Seconds later she blacked out.
While Santos worked the radio, Brody drove as if the devil bit at his heels. They’d called in every available gun and badge to back them up.
Dirt kicked up around the car as he raced off the highway onto a rural route. Candace’s directions had been frighteningly clear.
“You’re betting the whole game on one hand,” Santos said.
Brody tightened his hands on the wheel. “It’s the only hand I’ve got to play.”
“God, I hope you’re right.”
Santos’s phone rang, and he answered it immediately. “Santos.” And then after a moment’s pause. “Shit. Yeah, I’ll tell him.”
“What is it?”
“Austin police found Connors. Shot dead in a seedy motel along with a prostitute.”
“Damn.” Brody couldn’t think about the consequences of him being wrong or too late.
When Jo awoke, she sucked in a deep breath. Lying on her back, her throat ached as she searched the darkness for Tim. Instinct had her reaching for the manacle clamped around her leg. But a thick rope bound around her hands and body, making it impossible for her to move her arms. She tried to sit up, digging deep into her core muscles. She’d made it up several inches before Tim pushed her back against the dirt and smiled. “Jo, you don’t want to leave yet. We’re just getting started.”
Bands of panic tightened around her chest as she surveyed her surroundings and realized she was now in the grave. “Tim, don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”
He knelt beside the grave, trickling a handful of dirt onto her belly. She flinched.
“But it’s what I’ve dreamed of doing for a long, long time. Harvey loved you so much but he feared if he reached out to you, you’d reject him. He didn’t want his baby girl looking at him as if he were a monster.”
“Harvey was my father.”
“Yes. He took great pride in your successes.”
Her thudding heart all but drowned out his words. “And you are his son.”
His brow knotted. “Not his real son. Foster son.”
“But he loved you.”
“Not like he loved you. As hard as I tried or as hard as I worked I’d never had that biological connection you two shared.” He scooped up another handful of dirt and scattered it on her body. “Did you know we actually met twenty years ago? Harvey spotted your mother by accident in a drugstore. She was buying hairspray. We followed her into a nearby hotel. He was nervous and angry all at once. I wasn’t sure what he’d do, and then he saw you come out on stage, in that blue sparkly dress and teased hair. It took his breath away, seeing you. Said you were the spitting image of his own mother.”
Keep him talking. Keep him talking. Maybe she could forge a connection and get through to him. “Tell me.”
He scooped up more dirt but held it in his hand. “You walked around that stage, ankles all wobbly in those heels. Pitiful sight. I sniggered and Harvey jabbed me hard in the ribs.”
That day remained a blur. She’d been unhappy about being in the pageant, and she didn’t notice much. “My mother wasn’t happy with me.”
“She was real happy when you tossed that flaming baton in the air. She stood up and clapped.”
Jo struggled to make some kind of connection with Tim so that he saw her as human and not an object. “I was the worst beauty pageant contestant, and she wanted me to be the best.”
“Harvey was pleased you didn’t perform well. He said you were suited for an intellectual life like his.”
“I don’t remember seeing you two there.”
“We had to be careful. Harvey didn’t want trouble. He saw your mother and called her his failed apprentice.” He shook his head. “Something made her turn around as we were leaving. She saw Harvey, and I thought she’d faint. We left right away.”
His opening to talk gave her hope of a connection.
“I didn’t realize my mother knew Harvey until recently. Did he ever talk about her?”
Tim trickled bits of dirt on her belly. Her muscles flinched, which coaxed a smile from him. “Not much. He kept pictures of her, and sometimes he looked at them. I looked at them when he wasn’t home. After that day at the pageant he kept pictures of you, too.”
She twisted her hands against her bindings, managing only to dig the rope deeper into her wrists and arms. “How did you meet Harvey?”
Tim’s body had relaxed and he welcomed talk. “Harvey came into my mother’s life when she was in her late twenties. She sold herself to him many times. And then he killed her.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.” Tim raised his gaze toward the moon. “The day she died was the best day of my life. He saved me from a wretched life. I doubt I’d be alive today if it weren’t for Harvey.”
“He became your father.”
“More than a father. My guide. My maker.” Dirt trickled out of his fisted hand beside her grave. “He took me out of foster care. He knew I needed a real, permanent parent.”
There was a soft side to Harvey Smith. Evil had the capacity for kindness when it suited. “Did he adopt you?”
“No. Nothing formal. But he couldn’t have been a better parent.” His gaze grew wistful as he scooped up another handful of dirt. “He often said he wanted a son in his own image.”
“I can tell you’re educated. You’re smart.”
“Harvey homeschooled me. He didn’t like schools. He thought they were prisons. But my education was a better education than anyone in a school could have received. He was patient.”
“Many of the schools where he subbed gave him high marks.”
“He was a gifted teacher.”
“When I spoke to him, he called you Robbie.”
Tim’s eyes brightened. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time. It’s good to hear again.”
Where she’d been twisting her hands, blood bloomed from the worn flesh.
“He dreamed of us meeting.” He frowned. “That’s why he pulled you into this case. He knew we’d have to finally meet.”
“He didn’t know that you’d already made contact with me—that you’d coaxed me into the Find Christa! search.”
“There’s a lot he didn’t know. He didn’t know I sold you your house. That I kept a key. You know I was in your house when Dayton poked around outside. He couldn’t see me. I remembered you’d mentioned someone was bothering you. But I took care of him.”
When she stared at him, unable to speak, he added, “I killed him. Nothing fancy. Didn’t have time for that. Three bullets to the chest.”
She struggled to hold on to her shredding composure. “Harvey would have liked that you looked after me.”
“I know. He’d have hated it if that Dayton man had gotten hold of you.”
“When did Harvey find out you were back?”
“When he saw the ad in the paper. I knew he’d seen the ad when he sent you and the cops to find Christa. I knew he understood that I’d finally stepped up.”
“Stepped up?”
“Killed. Become a man. Ten years ago he gave me that chance, and I couldn’t do it.”
Killing women was a rite of passage for them. She swallowed anger and fear. “Christa was your first?”
“Yes. It’s why I couldn’t kill her right away. It took time to build up my nerve after I took her.”
“Why organize the search?”
A smile tweaked the edge of his lips. “What better way to hide in plain sight? To hear what the cops knew or didn’t know. And Scott. Well, the more I got to know him the more I knew he’d be of use.”
“What do you mean?”
Terror rose up from the cold earth and saturated her bones. Brody and the others must know she was missing by now. But they were chasing the wrong man. “Where is Scott?”
“Dead in a motel in Austin.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I told him a prostitute had information on Christa’s killer. I told him to pick her
up and meet me. Once they arrived, it was pop pop and problem solved.” He shook his head. “The cops will be searching for him for days.”
Jo swallowed her panic. “You set him up.”
“It really was too easy.”
Keep him talking. Build a bond. Find a way out of this mess. “When Harvey spoke about you I heard pride in his voice,” she lied. “He said there was no smarter man than his Robbie.”
“Really?” For a moment he paused, tears glistening in his eyes. “It’s good that in the end there was at least that.” He raised his gaze to her and the look of pain reminded her so much of the patients she’d counseled. “You know, we were together for eleven years. I thought he’d love me no matter what. But I failed him that one time, and he tossed me away like I was nothing.”
As much as she wanted to scream and rail, she kept her voice level. “You must have been upset.”
“I was heartbroken.”