CHAPTER THREE
1675 Words
CHAPTER THREE
That morning, after driving the night aimlessly, head swarming with thoughts, Mia pulled into the parking lot of a diner in Ferris, a town south of Dallas.
Right now, her only job was to lay low, and to let David continue his research into Kevin Reynolds’s past and the girl he was talking about before his death. But she’d never been good about sitting back and letting other people take the reins.
The only problem was, she’d been driving all night, and she still couldn’t think of any way to help her situation. She didn’t have access, so she couldn’t dive through the files and see what previous cases Reynolds had been working on. She couldn’t go back to his apartment, as by now, it’d likely been cleared out. No, she was totally at David’s mercy, this time.
So much for taking the bull by the horns. She felt like she was still stuck in the corral.
Sitting in the lot of the run-down diner, she grabbed her wallet and counted out her money. Thankfully, Francine had given her several hundred dollars to tide her over, and with David’s cash, her wallet was pretty flush. Still, since she wasn’t sure when she’d see a friendly face again, she had to make it last.
As she walked to the entrance of the diner, a man in a cowboy hat was coming out. As he held the door open for her, the smell of bacon and coffee hit her, and her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours.
“Howdy, ma’am,” the cowboy said. Though his greeting was friendly, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was staring at her.
“Hi,” she said, head tilted down.
Another man came through, too, and was he staring at her, also?
I’m just being paranoid, she told herself. It was a familiar feeling, especially now that she knew the manhunt for her had intensified. She reminded herself that she was fine, that she was careful to never go to the same place twice, to keep herself disguised and cover her tracks, but as she stepped through the door, the feeling remained.
At first, she thought of bolting, going somewhere else, just in case. But her growling stomach won out. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a quarter, and grabbed a copy of the Dallas Metro News. If nothing else, she could bury her nose in that.
She went into the diner and took a seat in the back corner of the restaurant, in the most out-of-the-way place she could find. When the waitress arrived, she ordered a large coffee and her bacon and eggs platter, and lifted the newspaper up as a shield between her and the outside world.
As she flipped through the pages, she saw it: Senate Hopeful Wilson Andrews Meets with Human Rights Coalition.
She groaned at the photograph of him, standing with a group of well-dressed individuals. They were holding up their linked hands in a victory stance.
She desperately wanted to give him the finger. His face was so rigid, so plastic, it was hard to believe that the poll numbers showed him ten percentage points ahead of the nearest competitor. Couldn’t they see what a phony he was?
Apparently, the answer was no. And that number was only trending upward. It’d taken a dip a few weeks ago, when Jerry Andrews, his brother, had been arrested for several murders. But after that? The sky was the limit.
I hate you, she thought, but turned the page. Staring eye-daggers at his photograph wasn’t going to give her the results she needed, which was Wilson Andrews, finally exposed for all of his misdeeds. She needed action.
But until David Hunter gave her something, her hands were tied.
Breathing out a long sigh, she flipped the page just as the waitress came with her coffee. “You all right, Honey?” the grandmotherly lady said with a smile.
She realized her teeth were clenching. “Uh, yes. Thank you.”
“All right. Your breakfast will be out in a minute. You let me know if you need anything, now, all right, Honey?”
She nodded and brought the coffee to her lips. It was too hot to taste, so she just inhaled, letting it calm her nerves.
Mia set it down in the saucer and stared at an article at the top of the local news section.
YOUNG COUPLE FOUND DEAD APPEARS TO BE DOUBLE HOMICIDE
North Dallas police are still investigating a shooting that left a man and a woman dead in a North Dallas field last week.
In the evening hours of this past Saturday, Jason Delaney-Sawyer and Kiki Redbone, both 18, of University Park were found dead from a gunshot wound at the North Dallas Fairgrounds.
While no arrests have been made and no suspects have been publicly named, North Dallas Police Chief Scott Tomkins said investigators believe the two victims knew one another and it is possible that multiple shooters were involved in their slaying.
"Our leads are getting stronger," Tomkins said.
“He was so young,” Delaney’s aunt, Marsha Delaney, said. “Our family is forever torn apart.”
The North Dallas Fairgrounds are located roughly half a mile off Charson Loop Road, behind a large field and down a gravel road across the street from a place called Lookout Point, a popular congregation spot for teenagers.
Tomkins said officers responded after the couple were located by a teenager who called police around 10:42 p.m. Both victims were dead when law enforcement arrived at the scene, he said.
Mia stared at the name of the victim. Delaney-Sawyer.
Now why did that name sound familiar?
In a rush, it came to her.
Linda Delaney-Sawyer. Carolann’s mom.
Carolann had been—and maybe still was—Kelsey’s best friend in the third grade. Mia hadn’t had much time to concern herself with all things High Point Elementary School, but she remembered Linda Delaney-Sawyer well; of all the mothers who’d been at Back to School Night on that first day of first grade, Linda had been the most outgoing and welcoming. She’d invited Kelsey over to a sleepover, at least once a month.
Mia and Linda had immediately hit it off, going out for drinks now and then. As a mother of a teen, Linda was a more experienced parent. Mia liked her no-nonsense, down-to-earth approach to everything. She didn’t put on airs, showing off the latest fashions or the nicest car in the parking lot. She wasn’t fake. She was real, and easy to get along with.
Plus, she loved her kids. Her blue eyes had shone as she spoke of them and all the activities they were involved in. She loved Carolann, but Linda had also spent a lot of time talking about Jason, and how he was planning to go off to college in a few years, maybe to SCAD, for art, since he was a talented painter.
But now poor Jason was dead. What had happened?
Mia couldn’t help thinking of Kelsey, and what it would be like to lose her. How awful. Poor Linda had to have been beside herself.
For so long, Mia had thought that her own situation, being away from family and constantly on the run, was the worst. But now, here was a woman dealing with an even bigger nightmare.
Mia’s heart went out to her. She read the article again and again, a fire growing hotter inside her, each time. Lookout Point. I know that place. It’s a big place for teens.
And trouble, apparently, too.
She had a momentary thought of What is the world coming to? This world, where the safest, most benign places were now no longer safe. Where evil could run wild, unchecked, and the good were the ones under attack. Something about all of this was so backwards.
She read the article again.
No suspects.
It was bad enough to find out your son had been murdered and dumped in a field. But to learn the killer was still at large? Never knowing whether the killer would ever be found or brought to justice, or if he’d kill again? That was even worse.
And they were so young. Barely children, probably seniors in high school. It didn’t say so, but maybe they’d been dating, and had gone up to this Lookout Point. But what happened? How had they both wound up dead? Had they come across the wrong people in that shadowy area and ruffled feathers?
Mia’s mind automatically went to the usual suspects—drugs, gangs. But Linda always had a tight leash on her kids. During the couple of nights they’d gone out for drinks, Mia remembered Linda constantly texting her oldest to keep tabs on him.
More and more questions piled up in her head.
No, Mia certainly wasn’t in a place to investigate this. It could be too dangerous.
But then again, she’d been able to slip on and off the radar and solve a number of cases, before. Maybe she could do the same here, to pass the time while waiting for David to get back to her?
She pulled the newspaper down and realized that the waitress had brought her food. She grabbed a fork and took a bite of the hash browns. They were cold. How long ago had the food been delivered to her? And had she been so absorbed in this story that she hadn’t noticed?
Big problem. She couldn’t let her guard down. All it would take would be one person to recognize her, and the game would be over. She had to keep both eyes open, all the time.
She looked around suspiciously, but no one was watching her.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she dug into her cold plate and finished her breakfast, all the while thinking about the case of Jason Delaney-Sawyer.
It wouldn’t hurt to just drop by Linda’s neighborhood and scope it out, would it?
- Writer
