AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Christian narrowed his eyes. Was Andi right?No way.
Deckard looked at Harper, and she nodded. “We’ll go too.”
After a little more conversation regarding logistics, they decided Deckard, Harper, and Riley would ride together in case they needed to divide and conquer.
Christian glanced at the building in the rearview mirror as he pulled out of the lot. Greyson stood looking out the window, a worried expression on his face. Greyson never looked worried... .
Pulling out onto the main road, he prayed Lordsburg was the right location and that they would beat them to it. And most importantly, that no one died at Cyrus’s or Teresa’s hands. She had a reputation for making people disappear. Cyrus had possibly killed two women, had nearly killed Mr. Beaumont. If cornered, neither of them would hesitate to pull the trigger.
The drive to Lordsburg was a half hour shorter than the GPS indicated. Probably because he flew down the road at the top speed limit all the way. He followed Google Maps’s direction, and when they made the final turn, his heart dropped. Instead of the Timal home, they were looking at a strip mall and a dead end.
SEVENTY
“YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING,”Christian said, banging the wheel.
Andi reached over and squeezed his hand.
“Sorry. I thought we had them. Now we have to start over.”
The fear of losing them, of not finding them before Teresa, Cyrus, and Ethan disappeared across the border, ate at him. The bootheel of New Mexico, which sat barely south of them, was known as a drug runner’s highway, a way to slip from New Mexico into Mexico unseen. Given Teresa’s husband’s drug empire, as well as her having grown up in the area, she must know the routes very well.
While small in comparison to other areas of the state, it still was a lot of ground to cover, with no-man’s-land to the west of Antelope Wells and to the east until the Columbus Border Patrol Entry Station. They needed something to focus their search. Greyson had alerted Border Patrol of the situation, and they’d be sweeping the border, but again, there was a fair amount of no-man’s-land to cover.
His cell rang. “Yeah, Deck. I see.”
“What do we do now?” he asked.
Christian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let me think.”
“She’s in this area for a reason. She’s from here, so she’s got to be holed up someplace she views as safe.”
“We can canvass the area,” Deckard said. “See if anyone has seen Teresa or might know where she’d be.”
“Good plan.” He swallowed, praying for direction.
“Why don’t you and I go look through property records,” Andi said.
“Maybe there’s another place that belonged in their family,” he said.
“Agreed,” Deckard said. “Let’s check back in on the half-hour mark.”
“Sounds good. But let me know if you find anything sooner, and I’ll do the same.”
“Roger that.” Deckard disconnected the call.
“Property records would be kept in the courthouse,” he said, looking over at Andi. Man, they worked well together. He was going to miss this time with her when the case was solved. But, of course, he wanted it solved.
Locating the courthouse in town, Mrs. Applegate—a kind lady in charge of public records—showed them down to the dusty room on the bottom level of the courthouse. Basically, a room where records had gone to die. “Let’s start searching for Timal,” he said. “I think any other property that would tie to them would be under that name.”
“But I’ll also check under her married name and the alias she used when she came over the border,” Andi said.
They pulled boxes down by initial—they were assuming it indicated the letter the surnames in each box started with.
Armed with theT,G, andMboxes, they sat on the floor and started digging in.
“Anything?” Andi asked after an hour.
Christian shook his head. Were they on a wild-goose chase? Were they in the wrong area? What if they got away?
