What Janie Saw(128)

                “I’ll call Candy and find out who we have living near mile marker 182,” Rafe said.

                “I was just about to phone you,” Candy said when he got her on the line. “We’ve three parcels listed in that area. One name is connected to Derek Chaney. CeeCee Harrington.”

                “The teacher?”

                “Yes, and do you want to know what her name was when she was married?” Candy asked.

                “Yes.”

                “It’s Williamson. She’s Nathan Williamson’s ex-wife.”





                                      CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

                JANIE’S HANDS WERE tied behind her back. “They did that to me once,” Chad said. “Handcuffed me. My drill sergeant said the troublesome ones get treated harsher.”

                Janie guessed she was troublesome.

                A rag was stuffed in her mouth. It smelled like mildew and tasted like bad wine. When she tried to spit it out, it only choked her more. The sound made Chad glance at her. He’d wedged her into the floorboards of the backseat amidst textbooks, an old sweater, fast food sacks and even a backpack.

                “Stupid kid. Stupid art book,” CeeCee said. “We had a good thing here. Eventually, given time, we could have made money, lots of it.”

                “We should have just moved,” Chad said. “Started over somewhere else, changed our names.”

                “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to.”

                Chad shook his head. “After this, we will have to. Too many people have died. And this one, unless I miss my guess, has the sheriff’s eye. Bad move, messing with someone who belongs to a cop.”

                Janie didn’t belong to a cop. Did she?

                In that moment, trussed and terrified, she recognized the truth. For the last month and a half, Rafael Salazar had occupied her every moment. Had meant more to her than her art. She woke up thinking about him, spent her days either with him or wondering where he was, and when she went to sleep, she dreamed about him.

                Yes, she belonged to a cop, and the biggest mistake of her life was that she hadn’t told him so. Oh, how she wanted to have that conversation now. She didn’t need to go to South Africa for adventure. She’d had more adventure in the last month than she’d had her whole life.

                And she didn’t want to have any adventure alone.

                “I still say doing this in the same place is a bad idea,” said Chad.

                Same place?

                “It’s the perfect place. No one’s even come close to it looking for Brittney.”

                Janie closed her eyes. She didn’t need to see. She knew right where they were taking her. She’d drawn it.

                “That other car turned off a ways back. It worried me,” CeeCee said.

                “Probably going to the Stewart place. If they were following us, they’d have reappeared by now.”

                Rafe? Could it have been Rafe?

                Janie tried to move, but they had her facedown and in such a position that she couldn’t twist right or left without getting an elbow caught on the backseat or on the bottom of the front seat. Something sharp dug into her arm. She squirmed, but movement was not really an option. Still, she managed to shift a tiny bit, and that’s when she noticed it.