Chapter 39
Present Day
Kara told Matt he needed to get an X-ray to confirm that his ribs weren’t broken and he wasn’t bleeding internally. Matt didn’t
want her to talk to Garrett Reid without him, but Michael assured them both that Kara wasn’t leaving his sight. So Matt let
Billy the paramedic take him to the hospital; Ryder joined him.
Kara got into a sedan with Catherine and Michael. Detective Fuentes and a deputy followed them. Catherine said, “Kara, I’m
staying in the car.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t respond well to me. He will to you.”
“Because I look like his dead girlfriend,” she said bluntly.
In the ambulance, Matt and Kara had been brought up to speed on everything that the team had learned about Garrett Reid and Clara Dolan.
Ryder had also uncovered information that, while Becca McCarthy’s remains hadn’t yet been found, the local police were very interested in the theory that Clara Dolan killed her and were putting the case back to the forefront.
They had boxes of potential evidence and video surveillance that they were going to reanalyze against Dolan’s photo and social media history.
Ryder had offered the FBI lab and expedited facial recognition processing if they needed it—but it would still take a few days.
Jim had driven to Clinch County with the Jacksonville ERT to take point on the crime scene—both the farmhouse and the abandoned
factory. Matt had given him a strict warning not to go inside the factory until it had been completely cleared, no matter
how long it took.
Now they were sitting in a sedan outside Garrett Reid’s apartment with Catherine insisting Kara was the only one who might
get Reid to talk. Kara wasn’t certain she believed Catherine, but she was willing to try.
“We’re going to find evidence of his involvement at the factory,” Catherine said. “It’s just a matter of time before we can
charge him with federal kidnapping, torture, and homicide since they transported their victims across state lines. He’ll be
an accessory to the kidnapping and attempted murder of Lily and Nathan Graves—Nathan is not yet twelve, so that’s special
circumstances felony endangerment of a child. Even if he didn’t know what her plan was, we can wrap him up in it. If he cooperates,
and we take Clara into custody, we can charge him as an accessory. He might get out in twenty years.”
“That’s bullshit,” Kara said. “He may not have been the instigator, but he participated in the murders of six people.”
“Ultimately, those decisions aren’t ours. We need to find this woman. She is wily and has the money to disappear.”
Kara understood making deals, she just didn’t like it. And Catherine was right—this wasn’t their call to make.
“I’ll do my best,” Kara said.
“I know you will.” Catherine hesitated, then said, “I’m glad that you and Matt were not seriously injured.”
“Me, too,” she said. Her leg was sore and still partly numb from a local anesthetic that Billy injected into her.
She had declined pain meds because they messed with her head, though she might take them tonight.
But Billy had done an amazing job on her leg and given her antibiotics, plus had the doctor call in a prescription that she’d pick up when she was done with Reid.
“Have you heard about Lily?” Kara asked before getting out of the car. “Is she going to be okay?”
“She regained consciousness,” Catherine said, “but they’re still running tests. She has internal bleeding and will likely
go into surgery. However, she has a severe concussion so I don’t know what their plan is at this point. Franklin, her husband,
is there now.”
“Good. She and Nathan are innocents. They should never have gone through that—it was pure psychological torture. But they
would have died in that house because Clara sabotaged it. She didn’t know when it would collapse, but she damn well knew it
would collapse. That’s all on Clara Dolan.”
“Yes, it was primarily psychological torture. All of the murders were psychological as well as physical. I think that was
what motivated her, twisting emotions. Setting up painful ways for her victims to die while keeping her own hands off them.”
Kara glanced at Michael. “All right, let’s do this. You good?”
“He makes one move toward you, I’m putting him down,” Michael said.
Kara grinned. “Good to know.”
Her leg felt like it had been put through a meat grinder, but she could walk slowly. Still, she accepted Michael’s arm as
a crutch.
Her phone vibrated. It was a text from Matt.
Nothing broken, three cracked ribs, one giant bruise. No internal bleeding. But they gave me an IV of fluids and vitamins and I feel like a half-million bucks. Come to the hospital when you’re done and I’ll get you one of these amazing IVs, too.
She chuckled and sent him a thumbs-up emoji. She wondered if he was on pain killers or just happy to be alive.
Michael knocked on Garrett’s door. “Who is it?” Garrett said from the other side.
“LAPD Detective Kara Quinn, aka Kara Costa, who you attempted to kidnap along with my pretend husband, FBI agent Matt Costa.”
The door swung open and he stared at her as if he was not only shocked that any cop would show up, but specifically surprised
to see her.
“What’d you think? That your wife killed me? Nope, though it was close. May we come in?”
“You, not him.”
“He’s going to insist. I suppose the three of us can chat out here, but it’d be much more comfortable in your place so the
neighbors don’t hear our conversation.”
She motioned to the apartment next to Garrett’s, where a kid and his mom were looking out the blinds at them.
“Fine,” Garrett said. He let them in and shut the door behind them. Michael stood like a rock next to the door, watching.
“I don’t have a lawyer anymore, but I still don’t have to talk to you.”
“No, you don’t. Would you mind if I sit down? My leg is killing me.”
He stared at the bandage around her calf, then motioned for her to sit on the couch. She took the chair instead.
“How’d you get hurt?”
“Like you don’t know,” Kara said.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Kara weighed giving him something, and decided that building a rapport would go a long way. She didn’t have to like him.
“Your wife—I still can’t believe you married that woman, she is a piece of work—shot Matt and me with a tranquilizer. By the way, she left one of the darts behind, which was really helpful for forensics to match with the other victims. But that’s neither here nor there.”
“Your coffee was poisoned,” Michael said from the door.
“My coffee?” Kara said. “Damn.” She almost forgot that she’d felt ill before the dart hit her. “How?”
“The mugs.” Michael glared at Garrett. Garrett averted his gaze back to Kara.
“Not me,” Garrett said.
But he knew. He had to have known. She didn’t say that. Instead, she said, “Your wife drove us across state lines to an abandoned
cannery in Clinch County, Georgia—a place I had never heard of. We woke up about twenty hours later. Matt in a break room,
me in an elevator. Long story short, it took us twenty-four hours to get ourselves out of the building.” She motioned to her
leg. “I did that running across the flooded factory floor when Matt fell from one of the sabotaged catwalks. By then, we knew
that there were booby traps all over the place, so we were super observant, tripped a few on purpose, and then bypassed the
net of bowling balls. Lucky there.”
He didn’t comment. Did he look impressed? She thought so.
“Did you know that your wife kidnapped a woman and her son in order to blackmail a lawyer into helping get you out on bail?”
“That’s on her, not me,” he said.
“You know what I think? I think it’s all on her. Yes, you were a willing and able participant. But she’s the psychopath.”
“Audrey is not a psychopath,” he said.
“She’s perfectly aware that her actions are crimes and she does them anyway.”
Garrett didn’t comment. He also didn’t turn away.
“Do I look like your ex-girlfriend Becca?”
He flinched, shrugged. “Not really.”
“I don’t think so either,” Kara said. “Becca was very cute. Really pretty. Smart. Beyond the superficial hair and eye color,
blonde and blue. Oh, and she was short, like me. She would have been thirty now, like you.”
“Do you have a point?”
“Do you know what happened to her?”
“The other fed has this ridiculous theory that Audrey killed her.”
“You mean Clara. Clara Dolan.”
“That’s what the female fed said. But I think she was pulling a name out of her ass.”
“Well, actually, Dr. Jones is right about Clara. Audrey. Your lawyer knew her as Amber. She was Hope at the resort. I wonder
what name she’ll use next?”
“My wife is Audrey Reid. Her maiden name was Audrey Dolan. Maybe this Clara is her sister, or you completely made her up.”
“Why weren’t you living together? Why did no one at the resort know you were married?”
He didn’t say anything.
“You and I both know that your life is pretty much over. You help us find your wife, you might see the outside of a prison
before you’re sixty.”
“There is no evidence against me.”
“You tried to kidnap me last Friday.”
He smiled and there was humor there. “I thought you and your husband were in trouble. I was trying to help.”
He knew she didn’t believe him, so she laughed. “Sure. Maybe that defense will work. But can you honestly tell me there is
not one cell of your DNA at the abandoned cannery?”
Again, silence.
“I don’t think you would have hurt anyone if it weren’t for your wife.
I think you would have been fine continuing to seduce older women and living the high life as long as you could.
And once you hooked up with Clara and started conning unsuspecting businessmen at resorts around the country?
I think you were okay with that, too. Some of them may have even deserved it.
You and Clara could have had a very nice life.
But when you turned to murder, you brought a whole lot more attention on yourselves.
By the way, Florida is a death penalty state. ”