“You really do know the right people.”
She decided that she should call Jan and Karen. Even if she couldn’t get them, she could leave messages about the latest events. She called Karen’s school, only to be told that Karen had called in sick. She didn’t answer at home or on her cell, and Ashley remembered that Len Green had taken her home the night before. So she left a message, then tried Len at his station and was told that he, too, had called in sick.
“What’s up?” David asked her.
“A budding romance, I think,” she said, and called Jan. Jan didn’t answer, either, so Ashley left another message.
“I think we should take this exit,” David said, as they came in sight of a turnoff.
“Have you been out here before?”
“Well, I’ve been in the area before.”
“But you don’t really know where we’re going?”
“No.”
He moved forward, adjusting in the seat. His knee hit the glove compartment door, and it popped open. Ashley’s gun and badge were there; she hadn’t had a chance to bring them back down to headquarters and turn them in, as required, since she had accepted the civilian position.
“Hey, that’s cool. We’re armed and dangerous,” he said.
“Shut that.”
“I’ll bet you can use that gun, too.”
“Yes, I can.”
He smiled, closing the glove compartment. She felt an edge of unease at his expression and made a mental note to put the gun in her handbag and keep it on her at all times until she turned it in.
“Are you familiar with guns?” she asked him, trying to sound casual.
“A crack shot,” he told her. She glanced his way and he shrugged. “ROTC.” He pointed to the right.
“There…let’s try following west, then turn south.”
She did as he suggested. They hit a canal and had to turn back.
“Great directions,” she muttered.
“Is it my fault we’re practically in a primeval swamp and there are canals everywhere?”
After a number of false starts, they found a road that went through, and at last reached what they thought was the address. At least, by the numbers, it had to be somewhere within the long expanse of fields they had arrived at.
Ashley pulled over to the side of the road, which itself was scarcely more than dirt and gravel. Maybe it had been paved once. There seemed to be the remnants of asphalt beneath the tires.
As she turned off the engine, they both stared out the windows. “It’s a big farm,” Ashley said.
“I don’t even see a house,” David murmured.
“Yes…back there. And see…there’s not exactly a barn, but it’s an outbuilding of some kind. Maybe a silo.”
“A silo? That’s not a silo.”
“Then what is it?”
“Not a silo. They’re growing strawberries.”
“What is that building, then?”
He stared at it and shrugged. What they saw appeared to be a round tower attached to some kind of storage shed or barn.
“It might be a big tower with a window so that the farmer can watch his strawberries grow,” David said with a sigh. “I don’t know. Wish we could get into it. Wanna look?”
“It’s not legal for us to go traipsing around on someone’s property, David.”
He stared at her and grinned slowly. “I’m a journalist. I’m supposed to be heedless of the law. You’re a—an ex-cadet or something.”
“David, we have no right—”
He ignored her. “Up farther…closer to the house. That looks like a vegetable garden. That’s a big house. Looks like they grow a lot of food.”
“David, farmers grow a lot of food. That’s how they make their money,” she said irritably.
“They have a lot of the place planted…yet look, if you really look across the fields, the back is a big tangle of trees and underbrush.”
“Amazing,” Ashley said. “They can’t stop the underbrush from growing on what may not be their property.”
He stared at her. “The place really looks like a farm. They’ve made it look like a farm.”
“It is a farm. We’ve solved it, and the owners should definitely be arrested,” she murmured sarcastically. “David, listen to yourself. We’ve found a farm that we’re not sure is even the right address. What do we do now that’s legal and makes sense?” Ashley said, more to herself than to David.
“We get out and look around.”
“We can’t just walk around on private property.”
“I can.”
“Listen, we need more information, David.”
“Yes, and I intend to get it.”
Ashley was startled when he opened the car door and got out. She swore, starting to open her own door to follow him. But there was one thing she and David Wharton agreed on, and that was the fact that Stuart hadn’t wound up half-dead on the highway of his own volition.
She opened her glove compartment, knowing that her police-issue gun should have been turned in and definitely shouldn’t be in service.