Read Online Tail Spin by Catherine Coulter - Free Book Online Page B

dude, I’ve got blood running down my arm.”
    Rachael tore the sleeve from Roy Bob’s shirt and wrapped it around his arm. “It’s nearly stopped bleeding, you’ll be okay.” She thought of her Charger and knew it was all over, she’d have to leave it here.
    “And you, Miss Abercrombie? How’re you doing?”
    “I’m purely fine, just fine.” She felt flushed with victory, lit up like a neon sign. “I got him, Sheriff, I got him.”
    “You shoot often with a rifle, Miss Abercrombie?”
    “Not for a long time. It’s nice that you don’t seem to forget. It felt natural, you know what I mean?”
    “Yes, I do. So you were raised around guns?”
    “Where I was raised, everyone knew how to shoot and shoot well.”
    “I see. And where was that?”
    Roy Bob burst out before she had to come up with a believable answer, “A Remington as old as my daddy, I haven’t seen anybody so smooth with that sucker since Grandpappy died back before the turn of the new century.” He beamed at Rachael, not a single bit of macho irritation showing in his proud face. He added, “And would you look at how pretty she is, Sheriff. Can you imagine how good our kids would shoot and what they’d look like doing it?”
    The sheriff wanted to laugh, hut instead he turned a dark eye on Roy Bob. “So someone waltzes right in here and starts shooting. You gambling again, Roy Bob? You stupid enough to take on old Mr. Pratt after what he did to you last fall? You know he explodes like a firecracker.”
    Roy Bob drew himself up. “No, sir. I haven’t gambled since Ellie walked out on me. I’ve been too depressed, just sitting home, beer and baseball my only pleasures.”
    The sheriff sighed. “All right then, Roy Bob, Deputy Glenda is going to help you over to the clinic.”
    “No, Sheriff, not Deputy Glenda, she’s not too pleased with me right now. Besides, I ain’t no wuss, I can get there under my own steam. Hey, Rachael, I’m thinking you look familiar.”
    “That’s because I shoot well,” she said, and poked him in his good arm.
    The sheriff said, “Okay, Roy Bob, you go on over, see Dr. Post. As for you, Miss Abercrombie, I need you to come back to the office with me and we’ll talk this all over, you can give me a formal statement. Hopefully Agent Savich and Sherlock will bring this fellow down.”
    “Roy Bob, about my car—”
    “You gonna hurt my other arm if I don’t fix your fuel pump right away, Rachael?”
    Rachael pointed gun fingers at him. “I just might. Then you might think I look like your mother.”
    Roy Bob laughed, then moaned as he jerked his arm. “I’ll get to it then.”
    But not in time. Now, how was she to get away from Sheriff Hollyfield?
    The sheriff turned to see his youngest, greenest deputy come running into the bay.
    Deputy Theodore Osgood, called Tooth because one of his front teeth was chipped half off, just turned twenty-one, was big, beefy, and panting. He wheezed out, “That guy in the black truck—he nearly hit old Mrs. Crump—missed her, but scared her so bad she fell into a hydrant. We’re getting her over to the clinic.”
    Rachael wasn’t listening. She was thinking, He’ll get away, monsters always get away. Two and a half days since they’d tossed her into Black Rock Lake tied to a concrete block. Didn’t matter how they knew she was here, they’d found her, and now things were critical. She had to get out of Parlow, now. She had to get to Slipper Hollow.
    But how?

ELEVEN
    The sheriff was right, Savich thought as he sped the powerful Chevy to Judge Hardesty’s airfield. Bobby, their pilot, was sitting beneath a pine tree, puffing on a pipe, reading a Juan Cabrillo adventure.
    He had them in the air in under five minutes.
    Sherlock said into her headphones, “I bet he’s going to head back to the main highway, Bobby. He needs traffic to get lost in, and he’s not going to find it on this road.”
    Savich said, “Agreed. We’re looking for a black Ford pickup,