Chapter 10

Twenty minutes later Connor was cruising north on Route 41 through the Francis Marion National Forest.

The vast tract of second- and third-growth woodlands was named for the legendary patriot who had terrorized the British redcoats during the American Revolution. The Swamp Fox, as he was known through filtered American folklore, possessed a remarkable knowledge of the mucky terrain, which helped him guide his men through the woods and fens, enabling them to sneak in and out of British camps and cause maximum mayhem. A determined nationalist who fought ruthlessly to gain independence from the tyranny of King George, Marion later became known for his inhumane treatment of slaves as well as his brutal abuse of the Cherokee tribes—savagery that shattered the mythic patina of his guerilla tactics, and caused more than a few contemporary historians to reconsider his proud legacy.

As Connor drove, he mentally replayed everything Donna Ronson had told him, wondered how much of her story about Liz Morgan was based on fact. The needle hovered ten miles above the posted limit most of the way, two lanes of monotony that took him past malnourished pines and tupelos that seemed to be facing a mid-life crisis, and power poles that were falling prey to age. Tires whined on pavement that was damp from an earlier shower, an earthy petrichor coming off the wetlands stretching toward the tree line in the distance.

A few miles past the four-corner junction that marked the entire presence of Jamestown, Connor hung a left onto a strip of blacktop that his phone’s GPS told him would take him toward SC-521. A faded sign on a crooked post told him it was Indigo Road, the same stretch of highway along which he’d been driving Sunday afternoon when, a moment too late, he’d noticed the truck racing up from behind and unloading an explosion of gunfire into his Jeep Cherokee.

The scene of the crash was not hard to find. The pavement held scars from where the mangled vehicle had been winched through the ditch and up onto the back of a flatbed truck, shedding fragments of plastic and diamonds of glass. Bushes were flattened and trees snapped, while tire tracks along the muddy shoulder indicated where emergency vehicles had parked or made three-point turns.

Connor inched past the scene and pulled to the side of the road. A dark wall of clouds was lumbering in from the west, the tops towering high into the sky, the bottoms dark and menacing. A thunderstorm was building quickly, and he figured he had no more than twenty minutes before it arrived. He opened the door and got out, rolled his shoulders to relieve the stiffness that always settled in after a long drive. The result of broken bones and gunshot wounds he’d collected over the years.

The road ran in a straight line in both directions, no curves to navigate. No skid marks, no streaks of rubber on the pavement that had been chewed up by thousands of tires and the passing of the seasons. Connor recalled that he hadn’t had time to hit the brakes before the steering wheel got away from him, and the Jeep began its roll. It all came back to him now, almost frame by frame as he recalled how the car had crossed into the oncoming lane that fortunately was devoid of traffic, then plunged through a skirt of dense scrub and vines before finally coming to a stop in a thicket of broken saplings.

He inched his way down the side of the runoff ditch, which was about five feet deep and had about a half foot of water in it. Probably from the recent showers that had dampened the area, and the approaching clouds would add significantly to that amount when they broke open. He dug a heel into the muddy bank, made a quick hop across the foul sludge that was brown from iron that had leeched out of the soil, combined with bluish swirls of oil. A long gouge was hacked into the opposite side of the ditch, cut when the Jeep’s front bumper had come into contact with the earth. This must have been where it had flipped upside-down, before coming to a rest against the oak tree a few yards further down the culvert.

Despite the rough furrow that had been carved by the tumbling vehicle, it took Connor a few minutes to scrape his way through the thick underbrush to where it had come to rest. Scraps of shattered safety glass and plastic trim were strewn everywhere. He thought back to how he’d released himself from his seat belt, then did the same for Cherine Dupree. Crouched on the upturned ceiling, listening to the voices of two men approaching, preparing to finish what they’d started.

A distant flash of lightning suggested the dark clouds were gaining speed. Connor counted sixteen seconds until the resulting thunderclap hit his ears: just over three miles away. Given the wind that now was picking up and rustling the branches overhead, he figured he had six or seven minutes until it arrived. Ten at the outside.

He started to pick his way back through the dense brush, tangled thick with briars and thorns, when a speck of yellow caught his eye. More like brownish mustard, the fancy kind whose name he couldn’t immediately remember. He hunched over and took a closer look, saw it actually was a scrap of fabric that had been speared by the sharp thorns of Carolina creeper stitched into the underbrush.

Dijon: that was the color. With a black logo embroidered in the middle of it:

Another spear of lightning and a round of thunder just four seconds later warned Connor the deluge was about to hit. He plucked the fragment of cloth from the pricker and tucked it into his pocket, then scrambled through the ditch and up to the road just as the first fat drops began to plop on the pavement. He hurried back to where he’d parked his car, barely pulled the door closed when a wall of rain began to hammer the roof, sending a sheet of water down the windshield.

The storm reduced visibility to just a few feet beyond the hood. Connor kept the speedometer to around twenty for the next ten minutes, until the rain eventually let up and the continual booming of thunder began to retreat behind him as the clouds tracked toward the coast.

The diversion to the crash site only took Connor a few miles out of his way, and thirty minutes later he was driving past the roadside blight of convenience stores and gas pumps that announced the outskirts of Andrews. He had passed through here just about seventy-two hours ago, Willis Ronson in the back seat, and he figured he’d never have reason to be back this way anytime soon. But Burdette’s mention of the “waffle cam” had set his mind on replay, and he wanted to see the scene again in order to process the order of things.

The Sunrise Motel was marked by a rusted sign atop twin white poles, the words painted and—at some point in history—illuminated with orange and red neon. A yellowing marquee with movable black letters beneath it advertised “Daily, Weekly Rates,” “HBO Cable WiFi,” and “Kitchen Units.” Nothing seemed to have changed since Sunday, except maybe the assortment of cars parked in front of the rooms. And the puddles that had formed when the rain had moved through just a short while ago.

Connor pulled into the lot and slid the transmission into “park.” He glanced across the highway at the Waffle House, spotted where the camera was located just below the eaves at the entrance. Capturing whatever went down in the restaurant’s parking lot and, by chance, the comings and goings in front of the motel. Just as Burdette had described.

It had not occurred to him when he’d driven out here on Sunday that he was cruising into an ambush. No reason to think that, since Ronson hadn’t skipped out on charges of a violent nature. In fact, the man had no record of assault of any kind, other than tipping over a row of motorcycles. Aside from his one-time affiliation with a wannabe biker gang, he’d shown no tendencies toward bar fights, no disturbances of the peace. When Connor knocked on his motel room door and shook him out of his tequila-infused stupor, he’d accepted the inevitable and held out his wrists for the cuffs. No attempt to flee or resist in any way.

Which again begged the question: who the hell had wanted him dead?

The same desk clerk was sitting in the office today as on Sunday. He had a distant, hazy look in his eyes and didn’t seem to recognize Connor right away. Mid-twenties, round face, short hair with a flat top. Jeans and an Insane Clown Posse T-shirt. His pupils appeared slightly dilated, and he seemed to have a permanent yawn that was opening and closing his mouth. He was staring at his phone, probably thumbing his way through a video game or a private stash of porn.

He looked up as the door closed with the tinkle of a bell. “Help you?” he asked, putting the phone down.

Connor wasted no time, just showed him a digital photo of Ronson. “I was here three days ago, looking for this guy,” he said. “Remember?”

“Room sixteen. No, eighteen, right?”

“That’s right. You said the guy paid cash.”

“I guess.”

“That’s what you said,” Connor assured him.

“Then yeah, that’s what he did. That a crime?”

“Except he didn’t really, did he?”

A confused look crossed the guy’s face as he tried to figure out what Connor was saying. “Didn’t what?” he asked.

“Someone else paid for the room.”

The desk clerk massaged his forehead as if some real difficult mental work was being attempted in the prefrontal cortex behind it. “I really don’t recall,” he said.

Connor dug his wallet out of his pocket, slipped him two twenties. “This help your memory?” he asked.

“It might. What was the question again?”

“Did someone else pay for the guy’s room?”

“Come to think of it, yeah.”

Acting on a hunch, Connor said, “Man or woman?”

That brought another look of doubt. The clerk appeared to reach way back into the past as he nervously wrung his fingers. Eventually his eyes brightened and he said, “Definitely a she.”

This made sense, considering the scenario that was forming in Connor’s head. “Can you describe her?”

The bright look instantly gave way to a frown as the clerk said, “Shit, man. I dunno. Dark hair, dressed nice. I mean, like gray pants, crisp creases, or whatever you call ‘em, like they just got ironed. Pleats. Shirt with little ruffles on it. Glasses, too, I think. Yeah, glasses.”

“Did she come in here with Ronson?”

“Who?”

Connor showed him the digital photo again. “Did they come in together to register?”

“Yeah, I think.” The guy would be a terrible witness to bring to the stand. “Now that I think of it, I know they did. Peeled the money right out of her wallet.”

“This woman, did she fill out a registration card?”

The desk clerk gave a quick shake of his head, said, “We don’t do that. Most of our guests have this thing about privacy, you know?”

“What about a license plate?”

“Nope.”

“Nope, she didn’t have one, or you didn’t see it?”

“Didn’t see it.”

“You remember what kind of car she drove?” Connor pressed, taking one last stab at it.

“Yeah. A Chevrolet, named for a beach, I think.”

“Malibu?”

“That’s a lake, not a beach,” the desk clerk said. “Hey…you following up on that cop was here yesterday?”

Meaning Nelson Burdette. “Did he ask you about this woman in the car?”

“No, nothing like that. He wanted to know more about the guy in room eighteen, whether we had security cameras. Any vehicles that came and went, that sort of thing. And he mentioned you.”

“What did he say about me?”

“Stuff like what you was asking about, who you was with. And whether it looked to me like you were here to arrest that guy, or maybe you were working with him.”

Connor thought on that for a second or two, let it slide. Burdette would say he was just covering all bases, everyone’s a suspect until they aren’t. Typical cop stuff. “Have you rented out that room since Sunday?” he asked.

“The cops sealed it,” the clerk said. Detached and apathetic, no skin off his nose whether it was generating cash flow or not. He just worked there nine to five, or whenever.

Two more twenties unsealed the room, as long as Connor was quick and careful to tape it back up again.

“They spent a long time in there, so I doubt you’ll find anything,” the guy told him.

Three days ago, Connor had knocked on the same door, found Willis Ronson sprawled on his back across the unmade queen mattress. The paisley earth-tone bedspread and tissue-thin sheets had slid to the floor, and Ronson was clutching a bottle of tequila in his hand, even though he was passed out. How he kept the thing from rolling out of his grasp was a mystery.

The intervening days and nights hadn’t changed things much. Empty cans and cigarette boxes were scattered everywhere, and packaging from Waffle House and a Carl’s Jr. down the street indicated where he’d been getting most of his nourishment. Since no vehicle had been parked out front, Connor assumed Ronson didn’t have a set of wheels, even though his wife had said he’d taken his Ford F-150 with him when he moved out.

His backpack lay open—and empty—in a corner of the room. Connor had allowed Ronson to go through it quickly to gather up anything that might be important, but he ended up taking nothing. It would all end up in a property locker at the jail, anyway. That meant Burdette’s team had probably cleaned it out and tossed it aside. Or the desk clerk had been inside the room and had done the same thing.

Connor lowered himself to his hands and knees, checked between the mattress and box spring. Nothing. Same with under the bed. He pawed through the trash on the floor, eyeballed crumpled receipts that corresponded with the food wrappers. Seemed everything he’d eaten had come from a place within walking distance, starting ten days ago—eight days before Connor showed up and put him in cuffs. The same day the desk clerk had said Ronson had checked in, with a smartly dressed woman driving a Chevy. All of which meant he probably hadn’t ventured further than a few hundred yards from the motel since he’d arrived.

He was just getting ready to leave when he noticed a scrap of paper beneath the HVAC air handler built into the wall below the front window. He plucked it out from where a puff of cold must have blown it, saw it came from a Pizza Hut on County Line Road in Andrews the night Ronson had arrived. Nothing odd about that, if he’d driven out here in his own truck. He could have gone trolling for dinner, settled on pizza and brought it back to the room. Ate it while guzzling his Jose Cuervo, watching NASCAR or Ninja Warriors on TV.

Only problem with that scenario—aside from the absence of a set of wheels—was the pizza itself: Ronson had ordered a large hand-tossed pie, half meat-lover and half mushroom.

Who did that, unless you were ordering for two?

And mushroom?

Connor considered himself the least sexist guy he knew, but he also knew there wasn’t a man in this universe who would order mushrooms on half a pizza, not if it was just for himself. Which meant one thing: Ronson’s dinner date that first night had been a woman and, stretching that thread of logic just a bit further, it suggested her name may have been Liz Morgan.

He was late getting back to the bar, something he knew Julie would needle him about for the rest of the night. To even things out, and since it was the middle of the week, not quite summer, and business was slow, he let her go home a little after ten. He issued last call half an hour later, drawing grumbles from a couple of locals who appeared in the midst of a perpetual pub crawl.

After collecting the receipts and cash he lumbered upstairs, Clooney trailing a couple steps behind him. Man and dog both were tired, and Connor knew he should just throw himself on the bed and go for as many hours of sleep as the night would give him. Before he did that, however, he had one more thing he needed to do. Something that had bugged him from his meeting with Donna Ronson, and had bothered him the rest of the day.

Because of his bond-running gig, he had access to every online search service Citadel Secure Bail Bonds subscribed to. That meant he was able to trace Liz Morgan’s school transcripts, arrests, vital records. Residential addresses past and present, employment history. Licenses and insurance, even bank accounts and credit cards, up to a point. Plus Social Security, if he’d had her number. Likewise her fingerprints, which he could run through IAFIS. Again, if he had them.

Everywhere he looked, he found nothing. The woman was a ghost.

Connor exhausted his resources around the same time he ran out of patience. He sat back and checked the clock on the wall: thirty minutes, way more than he’d counted on. His note pad was almost empty, except for the name he’d scribbled at the top—Liz Morgan—and the phone number Donna Ronson had texted him. Other than that, nada.

Her cell phone had a Georgia area code, but it had been activated too recently to show up on any database. Public records revealed there were hundreds of people in the U.S. named Liz Morgan, a number that grew exponentially when the search was widened to Elizabeth Morgan. None of them, however, seemed to be associated with the number on Mrs. Ronson’s printout, which told Connor it probably belonged to a burner. Furthermore, no one with either name—Liz Morgan or Elizabeth Morgan—lived within the area code, and there were only three such persons in the entire state of Georgia. Two under the age of eighteen, one in her late-eighties. No birth certificates or driver’s license or home address. No jobs or schools given.

Similar story in South Carolina.

Whoever this Liz Morgan was, whoever had been pen pals with Willis Ronson while he was doing time at Bennettsville, her name wasn’t Liz Morgan. And if she actually existed, he had no idea where she might be, or how he might find her.