If I Should Die_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [106]
Adam and Ricky crawled along the slope at an angle so that when they emerged on the driveway, they weren’t in the direct line of sight from the house.
Adam squinted at the driver’s side of Tim’s truck. “That looks like blood.”
“Was your brother at the lodge?”
“He was looking for you at the mine.”
Ricky didn’t know how Bobbie’s crew knew he was here, but he couldn’t think of any logical reason for Adam to turn him over to his aunt. And if it was Jon Callahan, why send him here in the first place or give him a gun?
“It’ll take us twenty minutes to circle around to the ATV, but it won’t take long to get to the mine entrance,” Adam said.
Ricky hesitated. Adam said, “We can’t stay here. He’s my brother. I’m not going to bail on him. He needs help.”
Ricky followed, still unsure what to do, but he didn’t want to wait around here. “You need to warn Sean about Gary and Butch. Where’s your cell?”
“In the house. Yours?”
“In my car.”
“We’ll get it when we pick up the ATV, tell Sean what happened, and find Tim.”
Ricky hoped he wasn’t making a mistake to trust Adam but he didn’t see that he had a whole lot of options. They bolted across the driveway and disappeared into the dark.
THIRTY-FIVE
In the lights of the emergency vehicles, Sean saw his Cessna upside down in the middle of a small field. His heart tightened so fast he thought a heart attack couldn’t be more painful. He jumped out of the truck and trudged across the field, barely registering that Patrick was behind him. Patrick was Lucy’s brother and loved her as much as Sean did.
But he couldn’t. No one loved Lucy like Sean. She was not dead. There had been no explosion, no fire, just the downed plane. She was unconscious maybe. Injured. But alive. She had to be alive.
“Hold it!” the fire chief called. Sean ignored him.
The pilot’s door was open, the cabin empty. A temporary feeling of relief washed over him, immediately replaced by fear that they’d been thrown out on impact.
“Stop!” the chief called.
Sean told Patrick, “There’s no one inside.”
Patrick smoothed things over with the chief. “I’m Patrick Kincaid; that’s Sean Rogan. It’s his plane. My sister was inside.”
“I’m sorry, you still can’t be here.”
“The pilot is a federal agent.”
The chief frowned. “This is still a crash site.”
While Patrick diplomatically argued with the fire chief to buy time, Sean walked around to the back of the plane. The plane had cut a deep path in the field. He saw the boulder it hit that caused it to flip over. But he didn’t see a body. The rudder was completely broken off the tail from the crash, and he distinctly saw two bullet holes in the rear body of the plane.
Patrick approached. “I bought you two minutes. Noah and Lucy aren’t here. They’re okay.” Patrick was trying to convince both of them.
“The plane was shot down.” Sean pointed to the holes.
Then he noticed that the small external storage compartment was open. His duffel bag was missing.
“They’re in trouble,” Sean said, “otherwise they wouldn’t have left.”
He bent over to inspect the cockpit and spotted the thermal imaging camera. He didn’t know if it had survived the crash, but he grabbed it.
“Let’s go find them,” Sean said to Patrick.
The chief called after them and Patrick turned around to hand him their business cards. “That’s how to reach us. I’m sorry, we have to go.”
Patrick drove while Sean checked the camera for damage. The case had protected it, in addition to the fact that this was one of the best-made, sturdiest devices Sean had ever worked with. He turned it on. The camera stored thirty images on its chip, and Lucy had taken six pictures that clearly showed evidence of marijuana greenhouses. The camera also marked their exact longitude and latitude.
“Paul Swain didn’t lie to me. There are four warehouses.”
“Four? Do you know how much pot you can grow in just one?”
“Oh, yeah, this is major. And this is just first pass. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more. There has to be a lot at stake for Bobbie Swain to return to town. Or she’s just a psycho bitch.”
Sean’s cell vibrated. He