She called it in. “No license plate,” Tess told her detective sergeant. “He must have put it on the farm truck.”

She gave him the VIN number and waited.

Twenty minutes later it was confirmed. The white Ford F-350 belonged to a construction site in Nogales, Arizona—Redline Construction. The truck had been stolen eleven days earlier.

“They didn’t lock it up?” Usually construction sites, even out in the boonies, set up chain-link fence enclosures for temporary parking lots.

“Apparently not. Where do you think he’s headed?”

Tess didn’t know. But she could guess. “Wade Poole is after the DeKoven family. I think he’s planning to shake them down. So I would send a TPD unit to Brayden DeKoven’s address, and Pima County should check out Michael DeKoven’s place out on the Spanish Trail.” She rattled off both addresses.

“You remember them?” Messina said. Added, “I guess you would, huh? That’s handy.”

He still wasn’t used to her, still saw her as a freak. But she was a useful freak.

“I would set up surveillance if he’s not there yet,” Tess added. She made a mental note to call Cheryl Tedesco. Cheryl would want to know what was going on, and might even be able to move things along at TPD.

“We have an Attempt to Locate in both counties now for a brown 1978 GMC pickup.” He read off the license plate belonging to the white Ford.

“Sounds good. I’m on my way.”

“What address?”

“Michael DeKoven’s.”

Tess thought, if she were Wade Poole, that was where she’d go.

Tess was almost to the Vail exit outside Tucson when her detective sergeant contacted her again.

“We have a description of the truck, but the license plate isn’t the same.”

He’d switched plates again? The license plate didn’t come back to the ranch truck or the stolen Ford. Somewhere along the line, he’d stolen another plate.

One jump ahead.

“Where is he?”

“He’s on Spanish Trail. Pima County Sheriff’s unit is following.”

“Ask them not to alert him.”

“Will do. I’ll tell him to turn off.”

Tess’s heart was beating so hard she wondered if it would burst through her chest cavity. Wade Poole was armed and dangerous. If he was cornered, he would not hesitate to kill.

He was a killing machine.

Wade saw the Pima County Sheriff’s car coming in his direction. He saw the body of the car feint slightly—a reflex action—and continue on smoothly. He guessed that someone had put out a BOLO on the ranch truck. He watched in his rearview as the radio car slowed and pulled off onto the verge. Knew it would turn around and pursue. There was no place to go to ground. But he was close to Michael DeKoven’s castle on a hill—probably not three miles overland. He could see the lights up on the hill. He thought about ditching the truck, but he wanted Jaimie as a hostage. He kept his gaze glued to the rearview mirror. The curve in the road hid the sheriff’s car. Any minute he expected headlights to appear. But they didn’t.

Maybe he was hypersensitive. He kept driving. The turnoff was up ahead, and he wanted to keep Jaimie with him. He glanced at her. She leaned as far as she could away from him, up against the passenger side. From her posture you’d think she was cowed, but he saw the hatred in her eyes. Even in the dark of the night, he could see it. He would not take her for granted. Hatred like that could overcome a lot.

Momma didn’t raise no fools. He’d have to watch her every minute.

Wade knew that Michael would call back. He was sure that Michael would be frozen, that he wouldn’t know which way to jump. The rich little turd couldn’t get help from law enforcement. He couldn’t get help from anyone. Michael thought that he could draw Wade to go to him, that on his home turf he’d have the upper hand. But Wade had all the cards.

Tess’s Tahoe was a plain wrap. But she knew, if anyone had antennae for a plain wrap, it would be Wade Poole. She pulled off the road at the little general store, now closed, and waited. She knew where Wade was headed. Meantime, the Pima County sheriff’s deputy who had spotted him rolled in. He introduced himself as Wiley Moran.

They discussed what they were going to do. There was time for backup.

But that wasn’t the only consideration. Wade Poole was loaded for bear, and Jaimie Wolfe was almost certainly his hostage.

“What do you think Poole would do if he was turned down?” asked Deputy Moran.

He knew the right question to ask. Tess had been a deputy not too long ago, and she knew how important it was to think a situation through. Especially if you were ambitious, and Deputy Moran clearly was.

Tess said, “He’d kill them both.”

Deputy Moran’s eyebrows rose in an arch. He didn’t have to ask a question.

Tess said, “He’d kill them and take off. Cut his losses.”

“And if he couldn’t get away?” Moran asked.

“He would kill as many as he could. And then he’d kill himself.”

Deputy Moran nodded. “That’s what I figured.”

Tess liked him. He had been very quick to stop and take stock of the situation, and had not turned around to go after Poole. He’d thought his actions through with the information he had at the time.

One word from her, and he’d pulled over to the side of the road.
He could have been a much different type.

Tess was glad she’d found him.

“He knows you pulled off,” Tess said. “Either he thinks you were just patrolling—routine—or that you’d been called off. Any way you look at it, he’s going to be wary. But at least we haven’t scared him off. I’m thinking I should go ahead. My Tahoe’s unmarked. He won’t necessarily be looking for a car like this.”

“Then I’m going to have to wait for backup, ma’am.”

“You’ll call it in?”

“Yeah. SWAT.”

“SWAT,” Tess said.

He was right. They would need SWAT.

Deputy Moran said, “I’m worried about the hostage.”

“Me, too.” Tess was certain Wade Poole planned to shoot Jaimie if Michael DeKoven didn’t cooperate.

“Think we should get closer?” Moran asked.

Tess decided to share her real fear with Deputy Moran. “We think that Poole is going to extort money from the DeKoven family. He’s using Jaimie as a hostage, but what would scare a guy like DeKoven the most? What ultimate threat?”

“That he’d kill her right in front of him,” Moran said. “As an example.”

Tess nodded. “I agree.”

He said, “The message would be that DeKoven would be next. I think we should get closer. I think we’ve got probable cause.”

“Or at least ‘possible cause,’” Tess said.

Moran laughed at that. “‘Possible cause.’ Sounds good enough to me.”

Tess looked up the road. From where they were they could see Zinderneuf’s lighted windows. The Moorish-slash-Pueblo-style building dominated the landscape. At one time, there was no Thunderhead Ranch, there were no homes anywhere nearby. That was before some of the land was sold off and subdivided. At one time, Zinderneuf had dominated the valley. But now it didn’t look all that different from the McMansions farther down the road. Clinging to the top of a hill, lighted windows. Except that Zinderneuf was all by itself.

“Wouldn’t take much to climb up there.” Moran nodded toward a shallow wash that crossed under the road and meandered between two scrub-covered hills. “We follow the wash around that hill and then go up cross-country.”

There was a moon already, and it was almost full.

Moran called in and said they would be observing, and when SWAT came, they would identify themselves. The estimated time for the SWAT team was inside twenty-five minutes.