Those were probably the longest two miles I've ever gone. What had Ian done? What did he plan to do now? Finally we saw the house lights up ahead. Cooper killed the headlights and slowed his truck to a crawl. "I prefer surprises," he said.
"I'm not sure you could surprise anyone. This road is too noisy."
"Worth a try," he said.
The wide rectangle of light coming from McFarland's open garage door made the last few feet of our trip easy. We stopped right before a giant oleander bush—there was one on either side of the driveway. "Stay in the truck, Abby. Let me ask this guy a few serious questions first."
He reached across me, opened the glove compartment and took out his weapon. Something semiautomatic, but it was impossible to tell the make in the dark.
After he quietly left the truck, not bothering to fully close his door, I took my Lady Smith from my bag and slid across and out the driver's side.
I stayed hidden behind the oleander and saw Cooper with his weapon trained on the door inside the garage that led into the house. The Lexus in the garage had all the doors as well as the trunk open. From the looks of things, someone was taking a trip. And I was betting that someone wasn't coming back anytime soon. Cooper positioned himself beside the front passenger door, maybe eight feet from the entrance to the house.
When Ian McFarland came out into the garage with a box in both hands and saw who was there to greet him, he froze.
"Put down the box and place your hands on your head," Cooper said.
"What's this?" Ian said. "We're playing cops and robbers, are we?"
"Put down the box, Mr. McFarland," Cooper repeated.
"Or what? You'll shoot me?" And then suddenly, McFarland threw the box Cooper's way and whipped a pistol from his waistband. "Why don't I simply take care of this little problem myself?" He raised the gun to his temple.
I felt my stomach drop. I didn't want to witness a man murdering himself. I was sure Cooper didn't, either. I set my Lady Smith on the gravel and stepped out from behind the tall bush.
"Please don't do that," I said.
"Look who's joined the party. How many times have you seen a man make a bloody mess of his head? And I'm using the word bloody in the literal sense, by the way."
"Never saw anyone commit suicide. And I don't want to now," I said.
"Abby," Cooper said slowly, his eyes fixed on McFarland. "Get back in the truck."
No, he didn't know me very well, either.
"Brits aren't big on guns, are they, Ian?" I started walking toward him, my elbows bent, hands so he could see I held no weapon.
"Please, let me handle this," Cooper said in a strained whisper.
I kept my eyes on Ian. "I talked to Simone a long time today. Saw the photos all over her walls, the ones she'd taken. She's talented, Ian. And I'd say half of them were of you."
"That's why I hoped to leave without a word," he
said. "She doesn't need this disaster of a father in her life. Now I have to depart another way."
"And what's your thought process on that?" I said. "You kill yourself and leave us with unanswered questions— leave her devastated. You think she'll want to go off to school then? You think she'll want to pick up a camera when she finds out she might have driven you to this?"
From the corner of my eye, I saw Cooper inching closer to Ian.
"That's ridiculous. It's not her fault," McFarland said. "I was a fool. I had no idea Dugan would try to kill JoLynn when I told him she was trying to con Elliott out of every penny she could get her hands on. Money that belongs to my daughter. Then Dugan comes round looking for her. The idiot. The stupid, stupid idiot." The gun was wobbling in his hand now, not pressed against his skull.
"How did you find Kent Dugan?" I asked.
"Through JoLynn's cell phone, the one I nicked not long ago. She kept it hidden with a bag of old makeup under her sink. I charged it up and voila` —I had her history."
"If you do something stupid, Simone will blame herself for taking those pictures," Cooper said. "Kids always find a way to blame themselves."
Cooper and I were on the same page now. Meanwhile, he was getting closer by the second without Ian seeming to notice.
But the desperation I saw in Ian's eyes made my hands shake, made my mouth grow dry. But then he started to lower the pistol and I almost let out an audible sigh of relief.
And that's when we heard the siren of the approaching police car.
All hell broke loose.
Cooper dived at Ian and someone's gun went off—I didn't know whose because I ducked at the sound, my hands over my head.
Then I heard them scuffling and opened my eyes. They were rolling on the concrete as Cooper tried to restrain Ian.
I stood and hurried back to where I'd left the Lady Smith, cursing all the way. By then, the patrol car came to a screeching halt in front of the driveway. But I made it to Cooper and Ian first. Neither of them now held a gun—both weapons were swept aside during the struggle and lay five feet away.
I raised my .38 and shot into the garage ceiling.
The two men stopped moving. Nothing like a gunshot to get everyone's attention.
Then Marshall came rushing in, weapon drawn. "Drop your weapon, ma'am," he shouted.
Cooper, meanwhile, used my distraction to his advantage. Ian was pinned and very much under his control. "Not her, you dumbass," Cooper said to Marshall. "Cuff this one."
If I didn't laugh, I probably would have cried. So I laughed.
31
The police station in Pineview reminded me of JoLynn's latest hospital room. Small and smelly. Cooper and Kate didn't seem to mind sitting elbow to elbow behind his desk as we waited for DeShay and Chavez to drive from Houston and pick up Kent Dugan's killer. I sat in a corner on a molded plastic chair drinking a Diet Coke. Ian McFarland was in one of the two holding cells, being watched by Marshall. After all, he did threaten to kill himself an hour ago. Cooper decided to keep him here, rather than in the basement jail of the old courthouse near that town square, the courthouse I was supposed to have seen today.
Cooper complied with Ian's wish that his daughter not be called right away. Ian wanted to give his official confession to HPD first. But that didn't mean he wouldn't give us his unofficial confession, despite Cooper reading him his Miranda rights twice. No, Ian simply wouldn't shut up—that is, until Elliott Richter and the nerdiest lawyer on the planet arrived. If the attorney cinched his pants any higher, he'd strangle himself. Ian suddenly stopped giving us his version of events.
The nerd was the company lawyer—a stand-in until Richter could find his friend "the best defense attorney in Harris County." Richter actually shouted this out to Ian through the open door separating the office area from the holding-cell area. A suicide watch, Marshall had pointed out to Cooper, meant that the door must remain open.
I wondered if Richter's offer to get another lawyer would stand when he learned how his friend Ian uncov ered JoLynn's past by stealing her phone and tracking Dugan down. I'm sure he had an easier search than Cooper and I. The Internet can find anyone with a number attached to their identity and Ian found out where Dugan lived thanks to that number. Then he researched Dugan thoroughly before talking to him, learned he ran an ID shop and put two and two together. That's how JoLynn inserted herself into their lives—by making fake documents.
At first, he thought Dugan was in on the scam, but Dugan apparently didn't believe a word Ian said—until Ian showed him the photos his daughter discarded in the trash when she'd been visiting over at Ian's place.
"All I wanted was for Dugan to come and get his girlfriend, blackmail her into leaving by threatening to expose her to Elliott," Ian had said while Marshall used the first-aid kit to clean abrasions on Ian's face. Ian was sitting on the cot in the cell and we were all in the small area right outside. "That way," Ian went on, "Elliott would never know what I'd done, that I was the instigator. At least, that's the deal I made with Dugan. Paid him a pretty penny, too."