4. Chapter 4 - Cade
“You look like shit, Max.” I wait for the guard to close the door to the interrogation room before I drop my folder on the steel table in front of the handcuffed man.
“Cade?” Max’s eyes widen and his cheeks pale. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I flip the metal chair around to straddle it, crossing my arms over the backrest. “How’s that for old friends? Long time no see, stranger.” Squinting at him, I force my expression to remain neutral as I watch him.
This isn’t my first rodeo questioning a con, but I’ve never talked to someone I knew before.
“We ain’t friends,” he grumbles, dropping his gaze to the thick binder between us.
“Aw, come on, partner. Remember that time we all got hammered down at the swimming hole in Pine Pass and I had to stop the truck on the way home so you could puke out the passenger side?” I give him a lopsided grin, mostly because the right side of my face won’t lift the same.
It seems he’s in a similar predicament. “You and I both know what happened to me—” I jut my chin at him as I run my fingers over my scars. “What bear did you get tangled with?”
He scowls, raising his glare to stare at me. “Fucking, Ford.”
I had a feeling. It took me nearly two days to pour over the details of that Halloween night.
There were too many familiar names attached to the monstrous acts that unfolded behind the Hilltop bar.
I lean across the table. “Well, if you had kept your pecker in your pants, you’d have a prettier mug than me.”
When he sneers, I rock back with a chuckle. “So I know why you were there a few years ago. Why am I reading that you tried to kidnap a woman last week?”
That’s my cue to flip the pages of the folder open.
“Since when are you a cop? You’re the last person to be on that side of the law.” His wrists drop onto the steel surface making a hollow clang as he shifts closer. “After all, you’re the only one in this room who’s killed someone.”
The way he spits that last sentence carries enough venom in it to kill an elephant.
“Who were you trying to take the girl to?” I’m done talking about the distant past. I need to move up the timeline.
“Which one? I get all kinds of women.” The corner of his puckered lip twitches.
“Yea, I’m sure.” I flip through the pages until I find the parking lot of the Hilltop dumpster where Sarah’s body was found taken that night.
There’s still fresh bloodstains in the gravel.
Pulling it from the stack, I flip it so he can see it.
Ah, look at that smile fade.
“I think you only like ‘em when they’re screaming ‘no’, isn’t that right?” I also know from the file that somehow the evidence that tied him to this case got lost in transfer.
Imagine that.
“You can’t prove anything.” Some of the bluster fades from his words.
“Then I should let you go? I haven’t seen Ford in years, but I bet he’d let my old sins fall to the side if I mentioned you were getting free.” There’s nothing in the reports indicating that Ford has taken justice into his own hands.
But with the string of disappearances of the men who were accused or mentioned in Sarah’s rape and murder, I know him well enough to make an educated guess that most of them will never be found.
By the blown look of his pupils, I’d say he doesn’t like that idea.
“You can’t make me,” he stammers.
That has me laughing. “Looks like your momma, the judge, has already started pulling some strings.” I drop the facade into a serious expression. “Who were you taking the girl to?”
“I didn’t, though!” he protests, sitting straighter.
My teeth grit. “Because you’re a weak man, dropped by a kid in the parking lot. At least, that’s what her statement says.” I make a point of glancing down at the typed pages.
It wasn’t her that had said it, but he doesn’t know that.
His features cloud and his skin mottles. “Fuck you, no I didn’t. That bitch needs to shut her mouth.”
“Or what?” Blinking up at him innocently, I give him time to stew.
Max’s jaw works like he’s chewing on his tongue, then he finally shakes his head. “I’m done, asshole.”
With a shrug, I stand and slap the folder closed. “Just letting you know, your mom is under judicial review. All those ‘favors’ she called in? Permanently frozen.”
His dark eyes narrow, but then glass over with a smirk. “No biggie. I’m a tough son of a bitch.”
“Uh huh. Dragging women by their hair and getting taken out by a boy.” I shove my chair under the table and signal the guard. “Looks like you’ll be out of here in no time.”
“Wait, what?” He jerks forward, but I’m already out the door.
I can hear him calling after me as I walk down the concrete hall to the main gate.
As I’m checking out, I stop the officer on duty. “Do me a favor? Let him make a phone call tonight and send me who he calls?”
With a nod, the sergeant jots down a note.
“Thanks. See ya in a few days.” I have no doubts that I’ll be back to talk to Max, especially after I find out who he’s turning to for help.
By the next morning, the sound of my ring tone wakes me from yet another night of reliving the fateful accident that ruined my life.
“Pete?” I say groggily, covering my eyes against the sun.
“Your idea worked. Guess who he called?” he barks out without any pleasantries.
I let out a long exhale in the slim hope he fills in the gap.
I should know better. “Blue Man Group?” I finally give in to his game.
His snort is directly into the speaker. “Better. His cousin.”