Show Me (Thomas Prescott 4), Nick Pirog [classic children's novels .TXT] 📗

the key fob and the truck lights flickered.

Wheeler’s mouth hung limp.

I glanced to where Kim stood on her doorstep, her face looking like a wax sculpture under a heat lamp.

“How did you know?” Wheeler said, still shaking her head.

“I haven’t seen many trucks since we reached Columbus city limits. This isn’t truck territory. Then I checked the odometer. The truck has less than a hundred miles on it, but it’s a few years old.” And I found it odd the truck was parked away from the garage. It was as if was on display. And it was. It was a trophy. Kim’s trophy.

“That’s not a whole lot to go on.”

“I was just slightly suspicious at the beginning. That’s why I wanted to check her keys. When I saw the two Ford keys on her keychain I found it odd. Most people wouldn’t keep their spare key with the primary key. When I checked the grooves against each another, I noticed they were different keys altogether.”

I locked the truck then made my way back to Kim. I handed her the keys. Her hand shook as she wrapped her fingers around them.

“How did the money come?” I asked.

“Cash,” she said. “A big bag of cash.”

“Did you get the license plate of the truck?” Wheeler asked.

We were a mile from Kim’s house, nearing the highway.

I shook my head.

“It might come in handy,” she said. “If we need to prove any of this. Prove a money trail.”

$250,000.

In a paper bag.

Kim Barnes said she never knew where it came from. She found it three days after the murders. It was under the bathroom sink. She didn’t know if the money had come from drugs, guns, or what, but she did know Lowry hadn’t come into the money legally. She swore on her life she never once suspected the money had anything to do with the Save-More murders. Tears ran down her cheeks as the words flew from her mouth. It must have felt good in a way. To get it off her chest.

She led us to a safe in her bedroom closet and showed us what was left of the money. There was $20,000 in cash. Then there were two envelopes. Inside were forms detailing the college trusts she’d set up for both her kids. Both for $90,000.

I think she expected me to confiscate the money. But I had no intention of telling anyone about the money Kim received. She’d been through enough. What she did with it was her business.

I only cared that there was money. I only cared that Lowry Barnes was paid to kill.

All the same, Wheeler was right. At some point we might have to actually prove a money trail. And Kim Barnes, her truck, and her new life might end up as collateral damage.

I pulled the car over on the shoulder and made a U-turn.

A minute later, I was cranking the wheel to turn onto Kim Barnes’ street, when I eased my foot down on the brake.

“What?” Wheeler asked.

There was a car parked in front of Kim Barnes’ house. It was a black SUV. Two men stood on Kim Harrison’s doorstep. Even with their backs facing the street, I recognized one of them.

Dolf.

“Blackwater,” I said.

Wheeler raised her eyebrows. “You think they were following us?”

I thought about it. I was pretty good about spotting a tail. “No, I would have seen them.”

“Then how did they know to come here?”

I let out a long breath. “They bugged my car.”

“You think?”

“They must have done it when I was at Lunhill headquarters. That’s how they knew where I lived.” I’d always suspected the Blackwater goon was the one who lit my barn on fire and now I was positive.

I started to drive away.

“What are you doing?” Wheeler asked. “We need to get the truck’s license plate.”

“I don’t want to risk them seeing us. Plus, I don’t really want to get Kim involved. We’ll find another way to prove the money trail.”

She nodded.

A few minutes later, I pulled into a gas station.

It took me five minutes to locate the GPS beacon. It wasn’t under the car, which was the normal location. It was under the hood of the car, stuck to the inner wall near the engine.

“It’s so small,” Wheeler said.

And it was, maybe half an inch square.

Wheeler cocked her head at a car filling up its tank. “We should put in on that car so they follow it.” She grinned. “Like they do in the movies.”

“I have a better idea,” I told her.

There was a good chance it wouldn’t work. It all depended on how closely Dolf and friends scrutinized the GPS data. If they were looking at each and every turn we made, they might notice the Range Rover doubled back toward Kim Barnes’ street. They might put two and two together and realize we’d seen their car and realize we were onto them. But that’s why I drove directly to a gas station. Hopefully, they would think we simply did a U-turn realizing we needed to get gas before we started on the interstate.

Still it would look suspicious.

“Do you really think this is going to work?” Wheeler asked over the phone. “This is pretty remote.”

“That’s the point.”

The houses were half-built. Frames and windows only. A couple had the beginnings of drywall. Probably the funding ran out at some point and the project was abandoned.

An hour earlier, we’d parked the Range Rover in front of one of the houses for thirty minutes, then we drove a few blocks away where we saw a man getting ready to get in his car. Wheeler approached the man and asked for directions before stealthily sticking the GPS beacon on the side of his car.

Wheeler said, “And the goons will see that we were here for half an hour and come to check it out?”

“Hopefully.”

“And then they will think we are the car that I stuck the GPS beacon on?”

“Yes, just like the movies.”

I could hear her smile on the other end.

I was