Thin Luck

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Detective Joseph Turner

TURNER LET OUT a long exhale after reading yet another twisted story by Nick Hughes. He was still waiting for the novels to show up as the agent had promised hours before, but not looking forward to it as the short stories were terrifying enough. He knew the difference between fiction and non-fiction, but the details Nick put into his writing felt so real, it made Turner's skin crawl. The story about the boy and his adopted mother falling down the stairs was especially chilling since the boy used a hammer to bash his mother's head in after she was still breathing at the end of her tumultuous journey. The cops in the stories were flat, however. Their dialog didn't ring true. The detective in the story comforted the boy with the line: "Don't worry, we're going to find who did this to your mom." Cops knew better than to promise anything to a victim. Nothing works out the way you plan it. Although it is rarely a solace to the family, it's better to tell them that you are doing everything you can to find their loved one or their loved one's killer than to promise justice.

Officer Delaney, the talking mustache, walked over to Turner with a FedEx envelope in his hand, "You got a package."

Turner ripped open the thin cardboard envelope and pulled out two paperbacks. "Are you up on the Hughes case, Delaney?" Turner asked.

He nodded, "I've read the reports."

Turner skimmed through the blurbs on the back of the books. "This one is about a man murdering his wife and claiming self-defense. This one is about a college kid who kills her professor and buries the body."

Turner looked back up at Delaney, "I'll read one while you read the other? Which one do you want first?"

"Self-defense, I guess," Delaney said with a shrug. Turner handed him the thin novel, Secrets, with a blurry picture of a woman's hand gripped around a pearl handled pistol.

The cover of Turner's novel, Lies, had just a woman's hand gripped around a shovel. Her nails were polished red and shiny perfect, except for one that was broken. Ripped along the bottom was a quote from some New York Times bestselling author Turner had never heard of, "Gripping, fast-paced physiological thriller will keep you up at night!" The last thing Turner needed was to be kept up at night.

A trill of the computer's email program broke Turner's concentration. After skimming through the text he made a quick search of the Kansas State Troopers website and then dialed the number he found.

"Hello?" The voice on the line was stressed, rushed. A radio squealed in the background. There was shouting.

"Hello, is this Officer Knutson?" Detective Turner asked.

"Speaking."

"This is Detective Joe Turner from the Connecticut State Police. I'm calling about a license plate you ran about fifteen minutes ago?"

"I didn't run a Connecticut license... At least I don't think I did." Papers shuffled.

"No, it was an Illinois license plate 'Lima-Beta-Charlie-Lima-Seven-Zero-Two'?"

"Oh, yeah..." Officer Knutson hit a few keys on the computer.

"I'm looking for the woman that stole that car, she skipped parole here in Connecticut."

"Oh? I don't have all the details of the accident. The firemen at the scene just radioed me the license plates. I've got... hold on..." More papers shuffled. "I've got fourteen cars and seven big rigs involved so far. We closed the highway about an hour ago."

"I'm going to send you a picture of the woman we're looking for."

"You're that hot to pick up a woman that skipped parole?"

"I've been tracking her across country. Her name is 'Robyn Hughes' but she's used a few other names."

"Robyn Hughes, like the actor? Levi and Peachy?" Turner braced for the catchphrase he was already tired of. "Dude. Let's create a better world."

"Yeah. She broke into a house here in Connecticut, assaulted a man, stole an Escalade and drove it to Cleveland. Her prints were found in a car in Springfield, the owner was shot and left for dead near Chicago. The car was left outside a hotel where a millionaire lottery winner was robbed."

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I saw that on CNN. Didn't they say her brand new Porsche was missing?"

"We think she stole the Porsche from the millionaire, so we had the license flagged."

"I hope that Porsche isn't the same one we found. If so, it's gonna be totaled." Officer Knutson whistled. "Damn. She's a one-woman Bonnie and Clyde, huh?"

"Yes. We need to find her before she makes it to San Francisco."

"What's in San Francisco?"

"Her husband and son."

"What is she planning to do to them?"

"We don't know, but he's under watch. He wouldn't go into a safe house, but she won't be able to get near him."

"I hate to say it, but I don't think we'll be able to hunt her down for you. Every man in the county, and a few from outside the county, was called in for this accident and we're still severely understaffed. It takes us days to crawl out from under these freeway accidents. We have one death confirmed, but we are still peeling people out of the wreckage."

"All right, if you could just distribute her picture to the guys at the scene?"

"I can do that," Knutson said. "But I can't guarantee anything."

"Thanks..." Turner said. "And Knutson? I would consider her armed, and very dangerous."

"Thanks for the heads up, Detective Turner."

He passed on his contact information and hung up. He stared at the map of the United States he had ripped out of an old atlas. Until that email hit on the license plate, he'd worried the trail had gone cold. It might be days before the Kansas State Police could run fingerprints in the Porsche. Maybe she hadn't even stolen the Porsche? Maybe she just gave the keys to someone else to throw them off the trail?

But then another email came in. The credit card for the millionaire was used in an IHOP just fifty miles away from the accident. Then another ten miles farther down the highway from the IHOP was a report with a woman and a boy in the hospital brandishing a gun. If that was Robyn, who was the boy?

Turner walked into his Lieutenant's office. "I got a hit on that license plate from Illinois. Some place near Oakley, Kansas."

He put his hand to his temple. "Do they have Mrs. Hughes in custody?"

"They haven't seen Mrs. Hughes, but they'll be on the lookout. Officer Knutson said the car is totaled, so we'll have to be on the alert for any vehicles stolen within a twenty-mile vicinity."

The Lieutenant didn't look up or say anything.

"She has to be on her way to San Francisco, right? We'll be ready for her there, if nothing else."

"I'd rather it didn't come to that, Turner."