Chapter Thirty-Three
“Mr. Rogers is romancing Muriel?” émilie says over the sat phone as Dalton settles in beside me with Rory and a bottle.
“Seems so,” I say.
“Romancing her to get information on Haven’s Rock.”
“Mmm, yeah. She’s very aware of the déjà vu there. She came here after she was screwed over by a boyfriend, and now she’s been screwed over by her new boyfriend. She’s humiliated, and I don’t know what we’re going to do with her, but she’s definitely going to need some therapy.”
“No doubt,” émilie murmurs. “So Mr. Rogers seduced her to gather intel on the town.”
“I think he was trying to figure out what Haven’s Rock is. Muriel swears she never told him. She says he didn’t try too hard to figure it out. He only seemed interested in how we run, allegedly so he can apply it to his own settlement.”
“Bullshit,” Dalton mutters.
“Oh, I know,” I say. “He knew better than to just ask her what we’re doing here. He was trying to find out under the guise of asking for harmless operational data. émilie? Does this give us leverage?”
I swear I hear the smile in her voice. “I believe it does.”
I thought having one of the mining camp guards romancing Muriel would be valuable, but having it be the boss man himself? Priceless.
Rogers not only trespassed. He actively tried to uncover our secrets.
Sure, we did the same, but it’s going to be a lot harder for him to cry foul when he was doing it, too, using much more invasive methods.
What this gives us is personal leverage—against Rogers himself. Will it be possible to cull him from the herd? Speak to him separately without overtly threatening his employer?
That’s our plan. After getting the new information, émilie’s investigator has dug deeper and provided additional ammunition.
What we want to do now is negotiate. She’s instructed us on how to make it clear that we are protected by powerful forces.
Okay, those forces are émilie herself, but with her money and clout, it’s not an idle threat.
Rogers needs to know that killing us wouldn’t eliminate his problem, any more than killing him would eliminate the danger of the mining operation.
émilie wants Gretchen brought into Haven’s Rock, and we agree.
Not into the town itself, but to the hangar, where she can await a new pick up.
If Gretchen agrees, she’ll be flown to émilie, who will debrief her, which I presume means a combination of subtle bribes and subtler pressure to convince her to go along with the story émilie concocts.
The reason we want Gretchen here isn’t just for her own good. It’s for Anders and Yolanda. We need them here if things go south. We don’t want them isolated if things go south.
We summon them back by sat phone and prepare sleeping quarters at the hangar. Once they’ve arrived safely, we head off to visit our friendly neighbor.
Visiting Mr. Rogers isn’t as easy as knocking on his door. Technically, we shouldn’t know where that door is. We’re supposed to leave a message at a designated spot and wait for a response, but we’re sure as hell not doing that.
It’s late afternoon, which means his work crews should still be out. We skirt around the edge of the camp’s turf until we hear voices. Then we call out and tell the guard that we have urgent business with their boss.
We wait, staying just off their territory. There’s always the chance—a good one—that Rogers will blow us off, but relations have been smooth lately, and I suspect he won’t want to upset that by being an ass.
Twenty minutes later, someone appears on the path. It isn’t Rogers, though. It’s the Brit—the man we aren’t supposed to know about.
“Hello,” he says, extending a hand. “Paul Rutherford. I work with…” His lips twitch. “Mr. Rogers, you call him?” He rolls his brown eyes. “My colleague does love his cloak-and-dagger. I’ll grant him anonymity, though, and we’ll keep referring to him by that moniker.”
“I…” I try to look confused. “I’m sorry. We haven’t met you.”
The man—Rutherford—makes a face. “Corporate sent me. I’m one of those types—flown in to check out their operations.
Rogers is still here. Or at least he’s supposed to be.
” Irritation flutters over his face, quickly masked.
“It seems he has stepped out. I was told this meeting was urgent, so I came in his place.”
“Ah,” I say. “Okay. Well, no offense, but it really is something we’d like to discuss with him. It’s not immediately urgent. Just cause for concern on a matter we’ve already been discussing with him.”
“The hikers?” He frowns. “Are they still around? Rogers told me about that.”
“It’s related. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
That annoyance again, though it doesn’t seem directed at us.
“I wish I knew. He’s been MIA a few times since I arrived, though it’s usually early in the morning.
” He sighs. “I shouldn’t get snippy. I know it isn’t easy, having someone from head office visiting and peering over your shoulder, checking that all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed. ”
I glance at Dalton, who only shrugs. Then I say to Rutherford, “Can we make an appointment to see him?” I check my watch. “Maybe seven tonight? Here?”
“Certainly. I will convey the message. In the meantime, it was lovely to meet you both.”
Dalton and I don’t talk after we leave Rutherford. We walk in silence until I murmur, “I’d like to check out that clearing again. Where the miner was buried.”
Dalton looks at me.
“I want to see what we can spot from the area. Would they have seen Blake? How well would they have seen him? That sort of thing.”
“Good idea.”
We veer in that direction, and as we draw close, we hear the tramp of footsteps.
We stop short, hands dropping to our guns just as Rogers rounds the corner.
He’s obviously distracted, so much so that he doesn’t even notice us until Dalton clears his throat.
Then his head jerks up, and he blinks before he pulls on his cloak of authority.
“Yes?” he says. “May I help you?”
I look around. “We’re allowed to be here. It’s neutral territory.”
“Of course.” He nods. “Good day then.”
“We actually just left your colleague, Mr. Rutherford.”
The faintest reaction. Almost a flinch. I suspect Rutherford has arrived at a very bad time, while Rogers is busy putting out fires.
Fires Rutherford isn’t supposed to know about?
Spying on our settlement.
Murdering an employee.
Killing a so-called hiker and hunting down his wife.
No wonder Rogers looks as if he’s missed a few nights’ sleep.
As I think that, I realize it’s the first time I’ve seen his eyes. He always wears sunglasses, no matter how overcast the day.
Now, as if he’s reading my thoughts, he flips out his shades and snaps them on.
“Yes?” he says, with impatience, as if I’m keeping him from leaving.
“Mr. Rutherford had to come and speak to us because no one could find you.”
“I said I was going for a walk. I checked in with the duty guard as I left.” He pauses. “You were looking for me?”
“Yes.” I meet his eyes—or the lenses of his sunglasses, at least. “It’s recently come to our attention that your town employs some very unique workers, and that concerns us.
As you know, we have civilians—including vulnerable ones—in our settlement, and now we discover that our neighbors are running a prison work camp. ”
“A what?”
“Your miners are convicts. American convicts.”
He leans back. “You do realize we are in Canada, yes?”
“I do.”
“I know people in your country can have a very distorted view of mine. Yes, we have private prisons. No, we cannot open a work camp in a foreign country. There are laws against that.” His tone is dry, even sardonic. Mocking us.
“I know,” I say. “Which means it would be illegal, and that’s an even bigger concern.
” I lift my hands. “We don’t care about the particulars.
We just care about ensuring the safety of our residents.
We already had a serious incident, resulting in a traumatized young boy, because your operation employed a convicted pedophile. ”
“That situation was resolved before anything happened, yes?”
I give him a hard look. “He was kidnapped.”
I brace for him to argue that no assault took place, but he glances to the side, as if he realizes that’s not the point.
“Yes, of course,” he says. “I apologize. However, I did warn you.”
“After the fact, you warned that you didn’t screen for things like pedophilia because you’re in an environment without children. You didn’t warn me that you had actual pedophiles. Incarcerated pedophiles, as well as rapists, murderers—”
“Now you are letting your imagination run wild. As I said, we are not—”
“Owen Day,” Dalton says.
Rogers jumps at his voice, telling me he’s not nearly as calm as he seems. He looks over. “Excuse me.”
“Owen Day. That’s the name of the pedophile who kidnapped our boy. Neil Hansen. That’s the name of a rapist and murderer you also employed. Both were currently incarcerated, with Hansen serving a life sentence.”
Rogers goes quiet. He’s thinking, and when his gaze slides to one of us, it’s to Dalton.
“I believe we had a man by that name, though I don’t know his particulars,” Rogers says. “Like Mr. Day, he is no longer with us.”
Dalton snorts at that.
“Mr. Hansen is not part of our current team,” Rogers says, mistaking Dalton’s snort for disbelief.
“As I said,” I continue, “our interest is in securing our town and residents. The reason we wanted to speak to you alone is that you personally broke our agreement.” I look up at him again.
“You’ve been spying on our town. Trespassing on our territory, to the point of being close enough to see our settlement. ”
His brow furrows. Then it smooths. “If you are telling me that one of our men has been on your land, then I can categorically say that is untrue.”
“Because you’re tracking them with GPS chips?”
His mouth opens. Shuts. And he decides to say nothing.
“There’s a loophole, though,” I say. “One person that I presume isn’t being tracked. You.”