CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Thomas rode his Shovelhead south on Bailey Hill Road. He’d followed Haddie to the coffee shop, but left her there when he got the call from Trig. The rain had settled in, leaving a gray blanket of clouds for a sky. He could smell the earth soaking up the water. Tires hissed through puddles from the traffic around him. He wouldn’t have chosen rush hour to make the trip, but the chance to find Louis or Tommy made the ride unavoidable. Rain on a mountain highway he had no problem with, but city people tended to take too many chances trying to hurry in conditions they weren’t skilled to handle.

Haddie’s situation had gotten worse, and her stubbornness would lead to her death. He’d dealt with people like her stalkers before. They’d hunt her down and kill her, just for their own convenience. Often he’d been surprised how little was at risk before they’d resort to violence. A smarter organization avoided such demonstrations. He dealt with a small-minded petty gang or leader who reacted, rather than acted. Sloppy. I’m not taking any chances.

Cars slowed at the larger puddles building up. He watched the addresses on the west side of the road. The houses there fit the type he might suspect: worn and forgotten while new developments ate up natural lands. Trig had warned that his information came from a random player without any verification. Not the best lead. However, Thomas would have to take what he could get.

In the rain, he nearly missed the address despite black letters on a faded white house. The lawn had grown tall with yellow and white flowering weeds. The beat-up car in the driveway could have been the one that nearly side-swiped Haddie leaving that mortgage company office. He should have been suspicious then.

He pulled onto the sidewalk to the left of the driveway. As he killed the Shovelhead and removed his helmet, he could see the top of a white trailer behind a weather-worn fence on his side of the house. The roof looked ragged. Half the front of the building was a two car garage, which had the only paint that wasn’t peeling. The architecture said it wasn’t that old, something out of the seventies or eighties, but no had ever taken care of it. At this early hour, any inhabitants could be asleep. No one in the neighborhood seemed to be out in this weather.

The porch had no lights on, and the windows remained dark. He walked north along the sidewalk and headed to the opposite side where there was no fence except the neighbor’s. Pale blue boards covered a window beside an air conditioner hanging out of the wall. He could try entering through the back. Wet weeds clung against his jeans, reaching his hips in some parts of the back yard. A peeling, dark blue back door tilted slightly in its frame, and a screen door lay on the ground nearby, filtering smaller grasses. The trailer had been rusted through years ago. Another board covered the window on this side; someone didn’t like nosy neighbors.

The house looked abandoned. Thomas strode to the back door and tested the knob. Locked. Hinges on the outside meant that the door swung outward. He pulled out his knife and worked it quietly between the door jam.

Car doors opened somewhere out front. He paused, listening above the rain. Had he just missed the occupants? Were they leaving?

The distinctive sound of two AR-15s being loaded came from the front. Thomas sprinted toward the trailer. Bullets tore into the house, shattering the glass in the front and splintering the wall where he’d just been standing. It only took a couple seconds before they finished and he rolled behind the trailer, using the rusted rims for cover. He only heard one magazine replaced, but again the house spit splinters of wood, and a back window collapsed. Had they set him up? In this rain, it would be easy to follow him. However, Trig wasn’t beyond a bribe. Maybe the player had worked Trig.

They fired a third set of magazines into the house before he heard two car doors slam shut. Mud slipped under his boots as he ran for the far side of the house. The car squealed its brakes on the road in the rain and a horn sounded, long and angry. By the time he rounded the front corner of the building, traffic again moved evenly through a dull gray haze.

He reached his bike and a neighbor tugged at the edge of a curtain, obviously spotting him. The detective would likely hear about this. Not my worry at the moment. He’d left Haddie alone, and needed to find her. Even the neighborhood around the veterinarian clinic wouldn’t be safe. He’d have to get back.