One Foot in the Grave (Carly Moore #3) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,123
where Wyatt was.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I need to find Wyatt. Call Lula. Now.”
Guilt washed over his face.
“You already know,” I said in a dry voice. The Drummond siblings and their damn secrets. And the answer suddenly occurred to me too. “He’s out at Lula’s shack, isn’t he?”
He looked surprised.
“I figured he wasn’t out at Bingham’s place, so Lula’s shack seemed like a logical next choice. Especially since hardly anyone knows about your newfound familial status. Do you know where David Binion lives?”
“Out toward Lula’s place.”
“I need to find him. Can you give me directions?”
“I want to go with you when you get Wyatt.”
“Then meet us there,” I said. “But make sure to ask Tiny to guard Abby.”
“I’m not lettin’ you go off by yourself!” he protested.
“I’m not going alone. I’m finding Marco.”
“Why does the sheriff’s deputy want Abby?”
“She knows how Heather died.”
His mouth dropped open. “Is she willin’ to testify to that?”
“I think so, but she wants an attorney to work out a plea bargain in case they want to charge her with something. We can’t let anything happen to her.”
“Tiny will protect her and make sure she stays put.”
I nodded. “After I find Marco, we’ll meet you at the entrance to Lula’s property.”
“Don’t go in there alone, Carly.”
“I won’t. All I have is pepper spray. I’m not stupid enough to think I can take him on. We need Marco.”
And I also needed to know he was okay. Mitzi had said Paul was out for blood. Oh, God. What if he’d hurt Marco? I tried to quell my rising anxiety. Letting my imagination take over wouldn’t help anything. I needed to be calm and logical.
Max nodded as though reassuring himself. “Okay.”
I convinced Abby to stay with Tiny, telling her that Max, Marco, and I were going to take care of Paul. Then I headed out to my car, once again cursing the lack of cell phone reception out here. When this was all said and done, I was getting us both long-range walkie-talkies.
Following Max’s directions, I headed to David Binion’s house, but Marco’s cruiser wasn’t out front and I hadn’t passed a deputy sheriff on the road. Where was he?
I parked and walked up to the house. The front door opened before I could get to the porch.
“What do you want?” bellowed a man holding a shotgun.
I held my hands up. “I’m looking for Marco Roland.”
“He ain’t here. He left about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Do you have any idea where he went?”
“Do I look like his daddy?” the man shouted, then slammed the door shut.
I could only imagine how well their interview had gone.
But now I had no idea what to do. I had no way of locating Marco, and it was now 9:50. I’d told Max to meet us outside of Lula’s property so I headed in that direction.
I was on the county road that led to Lula’s shack when I saw flashing red lights in my rearview mirror.
Adrenaline rushed through my blood, making me light-headed, and I struggled with what to do. Stop? Keep going? This was a pretty deserted stretch of road. Other than Max, no one would be coming along to help me anytime soon, not that anyone was liable to stop to help a woman who’d been stopped by a sheriff’s deputy.
I pulled over, hoping and praying it wasn’t Paul, but I wasn’t surprised when I saw him approaching the rear of my car.
“Come out with your hands up,” he called out.
I grabbed the pepper spray out of my purse and shoved it into my front jeans pocket before I got out and held up my hands.
“Where’s Abby?” he asked, shining a flashlight in my eyes to blind me.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s bullshit,” he said, shoving me against the side of the car and patting me down. He found my pepper spray and slowly reached into my pocket to pull it out, lingering just a little too long for comfort. “Such a bad girl, Carly Moore. Now you have to be punished.”
“Somehow I think you’d take any excuse to punish me. That’s what men like you do, right? Punish women for ridiculous things so you can feel like a man?”
I wasn’t prepared for the punch to the side of my head and it hurt like hell, but I realized that he’d held back when he hit me. This was about teaching me that he was in charge, not knocking me out. Nevertheless, my knees buckled, and he shoved me face-first on the asphalt as he zip-tied my arms behind