Solitude Creek by Jeffery Deaver Page B

assault and battery.’ A nod toward Billy and she showed her own rock-bruised arm. ‘I’ll leave that up to you. I’m not processing criminal cases.’
    Kit Sanchez lifted an eyebrow.
    ‘Long story. I’ll witness, you need it.’
    John Lanners, the other deputy, looked over Billy Culp’s shattered face and asked if he wanted to press charges against anyone in the mob. Billy’s mumbled words: ‘I didn’t see anyone.’
    He was lying, Dance could see. She understood, of course, that it was simply that he didn’t want any more publicity as the man responsible for the Solitude Creek disaster. And his wife and children … They, too, would be targeted.
    Dance shook her head. ‘You decide.’
    ‘Who’s running this? CBI or us?’ Lanners asked, nodding back to the roadhouse.
    Sanchez said, ‘We don’t care. Just, you know …’
    ‘Bob Holly’s here, for the county, so I guess you are.’ Dance added, ‘I came to check some licenses.’ She shrugged. ‘But I decided to stay. Ask some questions.’
    Lanners wiped sweat – he was quite heavy – and said to Billy, ‘We’ll call in some medical help.’
    The driver didn’t seem to care, though he was in significant pain. He wiped tears.
    Lanners pulled his radio off his belt and made a call for the EMS bus. The dispatcher reported they’d have one there in ten minutes. Dance asked Lanners, ‘Can you go with him?’ She added, in a whisper, ‘It’s like there’s a price on his head.’
    ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘And we’ll give his family a call.’ The deputy, too, had spotted the wedding band.
    Dance swiped at her own injury.
    Kit asked, ‘You all right, Kathryn?’
    ‘It’s …’
    Then Dance’s eyes focused past the deputy to another sign on the wall. She pointed. ‘Is that true?’
    Henderson squinted and followed her gaze. ‘That? Yeah. Saved us a lot of money over the years.’
    ‘All the trucks?’
    ‘Every single one.’
    Kathryn Dance smiled.

CHAPTER 10
     
    The man Ray Henderson was going to sell out, the man the crowd ten minutes ago was ready to lynch, was innocent.
    It took only five minutes to learn that Billy Culp was not responsible for the tragedy at Solitude Creek.
    The sign Dance’d seen on the wall of Henderson Jobbing, not far from where the driver sat, miserable in his heart and hurting in his jaw, read:
     
    WE know you Drive safely.
    Remember: Our GPS does too!
    Obey the posted speed limits.
     
    All the Henderson Jobbing trucks, it seems, were equipped with sat nav, not only to give the drivers directions but to tell the boss exactly where they were and how fast they’d been going. (Henderson explained that this was to protect them in the case of hijacking or theft; Dance suspected he was also tired of paying speeding tickets or shelling out more than he needed to for diesel fuel.)
    Dance got permission from Bob Holly and the county deputies to extract the GPS device from Billy’s truck and take it into the Henderson office. Once it was hooked up via a USB cord, she and the deputies looked over the data.
    At 8:10 last night the GPS unit came to life. It registered movement northward – toward the roadhouse – of about one hundred feet, then it stopped and shut off.
    ‘So,’ Kit Sanchez said, ‘somebody drove it into position intentionally.’
    Yep,’ Dance said. ‘Somebody broke into the drop-box. Got the key. Drove the truck into position to block the club doors, shut the engine off and returned the key.’
    ‘I was home then!’ Billy said. ‘When it happened, eight o’clock, I was home. I’ve got witnesses!’
    Henderson and his perhaps-nephew diligently avoided looking at either Dance or Billy, now knowing that the man they had wanted to throw under the … well, truck was innocent.
    ‘Security cameras?’ Dance asked.
    ‘In the warehouse. Nothing outside.’
    Too bad, that.
    ‘And the key to the truck?’ she asked.
    ‘I’ve got it.’ He reached for a drawer.
    ‘No, don’t touch it,’ Dance