Riptide (Sam McRae Mystery 3)

“Then tell him to get his ass over here to see me or meet me at a decent hour. Or better still, ask him to call me himself. Thanks.”

I hung up, stared at the phone and shook my head. I’d set it aside and started driving when it rang again. The caller ID showed the same number.

I flipped it open. “Hello, is this Curtis’s good friend again?”

“Come to Bower Farms,” the caller intoned, “if you want to see Curtis Little alive.”

This time the caller hung up on me.

CHAPTER TWENTY

After calling Jamila to tell her not to wait up for me, I got on the phone to Amber Moore to get the exact address. Then I called 911 and told them about the call. I turned the car around and headed back toward the processing plant, wondering who or what I’d find. As for Jamila, I figured the less she knew, the better.

When I arrived on the scene, the lot where we’d parked mere hours earlier was overflowing with cars. Many of them sported rooftop visibars, creating a red-and-blue disco scene. Uniformed cops swarmed the grounds. One stood at the door, apparently on guard.

I walked up to the cop on guard. “What’s happening?”

He looked at me. “Who are you?”

“I’m Sam McRae. I was the one who got the phone calls.”

I won’t say his jaw dropped, but his eyes betrayed shock. “The detective will want to talk to you,” he said, his voice much calmer than he looked.

Great. I waited as the young man spoke into a walkie-talkie, then turned back to me and said, “He’ll be here in a moment.”

I smiled. “Thank you.” I think.

The door opened and a man with a face cut from granite emerged. He stood roughly an inch shorter than me, but looked solid. His hair was dark and wavy, with ripples of gray threading through it.

“Detective Amos Morgan,” he said without preamble. His arm extended and I grasped a hand as hard and calloused as a cowboy’s.

“Sam McRae.”

“Tell me about these phone calls.”

I did so, as he scribbled in a small spiral notepad.

“Would you recognize this Curtis Little if you saw him?”

I thought back, trying to picture the guy in the lot who wasn’t Billy Ray or Dwayne.

“Maybe,” was about the best I could do.

“Come with me.”

We entered the building. The lights were on, eerie as I remembered them. The equipment must have been hosed down because it looked clean. The walls, however, still looked sticky. The floors still wet.

Detective Morgan and I picked our way toward a dark shape forming in the gloom. A couple of jumpsuited technicians were setting up lights, as if for a photography shoot. As we drew close, the lights snapped on.

I sucked in a breath. I remembered the face. Curtis Little. He slumped from one of the hooks used to move the chickens down the conveyor.

“Is that him?” Morgan prompted.

“Uh huh.”

Little’s face was sheet white in the glare of the lamps. His heavy-lidded eyes expressionless.

“How …?” My voice trailed off.