Fatal Exposure - By Gail Barrett Page 0,69
shake. But the cold truth was that he needed help. Even if he hunted down Hoffman, he couldn’t bring him in alone. He was out of his jurisdiction. He had no authority here—assuming he still had his badge. And with a hostage involved, Parker couldn’t afford to make a mistake. He needed to call in the FBI, get a hostage rescue team on scene to liberate that girl.
But Guerrero still hadn’t answered his calls.
Hissing in frustration, Parker stomped on the gas pedal and flew past a semi crawling up the hill. By rights he should contact his supervisor and follow the chain of command. But since he couldn’t trust Delgado, he’d have to bypass the chain completely and go straight to the one person he knew he could trust.
Terry “The Terror” Lewis. The woman who’d brought down his father. The woman who was out to get him.
Wishing he had another option, he exited the interstate, then barreled down the two-lane highway toward the mountains at breakneck speed. But as much as he disliked the older woman, he knew he had no choice. Lieutenant Lewis was a straight shooter. She didn’t play office politics, didn’t care who she offended in her pursuit of the truth. He could depend on her to do her duty, regardless of Hoffman’s rank. It galled him to have to ask her—he’d be confirming every bad suspicion about him she’d had—but she was their only hope.
“I need you to look up a number for me,” he told Brynn, handing her the phone. “Terry Lewis. She lives in Baltimore. But you’ll have to hurry. We’re going to lose our signal in a few more miles.”
She shot him a worried glance. “Who is she?”
“A cop. We go way back.” And not in a happy way. “I think we can trust her to help.”
He hoped. Because if he’d guessed wrongly, the mistake could cost them their lives.
* * *
Half an hour later, they bumped down the dirt road leading to the farmhouse at the edge of High Rock Camp. The dense woods crowded around them. Low-hanging branches grabbed at the car, blotting out the star-filled sky. Reduced to a crawl, they jolted through ruts and potholes, the ominous scrapes as the car hit bottom adding to Parker’s nerves.
Lieutenant Lewis had agreed to help them. But she’d needed time to contact the local and federal authorities and get teams into place at the camp. She’d instructed Parker to head to the farmhouse, then wait for help to arrive. Under no circumstances was he to act alone.
The car crunched over branches and pinecones. Parker jerked the wheel to avoid a pothole, wincing when the tailpipe dragged. “You see any tire tracks?”
Brynn braced her hands on the dashboard and leaned closer to the windshield to see. “No, not yet. There’s too much brush.”
“I know.” It didn’t look as if a car had come this way in years. But Hoffman had to be here. He wouldn’t have used the main office. There wasn’t enough privacy there. And the cabins were too close together, not offering enough seclusion when the camp was filled with kids. He needed an isolated place where he could come and go without being observed. But he also needed electricity to run his computer. And since Erin Walker had died at the lookout tower, the farmhouse was the likely choice.
They bounced crazily through another pothole, barely clearing a jagged rock. Then suddenly, the headlights stalled on a fallen tree blocking the road. He hit the brakes and swore. The pine tree was enormous, at least several feet in diameter, far too big to budge. And brush grew over the trunk, indicating it had lain undisturbed for years.
There was no way Hoffman could have driven down this road. They were heading on a senseless wild-goose chase, wasting precious time. But Hoffman had to be here. Erin Walker had died at the lookout tower with that necklace on. Where else could he have gone?
“We’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot,” he decided, cutting the engine. “Any chance there’s a flashlight in the glove compartment?”
Brynn opened it, then shook her head. “Check the trunk. Haley doesn’t go anywhere without emergency supplies.”
He popped the trunk and climbed out, then waded through the knee-high weeds around the car. As Brynn had predicted, there was a cardboard box inside containing survival supplies—a first-aid kit and blanket, a flashlight and boxes of food. An innate sense of caution or a legacy from life on