LET ME BREATHE, page 10
The SUV hit a pothole, jarring Ashley’s teeth. As they rounded a bend, the road changed. She’d noticed the layer of gravel had thinned the higher they’d climbed, but now, the road was little more than hard-packed dirt.
Although it was warm in the SUV, a chill raced down Ashley’s spine.
Had they entered an area where even the county maintenance crews feared to tread?
“I’m getting a bad feeling about this place,” she said. “Maybe we should wait for the sheriff’s deputies to get here.”
But so far, the deputies hadn’t been able to pinpoint Wyatt and Ashley’s location. And with no cell service and the SUV’s navigation system still refusing to connect to the satellite network, they were as good as lost.
Wyatt hesitated a moment before answering. “We’ll be okay.”
How could he know that? Wyatt had been born and raised in a bustling suburb of Nashville. He couldn’t fully understand the ways of the reclusive mountain clans. He had never met the types of people that Ashley had grown up around. Most of the backwoods natives held no respect for city laws, instead practicing a form of vigilante justice. The people living deep in the sticks were known to brand anyone with a badge as a mortal enemy. She’d heard more than once that taking out a member of law enforcement ranked as a sport as lauded as bagging a fourteen-point buck.
Crick’s trailer quaked, his cargo wobbling, as he whipped around a tight curve.
Seeming oblivious to the real danger that might await them, Wyatt sped after the truck. He likely thought that Ashley’s instincts were off, that she was overreacting. She knew that if they abandoned the chase, they might lose Crick forever. The murders of Hannah and Trina might never be solved. But by plowing ahead without backup, Wyatt and Ashley risked a fate similar to that of the lawmen who’d attempted to arrest the moonshiners.
As they neared the top of the mountain, the dirt road straightened.
Crick floored his accelerator, pushing the flatbed truck to its limits. She wondered how much farther the man had left to go before he reached his destination. Before an angry clan surrounded the SUV with their pickups, weapons drawn.
Ashley’s heart skipped a beat as two large, white-tailed does bounded onto the road ahead of Crick’s truck.
She held her breath, grabbing onto the passenger door handle.
At first it seemed that Crick planned to hit the deer as though he thought he could knock the large animals out of his way. But just before the impact, the truck swerved to the left. As the tires hit the ditch, Crick lost control, smashing head-long into a wide oak tree.
The truck’s trailer bucked.
The barrels of toxic waste sailed over the railing, bounced against the ground, and careened straight toward the SUV.
Wyatt jerked the steering wheel to the right. Ashley held on tight as the SUV dodged the orange drums. But the last barrel ricocheted off of a maple next to the road, flew up, and clipped the driver’s side windshield.
A sharp thud echoed though the cab of the SUV as the glass cracked.
Wyatt slammed the brakes and they slid to a stop at the edge of the ditch.
With her heart hammering in her chest, Ashley ripped off her seatbelt. She glanced at Wyatt. He appeared to be fine physically, but she could tell the blow from the toxic waste drum had shaken him.
“I hope Crick’s still alive,” he said.
So did Ashley. The loved ones of Hannah and Trina needed answers.
She hurried out of the passenger seat. As she charged around the front of the SUV, she heard Wyatt curse. She followed his line of sight. The driver’s door of Crick’s truck gaped open.
Drawing his Glock, Wyatt rushed toward the truck.
Ashley stuck to his heels, her own weapon drawn, ready to provide cover. Wyatt nodded and then checked the truck’s cab.
“It’s empty.”
Ashley scanned the tree line. A flash of light blue caught her attention. It was Crick’s jacket.
“There he goes!” she shouted as she lit out after Crick.
The underbrush clawed at her jeans as Ashley raced through the forest, keeping her eyes trained on Crick’s back. Wyatt’s loafers pounded the ground as he caught up with her. Her partner was taller and possessed a longer stride, but he wasn’t as adept at navigating the terrain.
Crick veered to the left.
Ashley felt certain that the man knew these woods like his own backyard. He would know the location of the caves, of the sheer limestone drop-offs, and the abandoned wells and mine shafts. Camouflaged hazards Wyatt and Ashley wouldn’t see until it was too late. The forest itself could be used as a weapon when in the right hands. Crick likely held the power to lead them to their deaths.
The sound of rushing water met Ashley’s ears. Zooming between two hickories, she spotted a patch of flowing silver ahead. Sunlight glinted off the surface of a creek or a small river.
His pace steady, Crick kept his course straight.
Did he plan on crossing the water? Did he have a canoe or boat on the shore?
Ashley heard Wyatt grunt beside her. She looked over in time to see him tumble to the ground. She stopped short, worried that he could be hurt.
“Keep going!” Wyatt shouted.
Pushing her muscles harder, she blazed ahead. If Wyatt had twisted his ankle, she’d have to catch Crick on her own. They’d come too far to let the man get away now.
The forest opened up, revealing the winding creek. No whitecaps shone in the center of the swift-moving current, indicating that the water ran deep.
Ahead of her, still wearing his jacket and boots, Crick waded into the water. When the depth hit his chest, he began to swim. His stride proved slow as he fought the current.
Reaching the water’s edge, Ashley glanced downstream. She noticed a tall, felled white oak tree stretching across a narrower bend in the creek. It appeared as though it hadn’t been there for more than a few days. If she could navigate her way along the trunk without falling in, she could make it to the other side of the water ahead of Crick.
Ashley sprinted downstream. She took a deep breath and mounted the fallen oak. For fear that she’d lose her balance, she didn’t dare let her gaze shift to Crick or to the water below. She looked straight ahead, her focus on the opposite bank.
With only a couple of yards left to go, the sole of her left hiking boot slipped on the tree bark.
Ashley felt herself falling.
Pain shot through her left cheek as a twisted branch of the oak scraped her face. She grabbed hold of a larger branch, breaking her fall. The water licked the toes of her boots as she straddled the wide trunk of the ancient white oak. Her gaze jerked toward Crick. He’d almost made it across the Creek. She had to hurry.
Praying that she wouldn’t lose her balance, Ashley pushed herself onto her knees and then stood. She inched along the remaining length of silvery bark.
When her boots hit dirt, Ashley ran.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ashley raced upstream along the edge of the creek, her eyes glued to Crick’s head as he fought the current and swam toward the shore. In her view, a person would have to be near insane to brave the icy water. And yet, instead of disappearing into a dense grove of pines, or ducking behind an outcropping of limestone, he’d made a beeline to the creek. It appeared like he’d plunged in without a second thought. The realization hit that the man wasn’t just fleeing from Wyatt and Ashley.
Crick was running toward something.
Or someone.
The suspicion that Crick’s relatives were waiting for him, planning to ambush Wyatt and Ashley, jumped to the forefront of her mind. They’d ventured deep into the heart of the mountain. They’d lost cell service. And so far, the Sparks County Sherriff’s deputies had failed to locate them. Although she and Wyatt were armed, the odds could tip in Crick’s favor at any moment.
She saw the man bob as his feet touched the creek bottom. He stood up in the chest-deep water, the tail of his light blue jacket billowing behind him and slogged toward the bank. With his gaze focused downward, he hadn’t yet spotted Ashley.
Drawing her Glock, she edged along the bank, her footfalls light. Crick obviously had no idea that she’d crossed the creek ahead of him, and she wanted to keep it that way.
As the water’s depths fell to his shins, the man looked back over his shoulder. He paused as though he was scanning the tree line on the other side of the creek. Ashley heard him laugh. It was clear that Crick believed he was no longer being pursued. That he was home free.
On the bank, at a level a foot higher than Crick, Ashley eased forward and snapped into position.
Crick turned back toward the shore. His mouth dropped open as he stared into the barrel of Ashley’s Glock.
“Curtis Crick, you’re under arrest,” she said. “Get on your knees.”
The man stood still for a moment, water dripping from his brown hair, his jaw still slack as though he couldn’t believe that he’d been caught.
“I said get down on your knees!” Ashley yelled.
Crick dropped to muddy shoreline. His experience being arrested multiple times manifested when without being ordered, his hands flew over his head.
“Take off your jacket first,” she told him. “But be aware that if you make one wrong move, I’ll shoot you.”
The threat of Crick becoming hypothermic worried her. The drenched jacket would steal warmth from the man’s body. She needed to get him into the sun and help him dry off.
The man obeyed, dropping his jacket onto the ground. Ashley secured handcuffs around his wrists. His dilated pupils stared at her, waiting for her next command. As she’d suspected earlier, Crick was high.
Although the man probably knew his Miranda rights by heart, Ashley repeated them anyway.
“Do you have any weapons on you—a knife maybe?”
She didn’t see any obvious protrusions from a firearm.
Crick shook his head.
“I didn’t hear that.”
“No,” he said, starting to shiver.
“Do you have any needles in your pockets?”
Before Ashley patted him down, she wanted to try and make sure she didn’t get pricked.
“No.”
She found a bag of meth in the front pocket of his jeans. After determining that the man was unarmed, Ashley pushed him to his feet. She steered him past a limestone boulder, blanketed with moss, to an open area awash with sunlight. She noticed that his boots weren’t cowboy boots; they were of the hiking variety. But that didn’t mean the boot that had left the partial print at the landfill wasn’t sitting in Crick’s closet.
“Do you not realize that swimming across the creek could cause you to freeze to death?”
“Don’t matter,” Crick said. “I’d just as soon die as go back to the pen.”
Ashley studied his face. She hoped that he didn’t have a death wish. Addicts were unpredictable enough already. If he really wanted to die, he could pose a threat, not only to himself, but also to Ashley. Maybe she could reason with him.
“I might be able to help you stay out of prison,” she said.
If Crick proved to be innocent of the murders, he’d still be charged with possession and evading arrest. But maybe he could make a deal. There was a possibility—although slim—that he could be sentenced to a drug treatment facility.
He tilted his head. “You sure that you’re a cop? You look like a local girl.”
The words were her cue to build a rapport. To make Crick believe that she was on his side, make him feel comfortable, and get him to confess.
“I was born and raised on a mountain in Laurel County.”
“No shit. I got people there. Third cousins on my mama’s side. You know the Barrett clan?”
Ashley forced a neutral expression onto her face. She was treading on shaky ground. Not only was she acquainted with the Barrett family, she’d killed one of them.
“Just about everyone in the county knows the Barretts,” she stated.
“I reckon so,” he said, his teeth chattering.
“Start marching in place.”
“What?”
“It will help warm your body core and keep you from getting hypothermia.”
At least, she hoped it would.
“Oh.”
Crick began marching.
“I’m guessing you were raised on this mountain,” Ashley said, acting as though she wanted to get to know him.
“Yep. My kin’s home place is just over the ridge.”
Maybe it was the meth making him talk, or maybe it was just his personality. Either way, Ashley wished all suspects were this friendly.
“Is that where you were heading when you crossed the creek?”
“Yeah.”
“And your family already knows that you were running from the police,” she stated.
His lips curved into a grin.
Though he didn’t speak, his expression was answer enough.
“How many people are at your family’s place right now, waiting for us?”
“Twelve. Plus three young’uns.”
In Laurel County, parents taught their children to shoot at a young age. She assumed the same was true in Sparks County. If she and Wyatt had followed Crick to his family’s home, they’d now be in the crosshairs of fifteen weapons. She just hoped Crick’s relatives hadn’t grown tired of waiting. That they hadn’t decided to search for him.
Crick eyed her with a wary look on his face. “You said something about keeping me out of the pen?”
Ashley nodded. “If you’ll help me by answering a few questions then I’ll help you.”
The term help had a plethora of meanings. What she really wanted was to find out if Crick was the killer. If he confessed, she’d make sure the DA knew he’d cooperated.
Crick’s brow furrowed. “What kind of questions?”
“Well, you can start by telling me where you were last night, especially from midnight on.”
“That’s easy. I hauled a load up to Louisville, Kentucky. It was a special run. Some kind of emergency. I didn’t get there until almost ten o’clock. My boss put me up at a motel. Then this morning, I drove from there to the chemical plant and picked up a load of waste.”
Louisville was at least a three-hour drive from Sparks County. If Crick was telling the truth, there was no way he could have been the person spotted leaving the parking lot of the waste treatment facility.
“We have a witness who places you at a different location.”
“Yeah, where?”
“Someone saw you at the hazardous waste treatment plant late last night. They said that you were driving a dark-colored sedan.”
Crick’s face paled, and he stopped marching. “Naw, now. That wasn’t me. I weren’t nowhere near the treatment plant. You check with my boss, he’ll tell ya.”
A case of nerves seemed to have hit the man. Ashley wondered whether he knew that they’d found Trina’s body. News like that traveled fast in a small town.
The wail of police sirens echoed through the trees. Ashley guessed the sheriff’s deputies had finally located them. She glanced back across the creek. Wyatt stood in silence on the opposite shoreline. She wondered how long he’d been watching her. To his credit, he hadn’t called out and interrupted her interrogation. Crick’s back faced the creek. He had no way of knowing Wyatt was even there.
“That your backup coming?” Crick asked.
Ashley stared at him. It was her turn to dodge a question. “Do you know the reason we were chasing you?”
“I thought it was the drugs. But I don’t think that no more,” he said, his tone tinged with anger. “Is this about that dead woman? Cause I didn’t do it.”
There was just enough conviction in his voice to make him sound truthful.
“Then how do you know that a woman was murdered at the treatment plant?”
“A guy that works there told me. He called me this morning. Said the place was crawling with cops. But you ain’t gonna pin that on me. I didn’t kill nobody.”
Ashley met his gaze and held it, dilated pupils and all. She almost believed him.
“If your story checks out with your boss and the motel in Kentucky, then you won’t have to worry about being charged with the murder.”
The police sirens grew louder. Ashley looked at Wyatt again. He motioned that he was heading back up to the road to meet the deputies.
“That guy that they had seen at the treatment plant last night. The guy that kinda looks like me. I’ve seen him before too.”
Ashley’s attention jerked back to Crick.
“Do you know the man’s name?”
Crick shook his head. “Naw. But he’s got brown hair like me and drives a real old four-door car. Like twenty years old. Dark blue.”
Ashley had never mentioned the age of the sedan. If Crick was lying, how would he know that the suspect’s car was old?
“Where did you see him?”
“Hanging around the sorting center.”
Was he talking about a location within the trucking company where packages were separated for shipping?
“The sorting center?”
“Yeah. The place where they sort the hazardous waste.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The killer slammed the door of the pickup. He scanned the road to the left and right of the picnic area, assuring himself that there was no one else around. Then made his way past the two ancient concrete tables and slipped into the forest. His accomplice hated riding in the truck, but he’d had other business to take care of that morning and there’d been no time left to go home and get the car.
He had to stick to the schedule.
“It’ll work out fine,” he said, noticing the look of scorn on his accomplice’s face. “We got plenty of room in the cab. You’ll see.”
His boots swished through the dense brown carpet of pine needles as he carved his own path between the trees. A fence stood up ahead—new metal posts and hinge-joint woven wire—designed to keep wandering picnickers out. But it would also prove to be a hindrance to him when he left.
It would be difficult to climb the fence when he was carrying the woman’s body.
