He ran out of the house and jumped in his car. The two officers who were to accompany him did the same, and they sped from the house toward Anthony Wilson’s farm.
The streetlights seemed to fly by as Seth zoomed along the Memphis streets. The nearer they came to the edge of town the harder he pushed the accelerator to the floorboard. He couldn’t let Callie die. He had to make it in time.
* * *
Callie sat in the back of the car and stared out the window. Although she hadn’t lived in Memphis in several years, she still knew the city well. For the past few minutes, though, she’d begun to grow uneasy. They’d left the busy streets of the city, driven well past the city limits and now rode through a sparsely populated area on the northern edge of town. Since turning off the main road, she’d only spotted one farmhouse, and it looked deserted.
As they rode over the bumpy gravel road, she strained to hear what Anthony and Abby were saying in the front seat, but she couldn’t make out their words. From the tone of Anthony’s voice, though, she knew he was still upset with Abby. Every once in a while the sound of a sob drifted back to her, and she realized Abby was crying as she pleaded with Anthony about something. Callie assumed their conversation still centered on whether or not Abby would be permitted to end her association with Anthony and his henchmen. So far, it didn’t appear Abby had been successful.
The car slowed and pulled into the driveway of a run-down farmhouse. Callie moved closer to the window and squinted into the darkness to get a better view of her surroundings as they came to a stop.
The house didn’t look too different from the other farmhouse they’d passed on the way there. Three steps led up to a front porch where the remains of a waist-high railing with posts lay scattered about. Several panes of glass in the windows were missing, and the roof sagged as if in search of the porch posts that had once supported its weight.
Anthony and Abby climbed from the car, and Callie waited, hardly daring to breathe, to see what they were going to do.
Abby walked around the car to where Anthony stood by the driver’s side and stopped next to him. Her raised voice trembled with anger. “You have to be out of your mind bringing me out here. I’m an A.D.A. I can’t be directly involved in any of your activities.”
His laugh sent cold chills racing up Callie’s spine. “Don’t kid yourself. You’re already involved. You stepped over that line a long time ago when you took the first payment to ensure one of my guys never saw the inside of a jail. It’s been downhill for you ever since. You just haven’t realized it.”
A loud sob tore from Abby’s throat. “Please, Anthony. I want to go home.”
“Later. First we’ve got something to do.”
He whirled around and jerked the back door of the car open. “Get out, Callie.”
She scooted as far away as she could across the seat and cowered next to the window. “No.”
He sighed and shook his head. “You can make this hard, or you can choose to make it easy. Get out, or I’ll drag you out. And I will be none too gentle about it.”
Callie debated what she should do. Common sense told her there was no escape. Finally, she slid back across the seat and stepped out into the farmhouse yard. Anthony wrapped his fingers around her upper arm and squeezed so hard she winced in pain.
Cursing under his breath, he strode to the front porch steps with her in tow. She stumbled up the steps and glanced around wildly for an avenue of escape. Her gaze lit on a large piece of machinery at the end of the porch, and she blinked. A bulldozer? What was it doing here?