33. Hailey
Hailey
T he journey down the mountain is uneventful.
Dean and Reed lead the way, taking turns with a still-moaning Sinclair over their shoulders, though he remains wrapped up in the sleeping bag, for now at least. In the middle comes a very tired and sleepy Grace, carried in the gentle, loving arms of her daddy, Lennon.
I follow at the rear with my now fairly empty rucksack.
When we reach the yard, Dean—who happens to be carrying Sinclair at this point—dumps him into the back of their truck, whilst Reed heads to the outbuilding with the carryall to clean and put away their equipment, and once he's checked on Sinclair to make sure he's secure, Dean joins him.
Meanwhile, Lennon heads inside with the by-now fast asleep Grace, and I follow suit. Lennon turns on the light switch, and we both blink rapidly after so much time in the dark. I glance at the clock on the wall—four-thirty. There is already a glow in the sky to the east. What a night.
Grace stirs as Lennon puts her down in a chair. She opens her eyes, blinks at the kitchen and says "I'm hungry, Daddy." Then she closes her eyes again, already drifting back to sleep. Lennon and I smile at each other. It's been quite a night for her—no wonder she can't stay awake, hungry or not.
"She needs to be in bed." Lennon looks up from watching her—he's hardly taken his eyes off her since they came across us in the forest, except to carry her—and nods his agreement.
He picks up his little girl again, and heads towards her bedroom.
I decide to stay here. Give him some one-to-one time with his daughter, I think to myself.
So instead, I busy myself in the kitchen.
Grace probably isn't the only one who's hungry by now. The boys are going to want to eat.
I decide on a mac and cheese—it's easy to make, they have all the ingredients, and I happen to know the boys love it.
I put the oven on to heat up, and start getting out the ingredients and equipment.
Soon I am immersed in making bechamel sauce and grating plenty of cheese.
Within fifteen minutes, everything's ready, and I place the large dish into the oven to bake.
The mix of mozzarella for texture and gruyere for flavor, combined with the panko breadcrumbs and plenty of butter on top for browning is going to be killer.
By the time Dean and Reed are done, the mac and cheese is ready. I go get Lennon from where he is sitting in Grace's room, watching her sleep, and the four of us sit down to eat.
The men all fall to, and for a few minutes there is no sound except that of forks scraping on plates and steady munching. "God, this is good." Reed gives me a 'chef's kiss' of appreciation. "Is there any more?"
"Help yourself." I pass him the dish and serving spoon, pleased to have been able to contribute in some way to the night's activities, other than by accident. "So, what happens now? What are you going to do with Sinclair?"
"Sinclair? Oh… yeah… him. I dunno. What's the plan with Sinclair, boss?"
Dean pauses between mouthfuls. "We'll have to talk to him. Find out what he knows, understand why all this is happening. Then we'll get rid of him."
I look up, startled. "Get rid of him? You don't mean?—"
"No, no, nothing like that. I mean get him off our property. Send him back to his friends."
When our very late supper is over, Dean and Reed head back outside to get Sinclair. They bring him into the kitchen, still bundled up in my sleeping bag, and shove him into a chair.
"Urgh. He doesn't smell too good." I wrinkle my nose in disgust.
"Pissed himself." Reed chimes in, cheerfully.
"I couldn't help it." Sinclair almost spits his words out, he's so incandescent with rage.
"I kept asking to be let out of this fucking sleeping bag, but none of you listened.
And that… that bitch there maced me. Right in my face.
I'm blinded for life. I need to get to a hospital.
I am going to sue every single one of you for— oomph! " Dean drives a fist into his stomach.
"Mind your manners. She ain't a bitch. In fact, she's got more balls than you'll ever have, Sinclair."
Sinclair looks up at Dean, with what can only be described as hatred in his puffy, red, streaming eyes. But there's fear there, too.
"You wanna make it outa here alive, Sinclair?
'Cos we've got two ways this can go. We got the easy way…
and we got… the other way. It's a big old forest up there.
Plenty of predators and scavenging animals.
They'll most likely never find your body.
Well… not intact, anyway. Just parts… you know, an arm, or a foot still in its boot. That what you want?"
Sinclair turns green, and I must admit, I start to get concerned, until Reed catches my eye and winks at me, out of eye shot from Sinclair.
So this is a game. A way of getting the information they want.
I relax a little. I mean—arguably the guy deserves to die.
He kidnapped a four-year-old girl for crying out loud. But still…
"Alright, alright." Sinclair spits. "Waddaya wanta know?"
"That's my boy!" Dean is smiling now. "But first, let me get my cell phone's 'record a memo' app up and running, so we can keep a copy for our future reference, okay?
" Dean fiddles with his phone for a moment, then says, "Okay, Sinclair, we're good to go.
When I hit record I wanna hear you start confessin'. Got it?"
Sinclair nods.
"Good. Start with your full name, and tell the recording that you're giving this statement of your own free will, and no one is forcing you to do it.
Then tell us what you did and why you did it.
We'll keep this recording as our little insurance policy, in case you ever get any funny ideas in the future, alright?”
Silence.
"Well? Need another reminder?" Dean half stands up, but Sinclair quickly responds.
"Okay, okay, I'll do it. Just don't hit me again. And please, throw some water in my eyes. I'm in agony, and I can't see nothing."
Dean takes a saucepanful of water and throws it into Sinclair's face, then wipes the worst of the mace off with a cloth. Sinclair looks a mess, his eyes are a burning red. He's blinking rapidly, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"He needs a doctor—" I begin, but Dean cuts me off with his hand.
"He can have a doctor. He can have anything he wants… as soon as he's finished talking."
Half an hour later, and we have Sinclair's full confession on tape.
How he'd got himself into debt, and the only way out that he could see was to stop farming and build a far more lucrative hotel and leisure resort on the land, but the Ute objected to his planning submission, so he decided to try and get their piece of land off them too, especially since it had the lake on it, which would make a perfect additional attraction for boating, fishing and swimming.
He'd gone ahead and made up a fraudulent court case to prove the Ute never owned that land, which he'd lost, due to my father.
That made him hopping mad. It was personal now, and he vowed to get his hands on that land somehow one day, but over time the whole thing had kinda blown over, and was no longer such a burning issue.
Then I'd come along and stirred all his emotions up again.
Reminded him of what could have been his.
What he thought should have been his. He renewed his determination to get that land for himself.
First he'd tried to buy it off me cheap, then he'd paid the Sheriff to try to bribe the boys into signing a document to take to court to prove the land was his all along.
When that didn't work, he'd snatched Lennon's kid, Grace, thinking to use her as a bargaining weapon to force the three men into signing, and not realizing their SEAL background.
We got it all down, then we checked it by listening back on the cell phone.
A full confession. Would it stand up in court, if Sinclair said he'd made it under duress?
Probably not, but it would at the very least beg questions, and not too much scraping around would soon uncover the real truth.
I didn't think either the boys or I had to worry too much about Sinclair—nor the Sheriff for that matter.
We had Sinclair's confession that he paid off the Sheriff, and we'd recognized one of his men on the mountainside this evening.
No, the Sheriff and Sinclair would not want to stir up any more problems for us, I felt sure. So then… what to do about Sinclair?
"What are you gonna do with him?"
"It's what… forty-five miles into town, give or take? He's an adult, he can manage that."
"Hey! You can't make me walk into town in the state I'm in. I'm still almost blind. My legs have stopped working. I need medical treatment."
"Alright, alright. Here's what we'll do. Me'n Reed'll drop you off in town right now, and then you can take things from there yourself, okay?"
So that's what they did. They picked him up, still in my sleeping bag—which by this stage I definitely didn't want back—and bundled him into the back of their truck, drove to town, and literally threw him out, outside the police station.
He'd been bound and gagged and Dean had left a note attached to him which read:
We found this vermin trespassing on our property earlier. If it comes on our land again I won't be held responsible for what happens. Goes for you too, Sheriff. The rest of your gang are tied up at the old Steadfast silver mine. Let’s hope you can reach them before the coyotes do.
It's seven in the morning now, and the sun is up.
We're all tired, but not sleepy, still stoked from all the adrenaline and stress of the last few hours.
Can it only be twelve hours since we got that panicked call from Marsha?
It seems like a whole week has gone by, the amount of stuff that's happened.