Miss Ruby returned to the library to find Q nowhere in sight. She hustled across the room and looked under the desk. He was gone. No matter. He had nowhere to go. Her nearest neighbor was six miles away. The ranch was massive but they’d find him.
“Robert! Sean! Get in here!” she shouted, not needing the intercom this time.
“What? You left him alone?” Sean said when Miss Ruby told them what happened.
“You saw him. He’s full of drugs. When I left him he was passed out cold in the chair and I know because I checked him. He’s probably in the house some—”
She stopped speaking, spying a playing card that had fallen off the desk and now lay propped on its side on the carpeted floor, tilted against the wooden desk.
“Wait a minute,” she said, snatching the card up off the floor. Turning it over revealed the ace of spades.
As she paced back and forth thinking, she grabbed her cigarette case off the desk. Smoking—filthy habit that it was—helped her think. The pack inside was empty and as she removed it, a tiny round piece of metal tumbled out of it and bounced on the floor. Picking it up and turning it over in her fingers, she found it resembled a very small hearing-aid battery.
“What is that?” Robert asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Way too small to have a transmitter so it’s probably not a bug. Maybe a tracking device?”
“Tracking device?” Sean said. “Why would … do you suppose the kid had it on him?”
“Maybe.” She paused a moment to consider it. “Let’s think about it. Ariel and the others snatched them at Kitty Hawk. Maybe whoever is watching them upped their security.” She tossed the tiny device to Sean, who examined it closely.
“The rabid dog. Dang it. The sheriff didn’t come here for the rabid dog, it was a setup…. He came to get the kid out without us knowing. We already reported a rabid dog once today. There would be a record of that. I’ll bet you a thousand dollars he brought another dog from the pound. Let it act up outside. Bingo, perfect cover story.”
Miss Ruby pounded her clenched right fist into the open palm of her left hand. “Somebody is onto us.”
“Hold on,” Robert said. “Let’s not panic. The sheriff is a dope. How would he …?”
“Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. But he probably had help from whoever is watching those kids. Remember Ariel and her crew had the boy and his sister cold. Ariel don’t make mistakes, sugar. Whoever is watching them got them back. We’re dealing with someone smart. I think that kid was playing us.” Miss Ruby paused and picked up the playing card. “Like a magician.”
“But you shot him full of …” Sean said.
“He faked me out,” she said. “Sometimes those drugs don’t work. People can have a tolerance for them or they need a bigger dose to knock them out, even a kid. Read a book once in a while.”
“What are we going to do?” Sean asked.
Miss Ruby picked up her phone from the desk. She called the sheriff’s office.
“Hi, sugar, this is Miss Ruby Spencer. Oh no, honey. It’s not an emergency, honey pie. But I was wonderin’ if y’all could put me in touch with the sheriff. I see. Uh-huh. Thank you, darlin’.” She ended the call.
“The sheriff isn’t in. He hasn’t called in a while. My guess is he’s on his way back to San Antonio with that snot-nosed kid.”
“What do we do?” Robert asked.
“We’ve got to go grab him and get out of here. Trust me on this, boys. If Number One finds out about this, we’re all dead anyway.”
Miss Ruby pushed another button and held the phone to her ear. After a few seconds she disconnected the call.
“Marco’s phone is going to voice mail. He should be on his way back now. If he killed the girl and left, like he should have, he knows he’s supposed to answer his phone.”
“Maybe his phone died or the towers are overloaded. There’s a ton of people in San Antonio for that concert,” Robert said.
“Maybe. But what if she had the same kind of tracking signal on her?” she said. “Look at how small that thing is. What if someone came and got the girl out and then …”
“Killing a sheriff is going to bring heat. And what is so special about the kid, anyway?” Robert asked.
“Tell me something I don’t know. But if we don’t get him back, a dead sheriff will be the least of your worries. The others aren’t going to be happy if we fail again. Believe me. Let’s go.”
In the corner of the library was a large wooden armoire. Ruby opened the doors to reveal a metal gun safe built into the wall. She entered the combination and the door popped open. There was a rack full of M-4 automatic rifles inside. Sean and Robert each took one and she grabbed one for herself.
While they checked the loads in their weapons, Miss Ruby grabbed a few extra clips of ammunition and handed them to each man. Stuffing the ammo into their pockets they headed out of the library and through the front door.
Miss Ruby tried not to show her concern. She’d spent years working her way up to the Five. She didn’t want to lose her place in one night because of a stupid kid. People who failed the ghost cell didn’t live very long.
She tried thinking of a way out of this if they failed to get Quest Munoz back. And she couldn’t.
Outside they climbed into their black Suburban and sped off into the night.