No Escape Read Online Free PDF

permanently. But he refused all offers. He drifted around Oklahoma and Kansas for many years and then returned permanently to Texas twenty years ago.’
    Brody threaded the car in and out of traffic and soon they were headed east toward the municipal airport. ‘I asked him why he moved back, but he never answered. My theory is that he wanted more space, more land and better weather, which makes for a longer killing season.’
    ‘He was in his late forties when he moved back to Texas.’
    ‘That’s right.’
    She stared out the front window, rifling through the facts she had on Smith. ‘His primary burial ground was his backyard but another is suspected.’
    ‘When he was arrested in the suspected disappearance of Tammy Lynn Myers three years ago, we got a subpoena to search his house and grounds. It didn’t take much poking around the backyard to see that the land had been disturbed many times. We spent weeks in that backyard excavating ten bodies. However, we never found Tammy Lynn Myers. We also found evidence in his house that suggested there were at least two other victims. They were also never found.’
    ‘The medical examiner believed that the victims were buried alive.’
    ‘Most of the bodies were so decomposed there was no soft tissue to examine. Then we unearthed a body believed to be his second-to-last victim, a woman he killed weeks before Tammy. The medical examiner found dirt in her lungs and stomach, clearly indicating she’d ingested dirt as she tried to breathe.’
    A shiver traced her spine, as she thought about those women so desperate to breathe. ‘He never fought the charges.’
    ‘No. In fact, he was helpful at times.’
    ‘He was sentenced to death.’
    ‘And has used the last two years filing every appeal he can.’
    ‘He confesses, then fights,’ she said. ‘It’s always about control with him.’
    He clenched his jaw, making a muscle by the joint flex. ‘Looks like the cancer is the game changer now. It’ll kill him before the executioner.’
    ‘Karma has its own justice.’
    Without comment, Brody pulled through the gates of the small municipal airport and followed the winding, flat road past the main building with a control tower and then toward the hangars on the north side of the property. He parked beside a hangar. ‘I asked them to gas up the plane before I left this morning, so the preflight shouldn’t take too long.’
    ‘Can I help?’
    ‘Naw, hang tight. I got it.’ They climbed out of the car, and he unlocked a small door that led into the hangar, closed it and seconds later she heard the gears of the big hangar door grinding as the metal slid up and back. Inside the hangar stood a Cessna 150. The single prop, two-seater was painted white with red and black stripes. Brody took his white hat and jacket and tossed both in the back luggage section of the plane. He attached a hook to the aircraft’s front wheel and easily pulled the plane out of the hangar. Within minutes, he’d inspected the plane’s exterior as if he had done the preflight check a thousand times before.
    He opened the airplane door for her and waited as she climbed the awkward step into the plane. After closing the hangar door, he slid behind the yoke of the plane. His shoulder brushed hers as he leaned over and grabbed another preflight list kept tucked by the seat. The Bronco was spacious compared to the cockpit.
    He put on headphones and handed her a set before he primed the engine with the choke and then turned the key. The propeller turned once and stopped, but when he cranked the key a second time it turned and caught, quickly sending the propeller spinning so fast it vanished from sight.
    Grateful for the loud hum of the engine that would make any conversation difficult, she settled back in her seat, put on her sunglasses, and for the first time since she’d seen Brody standing at the base of her climbing wall, allowed her mind to still.
    As he spoke to the tower, he taxied to the runway