“He do something that would require a tie?”
“He sells used cars.”
“They usually wear ties. Nice looking truck too, which I would guess a car salesman would have,” Radcliff said.
“He could have had car trouble,” Stone said, “that would explain why he was talking to the mechanic.”
“Or this is another setup,” Radcliff added.
Margot saw the turn up ahead just past another orange grove. Just like Gale had described it, there were two mailboxes. One belonged to Lori and Dave and the other wasn’t being used by anyone. If anyone else saw her take this road, they’d know who she was going to see since no one else lived there.
Margot checked her mirror. The only car on the road was Mal’s and there wasn’t anything but dirt and orange trees on either side. She took the turn.
“If it is him, hopefully, whatever trouble his car’s giving him lasts long enough to pick up Lori,” Margot said.
She made one more turn and then came to a well-kept double wide mobile home. She looked back to see Mal drive past the turn. She assumed he would stop somewhere close so he could watch the road coming in. He sent her a text to confirm he was doing just that.
Ten minutes later, Stone was gone, Radcliff was out cold, Mal was M.I.A. and Margot was looking at the wrong end of a hunting rifle.
Chapter 7
Margot didn’t put down her gun, she didn’t even lower it.
“Don’t make me repeat myself, little lady,” the mechanic told her.
Margot took a second to read the name on the patch sewed above this heart before she said, “Look, Chuck, I figure no matter how this plays out, you’re going to be fine, but you might want to ask Dave here if he’s okay with playing to a tie.”
“Excuse me?”
“You might shoot me dead before I blow Dave’s head clean off, but I kind of doubt it. The guys who do that kind of shit are trained snipers, which I’m guessing you are not. And you want to know something? Even those guys probably don’t get that clean kill you need every time. Not the kind you need to get to keep me from pulling the trigger and spreading Dave’s brains all over my car. On the range, they never miss, but pulling the trigger on another human being? That shit gets messy.”
“Maybe I’ll take my chances.”
“Maybe you won’t,” Dave said.
“There’s no reason we can’t talk this out,” Margot told him. “Let’s be honest, if I’d really wanted to kill Dave, I could have had it done long before you arrived.”
“So, if I lower my gun, you lower yours?”
“You first.”
Dave said, “Go ahead, Chuck. She could have shot me anytime if that was really what she wanted.”
Chuck lowered his rifle. “Sorry, that path up to the back of your house takes longer than I thought.”
Margot did the same and then asked Dave, “What makes you think Lori was kidnapped?”
“The fact that whoever did it sent me a picture of her all beaten up and shit and asked for a damn ransom.”
“I can confirm that,” Chuck said.
“I’m going to take my phone out of my purse and show you a picture. Nobody get trigger happy.”
Margot got out her phone and pulled up the picture that Gale had sent her. She handed her phone to Dave. “Is this the picture?”
“Yeah, it sure as hell is. Where’d you get it?”
Margot kept that quiet and instead asked, “Are you sure you didn’t do this to her?”