Low Pressure

“He threw himself on the mercy of the court and asked for a postponement in the proceedings, just until after lunch, so he could track down his witness. Rupe hit the ceiling. He put on a dog-and-pony show about the defense attorney’s attempt to annoy the jury into an acquittal.” Moody made a sound of derision. “It was one of his best performances.”

“I must not have been in court that day,” Bellamy said. “I don’t remember that scene.”

Dent said, “Let me guess. The judge denied the request.”

Moody nodded. “And Ray never got to testify.”

“Why wasn’t he in court that day?”

“Because he was in the hospital. He’d been seriously injured in a car wreck on his way to the courthouse. It was several days before he was stable enough to be deposed, and his deposition was read aloud in court, but it didn’t have quite the same punch as a live testimony would have had. By the time Ray was well enough to leave the hospital, it was too late. Allen had been convicted and transferred to Huntsville.”

“Jesus,” Dent whispered. “No wonder he’s gone mental.”

Moody sat forward. “What?”

“Ray Strickland hasn’t forgiven or forgotten.”

Moody was quick to catch his drift. He motioned toward Dent’s face. “He did that?”

“Show him your back,” Bellamy said.

Dent stood and raised his shirt. They told Moody about the events of the past few days that had led up to last night’s attack. “He doesn’t have the mustache anymore,” Dent said. “He looks like your basic skinhead.”

“Then how do you know it’s Ray?”

“We don’t. But whoever he is, he’s got a death wish for Bellamy and me, and the only thing she and I have in common is that Memorial Day.”

“And her book,” Moody said, not kindly.

“If it is Ray, maybe his grievance began when he was unable to testify at Allen’s trial,” she said. “He let his brother down. To this day, he must be haunted by that auto accident.”

“Wasn’t an accident.”

Moody spoke in such a low rumble that at first she wasn’t sure if she’d heard him correctly. She looked at Dent, but his focus was on the former detective and what he’d just said.

Moody lifted his bloodshot gaze to them and cleared his throat. “It wasn’t an accident. Rupe arranged for a guy to T-bone Ray at an intersection. This guy took his job seriously and rammed into him at a high rate of speed. I recall Rupe saying that it was not only a miracle that the crash hadn’t killed them both… it was also a damn shame.”

Ray spat a pulverized, half-masticated sunflower-seed shell out the open driver’s window of his pickup. On the seat beside him was a pair of binoculars, through which he’d watched Dent and Bellamy climb into the shiny blue and white plane with the unfurled Texas flag painted on its nose, and take off into the wild blue yonder.

He hated like heck that he hadn’t killed Dent when he’d had the chance last night. Not only was he still an obstacle to getting to Bellamy, but without her personal pilot, she couldn’t be flying off to God knew where, leaving Ray to wonder when they’d be back and he’d get another run at them.

But if he’d taken the time to finish Dent off last night, there was a good chance he’d have been caught, and that would have meant no vengeance for Allen. He needed to keep reminding himself of that and stop second-guessing his snap decision to run.

He’d gone home, gotten some shut-eye, and, over his morning cereal, had decided to keep watch on the airfield, where Dent eventually came to roost. He’d been staking it out for less than an hour, when, sure enough, they’d shown up. In her car, he noted.

Even viewed through the binoculars, last night’s handiwork on Dent had shown up bright and bloody. It did his heart good to see the damage he’d inflicted on the flyboy’s pretty face. He chuckled at the thought of how much that slice across his back must hurt.

But neither the injury or the scare he’d given them was enough. They had to die like Allen had.

He tossed the bag of sunflower seeds onto the dash and got out of the truck to stretch his legs and get the blood flowing again into his butt, which had gone numb hours ago. But he was gonna stick it out and stay here till they came back, no matter how boring it got.

Since they’d left, smaller planes had come and gone from the airfield. Through the binoculars, Ray had watched the old man going about his work, filling fuel tanks, situating chocks when a plane taxied in, chewing the fat with the pilots before waving them off. Then he would disappear into the hangar. Ray figured he was repairing the damage done to Dent’s plane, and the thought of that never failed to make him smile.

His boss continued to call periodically. His voice-mail messages had gotten nastier. Screw him, Ray thought. He was beyond answering to somebody, to anybody. He was a man with a mission, a man to be reckoned with, like the heroes in his favorite movies.

His hand absently strayed to his left biceps, where he kneaded the tissue that still caused him occasional pain. Beneath the dripping fangs of the tattooed snake the skin was ropy with scars. His whole left side, from shoulder to ankle, had been severely injured in the car wreck.

The worst of the damage had been done to his left arm. It had been pulverized in the accident, and then further disfigured by all the surgeries required to make it useable. It probably would have been cut off if not for a vascular surgeon who’d wanted to use Ray as a guinea pig.