The Assassin's Wife Page 11

  Meg flipped open a leather wallet and flashed a badge she’d found with Eric’s things. “Mrs. Sims, I’m Melinda Waugh and this is Don Andrews. We’re with the U.S. Marshalls. May we have a few words with you about your husband?”

  She looked at them with a level gaze for several moments. “Of course, let me get some tea.”

  The house was clean and neat other than boxes that lined the hall and littered the living room. She returned with tall glasses of iced tea neatly presented on a silver platter. “What can I tell you?”

  Meg squeezed the tall tear-streaked glass. “I’m so sorry about your husband.”

  “Thank you,” she said in her fragile voice. Sunlight from the window lit up the right side of her face. The other side was shadowed.

  “I understand your husband was shot right on your property.”

  “Yes, I’ve already gone over this with the police.”

  “We’re feds, Ma’am. We’re waiting on the official police report, but we’d just like to ask you a few questions so we can get right to tracking down whoever would do such an awful thing.”

  “I’m so frightened,” she said.

  Lomax leaned forward. “Tell us what happened.”

  “I went shopping as usual. When I came home I found Lane in the field next to his tractor—dead.” She looked down and wringed her hands. She lifted her chin again. “I was so afraid to go inside to call for help. The front door was open and everything was thrown around. I yelled until my neighbor came running.”

  “They broke in? What did they take?” Meg said.

  “The police kept asking me the same question. The house was such a mess and I couldn’t tell, but last night I realized that one of Lane’s files was missing. He kept this one file on his desk. It should have been obvious to me because it was giving him such a headache.”

  “A file?”

  “Yes, he tried to renew the leases that we’ve held for years. He’d had them for thirty years, you know. Never had a problem before.”

  Meg’s eyes met John’s. “Problem with what?”

  “Getting more grazing leases,” the widow said, noticing their reaction.

  “Why would anyone kill over grazing leases?” Lomax said.

  “I don’t know. We only use the land for our cattle. It’s federal land that nobody cares about. It’s too remote to be of much use to anyone but us cattle folk, and we’re a small community. We’re all real friendly with one another.”

  Meg took a deep breath. “Where is the land that he was trying to secure the leases on?”

  “Down south. I can’t remember exactly where.” She was quiet for a moment. “Yes, I recall, it was a few hours south of here.” She rose, bringing her hand to her face to block the sun pouring in the window. “Lane was supposed to bid on a new lease, but…I’ll be right back.”

  Her slight form disappeared in the shadow of the hall. When she returned she had a manila folder in her hand. “Let me show you where it is.” She sat back down, and the sun shone through the window, lighting half her face again.

  Then the window exploded. The lady’s head flipped sideways as she lurched back and collapsed to the floor. Tea spilled all over the table and ice-cubes scattered across its top.

  Lomax pulled Meg to the floor.

  Meg glanced over at the lady. Her mind flashed back to the night when Eric was killed. She started to stand.

  “Stay down,” Lomax said.

  “You stay down. I’m getting out of here.”

  “Take one step out the door and you die.”

  Meg got on her hands and knees and crawled toward the hall leading to the back of the house.

  Do the unexpected.

  Crouching low, Meg hurried down the hall. She crawled into the bedrooms and checked the closets for guns. No luck. She had her pistol, but knew that it would be of no use against a sniper. She peered up at the window, contemplating breaking through it, then noticed an elm tree standing firm as wind pummeled it from the north. Meg dashed into the bathroom and grabbed a can of spray deodorant that had been left on the counter.

  In the kitchen she found a lighter.

  “What are doing?” Lomax said.

  Meg heard his voice from around the corner. She found him back in the living room. He was looking through binoculars that he’d found someplace in the house. He made a quick scan, then ducked down.

  “We’re in a bad spot,” Lomax said. “We can’t leave the house, but if we stay, the sniper can call in a death squad. He can also call in the cops anonymously—whatever he wants.”

  “We won’t be here either way.”

  “I already thought about crawling through the thicket, if that’s what you mean. It’s very risky because he can close in, and he’ll still be able to spot us with his scope.”

  “We’re driving out,” Meg said.

  “Aren’t you paying attention? We’ll never make it to the truck, and even if we do, we’ll never make it to the road.”

  Meg clicked the lighter near the curtains.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Lomax said.

  Meg brought up the deodorant can and sprayed the flame, turning the can into a flame thrower, basking the curtains in flames. They lit immediately and the fire began to spread.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Lomax shouted.

  “We’ll use the smoke screen to get to the car.”

  “We can’t drive out of here. The sniper will have a clear target.”

  Meg held up the thick silver platter and handed it to him. “Head protection.”

  Lomax glanced at the rising flames and grimaced. “An actresses, huh. That’s wonderful. Fine, let’s get ourselves killed with a nutcase plan.”

  Meg crawled over and lit another set of drapes as the fire alarm went off. Lomax ripped it from the ceiling and smashed it on the floor.

  The house was thick with smoke and the flames were spreading to the walls. Meg couldn’t breathe. Flames licked at the ceiling all around. Once the walls caught fire, the wind blowing in the broken window fanned the flames into an inferno that quickly spread through the house. After Meg grabbed the widow’s file, she and Lomax crawled out the back door, and within minutes, the whole house was a raging monster.

  The wind continued to blow. Thick black smoke billowed across the ground and obscured their truck.

  “Your smoke screen worked,” Lomax said, a surprised look on his face. “We better move fast before the wind changes.”

  They sprinted for the truck, climbing in on the driver’s side for extra protection. Lomax rammed the accelerator to the floor, and the back end whipped around. With his left hand, he rested the silver platter on his left shoulder. They’d barely got going when shattered glass and a metallic clang announced the first shot. A dent in the platter appeared by Lomax’s head. He cursed and sped up.

  Meg kept crouched down, her whole body tensed as tight as a grizzly’s grip on a just snatched salmon. Gravel hit the underside of the truck like shrapnel. John hit a patch of thick gravel, and Meg felt the back end slide. He managed to correct it.

  “Keep it on the road,” Meg said.

  “I’ll do the driving.”

  Thwang. Another dent appeared in the silver by Lomax’s forehead. As they took the corner, the whole rig shuttered violently.

  Lomax slammed the pedal to the floor so hard that Meg heard it hit. Lomax moved the tray so that it was now between his head and the headrest. They did zero to sixty in seconds, and then a loud explosion startled her as the car began to slide. Meg watched Lomax as he worked the steering wheel, correcting and managing to keep control somehow, but now the car drove rough and loud.

  “He got our tire,” Lomax said.

  The back window shattered as a bullet slammed into the platter behind Lomax’s head.

  Even while driving on three wheels and a rim, Lomax kept the speed up to fifty. They’d put a lot of distance between them and the shooter, but then another blowout announced that they’d lost a second rear tire.


  The racket from driving on the rear rims was horrendous. They took a bend in the road and drove several miles at thirty-five m.p.h.

  Meg saw a hay truck with side boards come into view up ahead. “Pull over.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “We’re gonna hitch a ride.”

  “And go back the way we came?”

  “Once the sniper gets in his car we won’t be able to outrun him.”

  “If we go back, he’ll just pick us off.”

  Meg reached into the backseat. She put on a wig, sun hat and sunglasses. “He won’t recognize me and you’ll be lying down in the back of the truck.”

  “Ah, why not? I’ve heard worse plans.”

  “I got us out of there, didn’t I?”

  Lomax pulled his truck over. “I’m not complaining.” He started to get out.

  “Stay down until the last moment. I won’t be able to get a ride if they see you.” As the hay truck approached, she threw out her thumb, and sure enough the rig slowed to a stop. Men were so predictable. They couldn’t be trusted at all. This one was probably married, too.

  “Thanks,” she said, climbing into the cab, noticing the metal on the man’s third finger. “My brother-in-law will ride in the back if that’s okay.”

  The driver shrugged with a look of disappointment in his eyes.

  The truck rocked as Lomax climbed in the back.

  “What happened to your tire?”

  Meg was relieved that only one of the blown tires was visible from that angle. “My idiot brother-in-law should have gotten new ones a year ago. He hit a pot-hole.”

  The man chuckled and put the truck in gear. As they drove past the burning house, the driver slowed down. A farmer had already stopped. The driver braked and rolled down his window.

  “I called the fire department,” the farmer said. “They’re on the way.”

  Meg wasn’t watching the fire. She scanned the grassland out beyond the house, watching for the sniper that was going to kill her at any moment.

  “Well,” the driver said, “as long as you called the fire department, I’ll keep moving.”

  “They’d better hurry,” the farmer said, “or this could get out of control.”

  The driver pulled back onto the road, and a mile later Meg realized that her plan had worked. They got away. Yeah, do the unexpected. The only problem was that now another innocent person was dead.

  CHAPTER 36

  Meg sat on the shiny hood of their new car with her feet on the bumper. Sikes had said Harding couldn’t be researched because it was a ghost corporation, but in the widow’s file Meg had now found the location of a Harding P.O. Box in Idaho. No word on how the husband dug up this detail, but perhaps it was his snooping that got him killed. They were pulled over on the side of Highway 95 in a little town called McCall, which was built on the edge of the tree-lined Payette Lake. A cool breeze rifled through her long blond wig. She paid no attention to Lomax, who stood a ways off at the edge of the water pacing back and forth.

  Meg went through the widow’s file for the fifth time. She paged through applications for federal grazing leases and found the 1/100,000 scale map on which grazing leases were listed by township, range or section. There were also copies of several letters to the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, in which the widow’s husband accused the director of rejecting his applications unfairly and threatening lawsuits if said applications were not reconsidered and approved. Of the three letters, the last was written two weeks prior to the day Mr. Sims had been shot off his tractor.

  When Lomax wandered back over, he leaned against the car and rubbed his eye.

  Meg closed the file and slid off the hood. She opened the car door and said. “Let’s go see what we can find at this P.O. Box.”

  Lomax hesitated. “You know, Meg, I’m just an old football player. I’m in way over my head. I’m no match against trained assassins.” He reached for Meg’s hand. “Why don’t you come to Central America with me? I have lots of friends down there through my work with Help on the Way. They’ll help keep you safe. I know they will.”

  Meg pulled back her hand. “Fine John, you go run and hide out. I can’t. Eric has left me no choice. I have to do this. If I don’t, I’m dead.” She sat in the car and looked up at John. “I thought you promised Eric you would help me. What kind of man are you?” She slammed the door and drove off.

  CHAPTER 37

  Southwest of Boise

  Tom Sikes pulled off the main highway along the Snake River and turned south onto a dirt road to Silver City. The road wound through bleak high desert country for a while and then climbed up the slopes of the Owyhee Mountains. He stopped at a good view spot and studied the road behind him for miles with binoculars. He wasn’t being followed. That was good. Out here, he was an easy target.

  He followed the rope-sized dirt road up the mountain for what seemed like an eternity. Although Silver City was called a ghost town, some cabins had been maintained by descendents of the original miners who had built them. Most of these folks used their cabins as weekend hideaways during the summer. Electricity had never made it up here, though. The facades on the main street looked the same as they did during the gold rush of the 1800’s. Surprisingly, a gift shop and a hotel operated by the descendents continued as they would have in the old west. The town had survived over a hundred winters even though the inhabitants abandoned it every year because of deep snow that made the roads impassable. The weekenders hired a lone hermit to keep watch on their cabins and businesses during the brutal winters. The caretaker was content to hide-out in primitive conditions in the wilds of Idaho until spring brought its relief.

  Sikes wasn’t content to hide out, though. At least not yet. This was Cattleman’s Weekend, the largest annual gathering of ranchers in the region, where old friendships were renewed and new contacts were made.

  Tom parked and walked along the rough dirt road to The Silver City Hotel. It was as dim inside today as it would have been in 1843. The age of the furniture matched the age of the exterior of the old building. Cattlemen in five-gallon hats stood around talking trade. Snake-skin and leather boots scuffed the oak floor that contained ruts by over a century of wear and tear. These men came from the most remote reaches of Idaho.

  “I’m looking for Michael Dillinger.” Sikes spoke loudly, but with a friendly tone. “Anybody seen him around?”

  Three men in one group gave him blank stares.

  “Who?” a man said, looking up from his beer.

  “Michael Dillinger.”

  “Never heard of him,” he said. “Where’s he from?”

  “He’s an old friend. All I know is he runs cattle.”

  The man shrugged and looked back at his drink. “Good luck.”

  The hotel restaurant used an old woodstove to cook its fare. Sikes took a seat and a girl who couldn’t have been older than eight took his order. It seems even the child labor laws instituted during the Great Depression hadn’t reached this town. After a cup of soup, he strolled down to the park where at least a hundred cattlemen were hanging around drinking. He spent half an hour asking around about Michael Dillinger, but nobody had heard of him. Sikes had been told that this gathering could get quite rowdy after sunset. He decided that he’d better find out what he was looking for before then. He planned on getting away from this mountain and away from Idaho for good after that.

  He knew it was a long shot trying to find a man like Dillinger this way. But Sikes had heard he was running cattle in Idaho. If the rumor was true, somebody would know about it. Sikes turned down the first offer for a cold beer. The second he accepted.

  CHAPTER 38

  Sikes was on his fifth beer, and most of the cattlemen had left the park to gather over at the livery stable for whatever it was that cattlemen did when they gathered for conferences. He heard some of the men bragging about their beautiful wives, children and the amazing spreads that they roamed on horseback. Sikes thought about all the
things he’d hadn’t done in life. He began to feel like something had passed him by.

  Maybe the alcohol was just depressing him. He already knew that he wasn’t going to drive, not down that blasted snake of a road. He didn’t want to drive anyway. Why the hell should he? For months he’d been trying to help Eric put the checkmate on the Harding Corp., but he was through. He’d saved up close to a million dollars helping Eric, and that was enough to flee to Mexico. Screw the last 100K. He would break out the fresh identity Eric had helped him secure and start a new life. Why should he care what happened to Meg? He’d find himself a Mexican senorita who would teach him how to read the sunset and he would take refuge in the security of her arms.

  A man who had given him a couple of beers drifted over to him with another. He had three coolers at his picnic table and was passing amber bottles to anyone who’d listen to him for a few minutes. “Smart man,” he said, passing over an imported ale to Tom. “Let the others save the beef industry.”

  Tom polished off his warm bottle and accepted the cold one. “Yeah, let them save the world.”

  The man’s eyebrows came up. “Hey, were just talking meat here, bud. We’re not trying to save the world. I’m Roy, by the way.”

  “That’s right,” Tom said. It occurred to him to give his pitch, but he wasn’t in the mood anymore.

  “Whatcha doing up her anyhow?” Roy took a drink from his long neck and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I know about everybody here. I don’t recall you being a ranch man in these parts.”

  Tom thought about that for a moment. Yeah, he wasn’t from around here and hoped to be gone real soon.

  “Actually, I’m writing a family genealogy, and I’m looking for a distant relative.” Sikes tried to look contemplative for a moment. “Never met him before. His name is Michael Dillinger.”

  “No kidding? What makes you think he’s up here?”

  Sikes tipped his import. “Last I heard, he was running cattle in Idaho. You know him?”

  “No, can’t say that I do.” Roy slowly shook his head. “Thought I knew every slack jaw in the business. I should. I own the Caldwell Auction.”