“I don’t know!”
Suddenly behind him, the two familiar Texas Rangers appeared. Harry Longbow politely excused himself to Mrs. Briggs. “We need a word with the judge.”
He and Sessions edged past Neal into her inner office. Harry then shoved the detective back through the door and slammed it in his face. She knew from their grave expressions that something was terribly wrong. Weakly, she said, “Crawford?”
“What you just said, is it true? You don’t know where he is?”
“I swear I don’t.”
“You haven’t heard from him all day?”
“Not since dawn. I’m desperate to talk to him.”
“Yeah, us too.”
“You told me he gave you a new phone number.”
“We’ve been calling it for hours. Keep getting nothing. Tried to locate it using triangulation. Either he’s not close enough to a cell tower for that to work, or he’s taken the battery out, or both. Anyhow, we decided to drive on up here, thinking maybe he’s in trouble and needs our help.”
“Judge,” Sessions said, speaking for the first time. “Look, we figure y’all got a thing going, and, far as we’re concerned, that’s good. But you’re not doing Crawford any favors by keeping what you know to yourself. So, if you know where he was headed this morning, you need to tell us.”
“All I know is where he left my car.”
“Where was that?”
She told them about Smitty.
“That must be Crawford’s weasel.” Harry hitched his head toward the outer office. “Guess he’s gotta be in on this.” Sessions opened the door and signaled for Neal to join them. As soon as he crossed the threshold, Harry said, “Tell us about this Smitty character.”
Neal gave them Smitty’s basic bio. With obvious resentment, he added, “He’s been thoroughly interrogated but refuses to disclose anything. He says Crawford will kill him, if Otterman doesn’t kill him first.”
“Well, he might be right,” Harry said. “About Otterman anyway.”
Sessions said, “Let us have a crack at him.”
“That won’t do any good,” Neal said. “You won’t get anywhere.”
“Well, we gotta try,” Harry said.
His somber tone made Holly’s heart clutch.
“We discovered why Otterman’s holding a grudge against Crawford,” the Texas Ranger said. “The boy’s walking into way more than he’s bargained for.”
Chapter 32
Crawford had decided to wait until full dark to make his move. But the choice of when to act was taken from him when he saw headlights cutting through the swampy landscape, approaching from the direction of the fishing cabin.
With no time to spare, he knocked out the dome light of Smitty’s car, crawled over the console, and got out on the passenger side, closing the door behind him. The auto came into sight just as he plastered himself against the trunk of the tree nearest the car, making himself one with it in the darkness.
The car went past, then the brake lights came on as though the driver had just noticed Smitty’s car. Crawford took a tighter grip on Joe’s revolver, not daring to breathe, as he waited to see if the driver would continue on, or get out and investigate.
He couldn’t tell how many people were inside the idling vehicle, a late-model, foreign-made luxury sedan. The windows were darkly tinted, but even if they hadn’t been, the gloomy day had turned into a black night. He could barely see his own hand in front of his face.
Then an interior light came on as the driver’s door was pushed open. Crawford recognized the man behind the wheel as the bodyguard who’d been trimming his fingernails. Frick. He got out and stood there in the wedge of the open door, looking around, wary and watchful.
“Yo! This is private property.”
Getting no response, he left his car in the middle of the road, motor running, and walked slowly toward Smitty’s. Crawford noticed that he kept his right hand lowered, holding it close to his thigh. That’s where his weapon would be.
He approached the car from the rear on the driver’s side. As he inched forward, he gradually raised his right hand and kept it extended in front of him as he jerked open the driver’s door. When nothing happened, he ducked his head inside to take a look, and that’s what Crawford had been waiting for.
He pounced and was on the guy before he had time to react to the rustle of foliage. Crawford clamped the back of his neck, pushed his face into the driver’s seat, planted his knee between his shoulder blades, and jammed the barrel of Joe’s .38 behind his ear. “If you want to live, drop the blade.”
Just as Crawford had assumed, that’s what he was carrying. A man who uses a knife to pare his fingernails likes knives.
The man hesitated, his hand still gripping the hilt of the switchblade.
“You can try,” Crawford taunted softly, “but your brain will be mush in milliseconds. Are you that fast?” He let him think about it for about two heartbeats, then said, “Drop it into the floorboard now.”