T.J., was struggling in school. Moving didn’t help. Nothing did.”

“What’s your son’s full name?”

“Troy Jamison.”

“Where is your son now?”

“I have no idea. For a while, he moved in and out of my mother’s house in San Antonio. They’d get along for a while, then there’d be some big blowup. But she always took him back. ‘He’s my blood,’ she would say.” The man’s eyes turned bleak. “I had to turn my back on my own mother. Haven’t seen either of them for over five years.”

“What’s your mother’s address?”

The man hesitated. “What’s going on?”

“Someone is terrorizing Meg. Trashing her car, her apartment, her office. Following her. I think it could be your son. For a brief period, he worked at the same hotel that Meg works at. I think that was on purpose.”

The man didn’t look surprised. “Got a pen?” he asked. Then he rattled off the address. Cruz wrote it down.

“Thank you,” Cruz said. “Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

Lawrence Percy nodded. “Be careful. I don’t know my son all that well anymore but I suspect he could be very dangerous. The only thing I really know for sure is that I wish to hell he wasn’t my blood.”

* * *

CRUZ DIALED MEG as he ran for the car. It went to voice mail. “Meg,” he said, “be careful. It’s Troy Blakely. Watch out for him.”

The next call he made was to Detective Myers. When he answered, Cruz gave him just enough details for the man to understand the urgency of the situation. The detective said he was an hour outside San Antonio but that he’d leave immediately for the hotel.

Cruz was half that. He drove fast, trying to shave another few minutes. He tried Meg’s office again and got the same busy signal. He pressed zero and got bounced back to the hotel operator who transferred him to Charlotte’s desk.

It rang and rang. He went through the whole routine again with the operator, but this time he asked to be transferred to Security, hoping they could get a message to Tim Burtiss.

He got voice mail again.

Damn it. Did no one answer their phones anymore?

He glanced at his watch. He’d be there in fifteen minutes. He forced himself to calm down. Everything would be fine.

* * *

MEG WAS ON A LONG CALL with a disgruntled guest when a note slid under her closed office door. When she finished the call a few minutes later, she walked over and picked it up. It was from Charlotte. Scott called. He wants to see you right away.

Meg crumpled up the note and tossed it in her waste can. After learning about the baby, she’d gone to see Scott. Hadn’t told him about the pregnancy. Cruz deserved to hear that news first. But she had told him that she was sorry. Sorry that she’d involved him in her deceit, that he was a good man who deserved better. He’d read between the lines and had made it easy for her by saying all the right things. I respect you. I care for you. Of course we can still work together.

Hopefully, he hadn’t changed his mind about that. She needed an income and health insurance.

She looked at her phone and saw that there was a voice mail waiting. She decided to ignore it. She’d see what Scott needed first and then get to her calls. She grabbed a yellow legal pad and hurried out.

When she opened the door that connected her office to Charlotte’s, she saw that the space was empty. She opened the outer door and the security guard sprang to his feet.

“Have you seen Charlotte?” she asked.

“No. I thought she was at her desk.”

She must have left by the other door. Maybe she had to use the restroom and didn’t want to announce it to the security guard. “No problem. She probably just stepped out for a minute. When she comes back, let her know that I saw her note and that I’m in Mr. Slater’s office.”

“I’ll walk you,” he said.

There hadn’t been any issues for weeks. But the memory of her destroyed office still nagged at her. She could lock it but didn’t know if Charlotte had her keys. “Just stay here,” she said. “It’s just up the elevator. Nothing is going to happen between here and there.”

She walked down the hallway, took the elevator to the next floor, and was fifteen feet away from Scott’s office when a door opened and a man stepped out. She saw his eyes first. They were dark and cold. She saw the gun next—it was black and deadly looking.

“Keep walking, Meg,” he muttered. “Don’t make any sudden moves or I’ll shoot you here. Then I’m going to shoot anybody who comes running to help.”