So Shall the Tree Grow, page 16
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sherry Lynn sat bolt upright in the bed, the little boy’s voice ringing in her ears.
“Mommy!”
Drew was having a nightmare again. He’d had them every night since … The room didn’t look right. Where was—?
The cry came again and she remembered. She was at her parents’ house where she had taken Drew after Nate was killed, because she refused to let her little boy spend another night under that roof.
She raced to the door. It was locked. Her bedroom at her parents’ house didn’t have a lock on the door.
“Mommy!”
She hurriedly disengaged the lock and ran out into the hallway. This didn’t look right. Where were the stairs? Then she spotted them and ran up them to the second-floor bedroom her brother Buster had given up so Drew would have a place to sleep.
The stairs were dark and so was the landing at the top, but she could make out a door and she opened it and—
A warm fragrant breeze tousled her hair in her face and made her floor-length gown flap. The door led outside! Where was Drew? Taking a step out the door, she inhaled the night smells — honeysuckle and damp grass — looked up at the velvet sky where a full moon lit up the world so bright you could have read the ingredients label on a bottle of aspirin.
The scene laid out before her told her instantly where she was. She was standing on the widow’s walk high atop the carriage house at Land’s End. The view was spectacular. The huge horse barns marched away into the distance, and the line of white fences that surrounded all the paddocks shone bright in the moonlight. To the south, the old Murdock mansion was lit up with the artistic lighting the historical society had added to the establishment, and it twinkled brightly like a huge Christmas tree. The hills to the north behind the rows of horse barns were dark—
Then not dark!
A light suddenly shot out through the darkness, the beacon on a lighthouse. As Sherry Lynn stared at it, transfixed, the little sliver of light elongated and became a rectangle. The golden rectangle sparkled, the bean stretching out from it like honey pouring out of a beehive. It was so bright and rich and pure, it looked like she might have stepped out onto it and walked through the air in the darkness to the source of the light. A path, like the Yellow Brick Road.
Where was the light coming from? There was nothing but woods on that hillside behind the neat row of horse barns. Then she stood very still, stopped breathing.
Actually, there was something on that hillside. She’d gone there once years ago to that old horse barn, looking for Riley. It was in that barn where the Cornbread Mafia had processed their marijuana crops when they were still growing it in Callison County.
Where they had processed Righteous Weed!
Her heart took up the rhythm of a timpani drum in her chest. People always said that small, petite Sherry Lynn Bennett reminded them of a hummingbird. Her eyes so blue they were almost purple were the color of a hummingbird’s wings. And she felt like one now, her heart beating so very fast, her breathing kind of hitching in and out of her chest.
The Cornbread Mafia had processed Righteous Weed in that barn … was that what they were doing now, was there a crew of people armed with clippers, trimming? They trimmed around the clock, which would explain the light at … she glanced down at her wrist and at first didn’t recognize the big square thing on it — the Apple Watch. It was five minutes until three in the morning.
The light was so bright, like those sodium—
Sherry gasped then, and stopped breathing altogether. Her hand flew to her mouth. That was it! Those were grow lights — they were raising Righteous Weed inside. She’d been looking for it in a field, but they were growing it indoors, under lights, in that old barn. That was Willa’s garden, the one Sherry Lynn had spent half the summer looking for.
She stared without moving, almost hypnotized by the beam of brilliance. And then pretty things began to dance in the glow. A beautiful white egg, covered in the purest diamonds, sparkling and twinkling, each facet of the diamonds catching the light and refracting it. A vase. The one that designer, what was her name? Madeline, yes, Madeline had said it was too colorful, too bright. But Sherry Lynn liked bright, colorful things, and Riley had said she could have anything she wanted. That was the bargain they had struck. He would give her a mansion to fill with pretty things … to take the place of the love he wouldn’t give her. He gave his love to …
Jessie.
Sherry Lynn would be kept busy making her mansion a showpiece where she could flaunt her wealth … while Riley played bump and tickle with Jessie.
This time was different, though. This time Riley wasn’t raising weed to make money to pay for Sherry Lynn’s pretty things. He was growing Righteous Weed now so he could buy pretty things for Jessie. So he could give Jessie anything she wanted. So he could shower her with diamonds and crystal goblets and Waterford Crystal and Fabergé eggs.
As Sherry Lynn thought the thought, an egg appeared in front of her, right in front of her, floating delicately in the air a few feet from her face. She reached for it, expecting it to vanish, to go poof and leave nothing behind but a little sparkle like a soap bubble. But it was real, solid — she took it in her hand and her eyes filled with tears. She had only this, this one thing, this lone Fabergé egg from all the pretty things she’d purchased. But Jessie would have …
Oh, no she wouldn’t!
The wave of fury that washed over Sherry Lynn literally carried her backward a step. She wouldn’t let them have it. She would destroy the weed, she’d — the egg slipped out of her fingers and fell to the floor and shattered, exploding into a million tiny pieces without making a sound.
She stared down at the ruin and felt her teeth clench. Her hands drew up into fists at her side.
“No,” she said softly, but it wasn’t her voice that spoke. It was the growl of some primeval beast deep in her chest.
She whirled around and raced down the stairs.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Running down the side of the barn, Ruth stayed next to the barn wall. She had to get between the man with the bag and the door, freeze him in his tracks, because she didn’t think a “stop or I’ll shoot” in the quaking voice of a scared woman would stop him if he was running away.
She got to the back of the barn about twenty feet from the door where the man had entered, then crossed the open space, and positioned herself between him and the door. Feet spread wide, knees bent but not locked, two-hand grip with the gun out in front of her, not sighting on the sight, just down the barrel. Just like the firearms instructor in Chicago had taught her. She hoped she looked like Eddie from Blue Bloods, the best, in her opinion, of the herd of way-too-pretty-and-sexy-to-be-a-cop women who peopled the ranks of television police departments.
But this wasn’t television or a firing range. This was real life. And real live people like Ruth — normal instead of glamorous, people with car payments to make and clothes to pick up at the cleaners and a To Be Watched list of shows on Netflix and Hulu that would encircle the globe at the equator at least twice — those kinds of ordinary people didn’t pull the trigger on a gun and put a bullet into the chest of another human being.
Could she do that?
Gratefully, she had no time to ponder the question before the man stepped out of the grow tent with his back to where she was standing, holding a bag that no longer looked empty. And that pissed Ruth Hannacker off. A flash of rage turned her cheeks hot. That was her weed he was stealing, hers, and he by God was not going to leave here with it.
“Stop right where you are!” she called out, surprised at the power and firmness in her voice.
He didn’t stop, just whirled toward where she stood, likely tensing to make a break for the door. Then he saw the gun in her hand.
“Drop the bag.” If he’d drop the bag, leave the weed and run away, she’d be satisfied with that.
He did nothing. Didn’t try to run, but didn’t drop the bag, either.
“You need to turn up the volume on your hearing aid — I said drop the bag.”
“And if I don’t?”
If this were a vintage Western, John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, instead of a cop show, she would be holding a Colt .45 revolver and at this point you would hear the distinctive clicking sound when she cocked it. But Ruth was holding a Ruger LCP 380, the gun she was licensed to conceal carry, small, light recoil, no cocking.
“You won’t shoot me,” he said.
“And you know that how?”
“If you do,” he turned toward the barn door behind her to the left, “Buster’ll blow your brains out.”
Ruth snapped her head to the side, and even as she did so, she knew she’d been tricked. She could see in her peripheral vision the thief launch himself at her. She’d allowed her gun arm to follow her head, moved it toward the door when she looked that way. She tried to pull it back toward the thief, but he slammed into her before she had a chance. The two of them went flying backward and landed with a sickening crunch in the dirt with the huge man on top of her. The pistol flew out of her hand and landed in the dirt ten feet away.
The man was like a cat, his movements quick and sure. He produced a knife from somewhere and held it to her throat. And Ruth Hannacker was more frightened than she’d ever been in her life. Cold terror grabbed her gut in a fist and tightened and she couldn’t have drawn a breath even if the brute who smelled of beer, cigarettes and old sweat hadn’t been crushing her to the floor.
“I oughta cut you,” he snarled as he sat slowly up, straddling her. He shoved the knife back down in her face, danced it in front of her eyes. “I oughta—”
“Drop that knife and get up off my daughter,” came a cold voice from the doorway. “Or you’re gonna find out what two barrels of double-aught buckshot at close range will do to a man’s head.”
Ruth looked toward the doorway, where Papa stood with a double-barreled shotgun aimed at the man on top of her.
“Bring a knife to a gunfight, son,” Papa said, his voice cold, “and you will lose. Every. Time.”
The man dropped the knife.
“Get up. You’ll want to move so slow you couldn’t outrun molasses.”
As soon as she felt the man’s weight lift off her, Ruth rolled to the side and skittered away on her butt until she was out of grabbing range, then got to her knees and her feet and staggered a couple of steps. She stooped and picked up her pistol and cut a wide berth around the man to stand beside her father.
“Who sent you?” Papa asked the man. “Who you working for?”
The man spit in the dirt in defiance and said nothing.
Her father studied the man, calm and patient.
She had held onto her tongue with all her might because she was afraid if she said anything, anything at all, she would start babbling like a blithering idiot or cry or sob or otherwise humiliate herself.
But she couldn’t help croaking, “Now what?”
“Depends on our friend here,” her father said. “It ain’t like we can call the law to report a burglar who tried to steal our illegal weed. We own this one.”
Papa took a step toward the man, who had three inches and fifty pounds on him and she could see the big guy flinch back away from his approach. It wasn’t all about the shotgun in her father’s hands, either. He had a presence that commanded respect.
“I ain’t gonna ask again. Who’s your boss?”
“You won’t kill me,” the man tried to snarl, but the sound was just a little too high and tentative for that.
“You got that right. I won’t kill you.” Papa suddenly dropped the barrel of the shotgun down so it was pointed at the man’s feet. “But I will blow your foot off.” He lifted his eyes to the man’s face. “And that’s what it’ll do — this range, it’ll blow your foot plum off, won’t be nothing left but pieces of bone and muscles and the like dangling. I stood close as I’m standing to you when Willie Ray Taggart blew Jackson McClusky’s foot off his leg. He’d a’bled to death in five minutes … but Jessie put a bullet in his forehead before he had a chance.”
He took a step forward and the man took a step back.
“You know who I am?” The look on the man’s face said he didn’t. “Now that’s a pure D shame for sure because if you did, you’d know I ain’t bluffing. Pick which leg or I’ll pick for you.”
“No! Wait. Okay, don’t shoot. I’ll … I work for CounterCulture Cannabis.”
“That’s a company, not a person. I want a name.”
“I work in security. A fella named Huggins is my boss.”
“Who’s his boss?”
“I don’t know, the head of the company, I guess.”
Riley lifted his eyebrow.
“I said I don’t know. They don’t tell me stuff like that. I get called in to do a job and I do it.”
“He might not a’told you who ordered the job, but you know — don’t you.”
“No, how would I—?”
“You ain’t running with the big dogs so all you can see is paws and assholes — I get that. But you know who’s out there leading the pack. I want a name.”
“I swear, I don’t—”
“Pick a foot.”
“No, please … okay, I don’t know … but I’ve heard things before. And this one came down all the way from the top. From Coulter. Damien Coulter.”
Her father nodded.
“How’d he find us?”
“I don’t know, some ex-boyfriend, drunk or drugged or something, said it was in a barn.”
“This barn?”
“No. I been looking for a couple of days.”
“How many barns you searched?”
“Half a dozen. Maybe more.”
Ruth could see the man struggling to get his mojo back.
“How much they paying you?”
“Enough.” He managed to sound surly.
“Oh, I doubt that. Whatever it is, it ain’t near enough. How much?”
“Five thousand dollars — two down and the other three when I deliver the goods.”
“What’s your name?”
The man said nothing.
“You got a driver’s license. When I take your wallet to find it, you ain’t getting the wallet back.”
Maybe the two thousand dollars down payment was in the wallet, because the man instantly spit out his name.
“Hayes. Smitty Hayes.”
“Well, Mr. Hayes, I need you to take your keys out of your pocket slow and easy and drop them on the ground and tell me where you left your wheels.” He paused. “I can see it on your face, son, that you still think you got a shot here — just an old man and a woman. Know this for a true fact. The only chance you got of a win is to walk outta here on both feet, and right now you are within a gnat’s pubic hair of being fitted for a prosthesis.”
The man did as directed, dropped the keys and described where he’d left his pickup truck. “Now put your feet together, right side-by-side so’s I can get ‘em both with one shot.”
“No! I’m not gonna—”
“Yes, you are. That’s for standin’ there marking out in your head the distance between us so first time I get distracted you can jump me.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You got to the count of one to put them feet together ‘fore I blow one of them off and then I won’t have to worry about you tryin’ to get away.”
The man grudgingly lined his Nikes up side by side.
“Pick up his keys,” her father told Ruth, “and tie his shoelaces together.”
“Tie his—?”
“He’s countin’ on bein’ quicker’n me.” To the man, he said, “You think ‘cause you got faster reflexes it’ll make up for me being way smarter than you are. The young always make that mistake.”
Papa looked toward the back bay doors of the barn, took note of the bags of fertilizer and grow buckets piled in front of them and told Ruth to lift the wooden beam out of the slots keeping the front bay doors of the barn shut. Then she was to go get the man’s truck and drive it to those doors, open them, and drive the vehicle inside.
She had no trouble locating the truck. It wasn’t hidden, just parked where he’d left it a hundred yards or so up the trail from the barn. Papa was very specific about where he wanted Ruth to park the man’s truck in the barn — directly beneath the big grow light that hung just beyond the last grow tent. Then he told her to get out of the truck, but to leave the front driver’s side door open. Obviously, Papa was planning something, but she had no idea what it might be.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ruth went to stand beside her father after she’d positioned the truck to his satisfaction. He told her to get her phone.
“It’s dead.” She pointed to where it lay on the table beside the cot. “Didn’t think to bring a charger.”
“Then how’d you get here before … ‘bring a charger.’ Where was you at?”
“Here. In the barn.”
“In the …? Then how’d he get the drop on you?”
She wanted to point out that the man had not gotten the drop on her, didn’t surprise her, that she had captured him … but that probably didn’t count since the guy was preparing to cut her throat when Papa showed up.
Yeah, when Papa showed up. How did Papa get here so fast?
“Never mind. Use my phone. It’s in my hip pocket. I want you to make a video.”
He gestured for the man — his name was Hayes — to move toward where she’d parked his truck. “Stand by the door,” Papa said. Under other circumstances, it would have been comical to watch the big man try to walk with his shoestrings tied together. When he had Hayes in the light like he wanted, Papa backed away a step and told Ruth to back up several steps to the right until he was satisfied she’d get the picture he wanted.
“My daughter here’s gonna make a videotape of your confession — which I’m sure some lawyer would say I coerced, but ain’t no lawyer ever gonna see this so that don’t matter.” Papa cocked his head to the side. “You do know, doncha, that I could kill you here, bury your body up in the knobs somewhere wouldn’t nobody ever find it, take your truck to a chop shop, and before sunrise tomorrow morning every trace you was ever here would be gone. And you … would just vanish.”
