Page 91 of Ultimate Justice

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Was he at the bus depot?” Marlie took the exit off I-25 for Ridley Road. The day she, Evan, and Noah had driven to Wyoming, she hadn’t paid that much attention to exit signs, but she remembered the street name.

“No, ma’am,” the officer said. “He’s not there. Are you sure he’s not at home or in school?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” During her frantic drive north, she’d already spoken to at least two cops, explaining what was happening and why she thought Noah was in danger. At the end of the exit ramp, she braked at the stop sign, racking her brain to recall whether Evan had turned right or left to get to the first location they’d checked—the one Noah thought was the camp. “Did you talk to the bus driver who drove there from Denver? Did he see a boy with blond hair and green eyes?”

“That bus already departed the station. We’re trying to get the driver by phone or on the radio.”

She looked both ways, swearing they’d turned left. Fifty-fifty odds. She stepped on the gas and turned left. “Can’t you issue an Amber Alert?”

“No, ma’am. You told us Noah booked the bus ticket himself. We have no proof he was abducted.”

She drove slowly, not wanting to miss the llamas. “Then call Special Agent Evan McGarry with the FBI.” He hadn’t taken her call, but hopefully he’d take one from the Cheyenne Police Department. “He works in the Denver office. Like I told you, this is related to a case he’s working involving missing children.” She pulled over to dig up Evan’s number.

“All right, ma’am. I’ll call him.”

While she understood there was an Amber Alert protocol to be followed, and the circumstances didn’t meet the criteria—yet!—Marlie wanted to scream, and if this cop called her “ma’am” one more time, she damned well would.

After giving the cop Evan’s number, she pulled back onto the road. “He’s headed for a farm somewhere off the Ridley Road exit.”

“Can you give me an address?”

“No.” Driving slowly, she searched both sides of the road. “Not yet. I just turned left on Ridley Road heading north.” In the distance, a dark plume of smoke spiraled into the sky.

“Ma’am, we’ll keep looking for the boy. I suggest you call us back when you have an address for the farm you think he’s headed to.”

She bit back a groan, because the cop was right about the protocol. “Fine.” Without waiting for a response, she hung up and dropped her phone in the console. Still crawling at a slow speed, she hadn’t gone more than a quarter mile from the I-25 exit ramp. Behind her, sirens screamed. She looked in the rearview mirror as two unmarked SUVs with flashing red-and-blue lights blasted north on the highway.

Up ahead on the left was a fence adjacent to the road where several llamas nibbled on grass. Shortly after passing the llamas, a road appeared on the right. Painted Sky Road. “Yes!”

Driving even slower now, she turned Tish’s Toyota Prius onto the unpaved road. With any luck, she wouldn’t bottom out and owe Tish for repairs. Minutes later, she saw the gate with the callbox. A pickup truck fitted with wood rails was parked on the other side of the gate. The truck fit Noah’s description of the one Frank Manello drove him in to the farmers market.

Two people sat in the truck. As she neared the other vehicle, she could see it was a man and a woman. Behind them, in a rack covering the truck’s rear window, sat a long gun. A rifle or a shotgun. From this distance, she couldn’t be sure which it was. Not that it mattered. They both fired bullets that could kill people.

The Prius dipped sharply, and she grimaced as the undercarriage hit the uneven surface with a sickening screech. When she parked in front of the gate, the man and woman got out of the truck. They matched her recollection of John and Margaret.

Before getting out of the Prius, she tried calling Evan one last time. “C’mon, Evan. Answer!” Again, her call went to voicemail. Next, she tried calling the same Cheyenne officer she’d been talking to, and who’d given her his cell number.

There was nothing nefarious about the couple’s appearance. The woman, in fact, waved to her, which did nothing to put Marlie at ease. Assuming this really was the camp, and this couple was John and Margaret, these were dangerous people.

Her plan was to stall for time and wait for backup. Either Evan or the Cheyenne PD, whoever got there first.

The cop’s phone also went to voicemail. “This is Officer—”

Marlie hung up and shoved the phone in her suit pocket. She stepped out of the Prius. In the time it had taken to drive up here, the sky had darkened. Wind buffeted the car door, bringing with it a few flakes of snow. The temperature had to be twenty degrees colder than where she’d been in Denver not two hours ago, and she shivered. In all the panic, she’d completely forgotten to grab a coat.

Hesitantly, she walked closer to the gate. Have courage. She’d once let her son down in the worst way possible. She would not let Noah down.

“Are you Marlie?” the woman asked.

The question stopped her in her tracks. How did they know her name? Her belly knotted with enough suspicion to fill a swimming pool.

The only ways they could possibly know who she was were either from Noah’s hospital discharge papers or because they knew where she lived, and they had been the ones to break into her apartment and plant the note in Noah’s mitt.

She swallowed and started backing away.

“Wait!” The woman punched in a code on the gate’s lock box and stepped through, closer to the Prius. “You are Marlie, aren’t you?”