CHAPTER 57
KNOX ROLLED INTO DIVINE not really knowing what to expect. It was late and it was dark and hardly a light burned on the town’s main street. He drove down the road looking to the left and right, although he doubted he’d see John Carr loitering on the corner awaiting his arrival. He passed a restaurant named Rita’s. There was a courthouse and jail, both seemingly deserted at this hour. Knox contemplated whether to wake up the local constabulary to help him in his quest, but he’d found the other town cops to be useless at best. He would try a different approach this time.
He turned off the main drag and headed east, at least according to his vehicle’s compass. Knox’s own internal direction monitor had long since given up trying to keep track of his heading after meandering through the boxy Appalachians all this time.
He slowed the truck when he saw what looked to be the remains of a trailer home. At first he thought it must have been a tornado passing through that had destroyed the place, but the trees and earth around it had not been disturbed by a twister’s route. He stopped the truck, got out and inspected the site.
The blackened and jagged remains and the diameter of the debris field told him that an explosion of some kind was the cause. That was a little unusual. Of course it didn’t mean that John Carr was in the vicinity, but it was at least something out of the ordinary.
He did a circle of the downtown area and drove back through. That’s when he spotted the little rooming house. He parked down the street from the entrance and did a slow walk up, keeping his gaze alert for any sign of Carr.
He knocked on the door and kept tapping for another five minutes until he heard the steady if unhurried footfalls heading his way.
The door opened and the little old man with tufts of white hair standing on the other side of the threshold looked up crossly at him. “Do you know what time it is, young man?”
Knox hadn’t been called a young man in at least twenty years. He hid his smile and said, “I apologize. But I got in a lot later than I thought I would.”
“You mean you were heading to Divine?” the old man said incredulously.
“Is there a law against that?” Knox said, now smiling broadly and, he hoped, disarmingly.
“What do you want?” the man said gruffly.
So much for disarming. “Right now, a place to sleep, Mr. . . . ?”
“Just call me Bernie. Sorry, but I’m all booked up.”
Knox looked over his shoulder. “This the high season in Divine?”
“I’ve only got two rooms to let.”
“I see. Thing is, I was supposed to meet a buddy of mine up here. Maybe you’ve seen him, tall, lean guy around sixty with close-cropped white hair.”
“Oh, you mean Ben? He’s got one of the rooms, but he’s not there right now.”
“Any idea where he is?”
“Over at the hospital?”
“What’s he doing there? Did he get hurt?”
“Almost got his butt blown up. Killed Bob and Willie Coombs, and your buddy came real close to meeting his maker.”
Knox kept his voice calm and level. “So where is this hospital? I want to go see if he’s okay.”
“Oh, he’s okay. We’re all glad of that. Ben’s a real hero.”
“How’s that?”
“Helped a couple of our own. Danny Riker when he got in trouble on the train. And Willie Coombs when he almost died on drugs. Ben saved ’em both. Right good fellow. And then Danny got attacked here in town. And Ben saved him again. Beat up three guys, or so I heard.”
“Wow, that sounds like Ben all right. He was always in the middle of all the action. I’ll give him your best when I see him at the hospital. And where was that again?”
Bernie told him. “But visiting hours are long over.”
“I’ll try to talk my way in. But if I can’t, anybody else around here that can help me?”
“You can try Abby Riker out at her place, Midsummer’s Farm.” Bernie gave him directions. “From what I heard she and Ben got real tight.”
Knox slipped a twenty into the old gent’s hand when they shook.
“You’re welcome to sleep in the front room,” Bernie said, indicating the space behind him.
“Thanks, I might take you up on that.”
He walked back to his truck trying to keep his nerves steady. He climbed in the rig, fired it up and pulled away. As he steered one-handed along the winding country road, he used his free hand to flip open the glove box. He pulled out his nine-millimeter pistol and laid it on the seat next to him.
John Carr here I come.
CHAPTER 58
ANNABELLE LOOKED DOWN at her vibrating phone. “Who would be calling me in the middle of the night?”
“Maybe it’s Reuben?” said Caleb as he drove along.
“No. I don’t recognize the number.” She flipped open the phone.
“Hello?”
“Annabelle? How’s it going?”
She snapped, “What the hell do you want?”
Alex Ford said pleasantly, “It’s nice to hear your voice too.”
“I’m a little busy, Alex.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“Wait a minute. Where are you calling from? I didn’t recognize the number.”
“A payphone.”
“Why a payphone?”
“Because I’m pretty sure my home, cell and office phones are being tapped.”
“And why is that?” she said slowly. “Is Knox on your case still?”
“That’s why I’m calling. I got a frantic phone call from Knox’s daughter, Melanie. She’s a lawyer in D.C. Her dad’s disappeared.”
“No he hasn’t. He’s after Oliver and we’re after Knox.”
“And where is all this taking place?”
“In the boondocks of southwest Virginia. So you can tell little Melanie that her daddy is just fine. For now at least.”
“That’s not all. His house was turned over by someone looking for something, and I’m not talking your random burglary. And on top of that I had a visitor, a man named Macklin Hayes.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“No reason it should. He’s a former army three-star who’s now on the intelligence side. His rep is like a Carter Gray only more sinister and evil. He’s also Knox’s boss and he doesn’t know where his guy is, which means Knox is roaming free.”
“Why would he be doing that?”
“He might if he found out something that made him uncomfortable about what was really going on with all this. I don’t think Knox is a killer. He’s a tracker, and if Hayes put him on Oliver, he must be the best they have on that score. It seems clear that when Knox finds Oliver, he was to call in Hayes’ heavy artillery to finish the job.”
“What would Knox have found that would make him start freelancing?”
“No clue. How close are you to finding Oliver?”