AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He chuckled. “She also told me to let go of the guilt trip. She said she didn’t hold me responsible for her parents’ deaths and it was time I stopped blaming myself.”
A smile touched Lennox’s lips. She had met Margo a few years ago, through her friendship with Joy. She’d liked her immediately. Now she knew why. “Can I ask you something, Roland?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think you’ll ever remarry?”
“No.”
His answer was quick. She’d barely finished the sentence. “Why?”
He stared straight ahead for a long moment without answering. Finally, he said, “None of my relationships with women have had much substance. They’ve been physical, but nothing more. I make sure any woman I get involved with knows that going in.”
He took a deep breath. “Becca was the love of my life. My heart has been frozen since her death, even though it’s been close to twenty years now.”
She thought back to the way things had been when she’d lost DeWalt. She’d felt as if her world had come to an end. She couldn’t imagine any other man taking his place in her heart. Any children she bore were to have been his and they would have raised them together. After his death, the hardest thing she’d had to accept was that a person’s plans in life weren’t always those meant for them. What was that saying? Man plans and God laughs?
“I don’t like the look of that.”
She wondered what Roland was talking about. “What?”
“That van in front of us.”
Lennox followed his gaze. It looked like a regular van to her. It was a cargo van and when they’d passed it earlier, she’d noted one of those magnetic signs on the side that advertised a florist shop. “What about it?”
“Yesterday, Byron mentioned that the authorities were on the lookout for a blue van that’s part of a human trafficking ring.”
“That van is black.”
“Yes, but it was recently painted.”
She looked again at the van—it didn’t look as if it had been painted. “How can you tell?”
“Whoever did the paint job must have done it quickly. They missed a few spots, like the area around the license plate. It’s still blue.”
She looked again and had to squint to see what he was referring to. “I hate to tell you, Roland, but only a very observant individual would notice something so minor.”
“I’m an ex-cop--I can’t help being observant. Something minor to one person is something major to me.”
“So, if that’s the van the authorities are looking for, what are you going to do?”
• • •
The first thing Roland did was to phone Byron.
“If that’s the right van, they’re transporting four teenage girls,” he said.
“Where do you think they’re headed?” Roland asked. Since he had Byron on the SUV’s speaker, Lennox was able to hear every word.
“To some drop off point, most likely,” Byron answered. “I’m at least six hours away but I’m notifying…”
At that moment the phone reception began to break up. “Roland, you still there?”
“Yes, I am. But the reception in this area is awful.”
Suddenly the phone went dead. “Damn!” Roland placed the cell phone aside and got the other one from out of the compartment between the seats. “I’m contacting Stonewall,” he told Lennox as he punched in a few numbers.
“Won’t you have trouble talking to Stonewall too, if the reception in this area is so bad?”
