Callie gasped and clamped her hand over her mouth. He’d killed Abby, and he was determined to do the same to her. Wide-eyed, she watched as he turned and left the room. The door closed behind him, then she heard the click of the lock.
Although she knew it was useless, she ran to the door and struggled to pull it open. It wouldn’t budge. Callie stepped back and pressed her fingertips to her temples. She had to think. Had to find a way out of this room before Anthony came back.
Outside the house the bulldozer cranked, and its headlights lit a path across the yard. Callie stood at the window and watched the big piece of machinery with Anthony at the controls rumble across the yard. Just before he reached the barn, he stopped, released the blade on the front of the dozer and began to scoop away at the earth.
Callie wanted to move away from the window, but she couldn’t. She stood and stared as the hole where she would soon be buried grew larger. Her fingers tightened on the iron bars over the window, and she swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. With each scoop of dirt being dug up, the last minutes of her life were quickly ticking away.
FOURTEEN
Seth stopped the car at the turnoff onto the road that led toward the river levee. He’d hiked this area many times when he was growing up and knew from this point to the levee there weren’t many houses.
A sheriff’s patrol car waited at the side of the gravel road that wound into the distance. Seth jumped from his car, and the police cruiser that had followed him from Dorothy’s house stopped behind him. The sheriff’s deputy climbed from his car as Seth approached.
“We were told to meet you guys out here. What kind of problem do we have?”
As quickly as possible Seth told him about the rogue cop who had wounded an officer and was believed to be holding a woman captive at a farm down the road. “This is all connected to an extortion ring that’s active in the city and an unsolved twenty-five-year-old murder.”
The deputy nodded. “Glad we can help you out. How do you want to handle this?”
Seth debated the options for a moment. “I think we need to move carefully. Since the only way into this area is on this gravel road, he’s going to know we’ve arrived when we drive up. I think we ought to form a barricade with our cars to prevent him from leaving. We’ll just have to see what develops after we get there. I’d like him taken alive, though. He has a lot to answer for.”
“We’ll try,” the deputy said. “Since this is our jurisdiction, we’ll take the lead. You guys can follow.”
Seth nodded and headed back to his car. When the deputy pulled onto the road, Seth followed with the other police cruiser bringing up the rear. As they rounded a curve in the road, a dilapidated farmhouse came into view. He remembered seeing this place when he was a boy and on his way down to the river.
Without warning, lights swept across the yard of the house, and he frowned. Where did they come from? As they drove closer, he saw the cause—a bulldozer scooped away at the earth as it grated up chunks of the yard.
They pulled their vehicles to a stop. The headlights of their cars cut a large swath across the yard. The bulldozer motor idled for a moment as Seth and the officers jumped from their cars and pulled their guns. What was he doing at this time of night, digging a hole in the ground?
At that moment the dozer made a quarter turn and Seth gritted his teeth at the sight of Anthony in the driver’s seat. A look of surprise flashed on Anthony’s face as he spied the officers who’d fanned out to form a barrier to prevent an escape. He hesitated only a moment before he turned the steering wheel and swung the bulldozer around in a circle. He stopped and sat there facing them as they walked toward him with their guns drawn.