Too anxious to sit still, I got out of the car, arms crossed against the biting wind that rolled over the endless acres of sod and billowed the thin fabric of my shirt. I hovered behind Nick as he followed the tread marks into the field. They stopped just a few feet into the grass. “Feliks and Theresa probably entered the farm from the rear entrance,” he said, studying the direction of the tracks. “Looks like they backed into the field, just enough to turn around.”
“So they didn’t stay?” I hoped this meant we didn’t have to stay either. “Maybe Feliks decided he didn’t like this farm any more than he liked the others.”
Nick shook his head, hands on his narrow hips as he turned between the tread marks, thinking. “Why would he look at a piece of land that’s not for sale? And why come through the back unless he didn’t want to be seen doing it?” He paced slowly between the tracks, talking to himself out loud, as if he were trying to see this place through Feliks’s eyes. “If he didn’t want to risk being seen here, he wouldn’t have come during the day. He would have come at night, after the office closed, when the place was dark…”
He stood where the Lincoln would have been, his feet straddling the gash at the edge of the field, his eyes seeming to follow the path of the car’s headlights to the precise spot where we’d dug our hole. My breath caught as he stared at the dirt over Harris’s grave. “Zhirov wants this land for a purpose, and he doesn’t care if it belongs to someone else, as long as no one sees him using it. So what’s he doing with it? And why involve a real estate agent if there’s no sale? Unless…”
Nick’s voice trailed. He walked closer to the fallow field, dirt crumbling under his shoes as he paused at the edge of it. Wind howled in my ears. Or maybe it was my blood. I felt a little light-headed as his expression morphed from confusion to wonder.
“That’s it,” he said in a low voice. “He’s not going through Theresa because she’s an agent. He’s going through her because she’s about to become an owner. Legally, this whole farm becomes hers the minute she marries your ex-husband.” He backed away from the field, his eyes lit with a wild intensity. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it,” he said under his breath as he rushed back to his car.
“What do you mean, that’s it? Where are we going?” I hurried after him. The engine was already running as I stumbled into the car. He put an arm around my seat back, turning to see behind us as he backed up the car, the road through the windshield in front of us obscured by thick clouds of dust as he sped up.
“To find a judge who isn’t already in Zhirov’s pocket,” he said. “Preferably one who’ll issue a search warrant on a Saturday.”
He wrenched the wheel, spinning us around. I braced myself against the dash. “A search warrant for what?”
His eyes narrowed as he hit the gas. “To dig up your ex-husband’s farm.”
CHAPTER 37
Nick hugged the far-left lane of the interstate, flashing his lights at the slower cars in front of us and leaning on his horn. His knuckles were white around the steering wheel, his attention squarely on the road. I could practically smell the rubber burning from the spinning wheels in his brain.
“I don’t understand. Why is it necessary to dig up Steven’s farm?”
“Feliks isn’t looking to buy land. If he was, he would have come in through the front door, flashed his cash, and made Steven an offer he couldn’t refuse. And if Steven did refuse, Feliks would have pressured him into selling it—probably under threat of violence. I’m guessing Feliks is just looking to use the farm for something shady, and he wants to keep it as quiet as possible. So he went to Theresa—someone he could easily manipulate with attention and money. I’m betting Zhirov is bribing Theresa to let him use the farm for a very specific purpose. Whatever it is, he doesn’t plan to use it for very long.”
I thought back to the cash Steven had found in her drawer. “Maybe Feliks is just meeting people out there.”
“No,” Nick said, growing impatient with the driver in front of him and passing him on the right. I gripped the door handle as we zigzagged between cars. “Zhirov owns restaurants and hotels all over the state. He can meet with people anywhere. If he was only meeting them, he wouldn’t go to so much trouble.”
“Then what do you think he’s doing?”
“I don’t know. But I’m guessing the answer is buried somewhere in that field.”