Chapter 369 Unexpected Call and Abnormal County Police
Luckily, Steve’s main arteries weren’t severed, and after his wounds were cleaned and st.i.tched up, he was finally out of danger.
After escorting Janet and Steve to a ward, Luke put down the backpack which contained various necessities and gave Janet some cash before he left with Annie.
It was already midnight when they returned to the motel.
After he closed the door, Annie suddenly said, “I want to take another shower.”
Luke hummed a response, not entirely surprised.
Many people would feel uncomfortable after returning from the hospital, and wouldn’t get into bed until they got cleaned up. Annie took off her coat and looked at Luke. “You’re not going to join me?”
Stunned for a moment, Luke then chuckled. “With pleasure.”
A moment later, the shower turned on.
In the middle of the night, Luke fished out his phone from his clothes, and stared blankly at the number on it.
He opened the door and left the room, before he pressed a b.u.t.ton on his vibrating phone. “Nick?”
On the other end of the call, a man said hoa.r.s.ely, “Lucas Barton just left with a few men. They mentioned your name. You should be careful.”
Before Luke could say anything, the call was cut off.
He frowned.
The call was from that Big Nick from the county police, and he had said something strange about Lucas Barton.
Luke narrowed his eyes.
This was LASD’s territory. The county police offered policing services in the area which the hospital was in.
So… level 2 deputy sheriff Lucas Barton was here for the case on the mountain?
However, Big Nick had especially called Luke to let him know, which suggested that Barton wasn’t entirely friendly.
Contemplating these things, Luke returned to the room.
Looking at Annie, who was sound asleep, he thought for a moment, then put her clothes back on her.
After the shock and fierce exertion of today, the especially exhausted Annie only mumbled something, and when Luke murmured in response, she let him put the T-s.h.i.+rt and the shorts on her.
Luke then put on his own clothes, packed up his stuff, and closed the door of the room before he left.
He didn’t go by the stairs. Instead, he walked through the hallway and jumped out a window to the ground below. He then drove the pickup out of the garage at the back.
Maybe the owner of the motel was too unprofessional, or the thunderstorm was too loud, so he didn’t notice anything.
Just like that, Luke drove the pickup out and hid among a few cars a hundred meters away.
An hour later, two cars from the county police arrived at the motel.
Their lights and sirens weren’t on. The two police cars came to a quick stop, and six officers spoke to the owner of the motel. Taking a room card from him, they quickly and quietly approached Luke’s room.
Then, the door was opened, and the officers broke in.
Luke heard the conversation in the room through his earpiece.
“Where is he?”
“He’s not here. Only the girl is here.” “Where did he go?”
“Who are you?”
“Where is Luke?”
“Ah… I… I don’t know.”
The officers interrogated her, but didn’t get any information on Luke. They then asked her about Steve’s a.s.sault.
Twenty minutes later, Luke started the car and followed the police cars up the mountain.
Annie was fine; the officers were here for Luke, and since he had disappeared, they wouldn’t be so rough.
But if Luke had been trapped in the room just now, who knew what they would have done.
They didn’t state their ident.i.ties at all when they broke in, and only told Annie who they were when they threatened her for information on Luke’s whereabouts.
The county officers’ actions were very clearly against regulations. Coupled with Big Nick’s warning call, Luke concluded that Lucas Barton’s men were probably here to kill him directly, not to arrest him.
Luke then recalled how Old Greyson had called him yesterday to let him know that someone had tried to bribe his subordinate to destroy a certain evidence report.
But what that person didn’t know was that the report was a task a.s.signed by Old Greyson himself. The subordinate didn’t just refuse the bribe, he also let Old Greyson know about
it.
Clearly, the Elsworth family had indeed sent someone to Las Vegas.
Were rich people nowadays all so short-tempered? Luke sneered.
Since it was impossible to bribe him, they had gotten the county police to follow him here and kill him. They were far more vindictive than Luke was!
Tailing the police cars, Luke recalled their questions just now. He himself was a professional when it came to interrogating a suspect for information.
Something hadn’t been right about the county officers’ questions. They didn’t care about the details of Steve’s case, and instead asked and verified where the incident had happened again and again.
That was highly unusual.
The location in this case wasn’t unimportant, but it was just a side detail. This was a random mountain in the wild without any landmarks; it wouldn’t be much of a difference if it had happened elsewhere.
Why did the county police care about the location so much?
The county police entered No. 37 Middle School’s campsite. Not long after that, they rushed out again and headed up the mountain.
Luke was even more puzzled.
Were these people really after him?
It was natural that they would search for Luke at the campsite when they failed to find him at the motel.
But why were they going up the mountain again? Did they think that Luke would escape there?
How was that possible?
Luke wasn’t really a fugitive. He was more likely to return to Los Angeles than to climb the mountain on such a stormy night if he didn’t want to get himself killed.
Frowning and thinking for a moment, Luke slowly followed them.Half an hour later, Luke arrived at Eden Lake Campsite. He saw the county police’s cars press forward without entering the place.
He kept following them. At this point, he was already certain that Lucas Barton’s objective might not necessarily be Luke, or they would’ve at least checked the campsite.
After driving another kilometer, he vaguely saw the two cars stop in the distance.
Thinking for a moment, Luke reversed the car into the trees next to the road and quickly put on his equipment in the car.
Tracking the faint and fragmented scents of the officers in the air, he followed them.
Their route suggested that they were here with a clear destination in mind.
Following the officers on a footpath for about five hundred meters, Luke saw a small cabin in the woods.
From the officers’ movements, Luke knew that these guys had already taken out their guns as they felt their way toward the cabin.