Chapter 40
Jamie
One week later, Jamie once again wakes up in his room at the Grandview. Something still isn’t sitting right with him about
the case. Tess says she understands, but Jamie isn’t so sure. Their late-night phone conversations are becoming more and more
stilted, and it feels like they’re right back where they started.
Jamie crawls from the bed and slips on his shoes and a sweatshirt. He wheels his bike from the room and down the metal steps
and begins to ride toward the mountains.
In the dark his head begins to clear, and he thinks about the three women in Wes’s life he was determined to silence—Johanna,
Madeline, and Juneau. Wes is now a proven domestic abuser. Madeline had the injuries to prove that. The latest update is that
she is still in serious condition, and the doctors are doing their best to stop her labor. Juneau, though her remains have
never been found, most likely faced a similar ordeal at the hands of Wes. Jamie was beaten so badly by the person who had
taken Juneau that he had been unrecognizable.
It’s Johanna’s death that doesn’t fit the pattern. Wes was a hothead who used his fists and his feet to get his point across,
so why had he planted an IED? Wasn’t Wes more likely to isolate Johanna and make her disappear as he did Juneau?
By the time he finds himself back at the sheriff’s office, he’s no closer to answering those questions. He should feel good at being able to close two cases at once, and probably a third, but something doesn’t quite fit. He begins to read through Wes’s financials that Greta sent.
After two hours, the numbers are blurring, and all Jamie knows is that that the Drakes are obscenely wealthy. Tucked within
the documents is one sheet of paper with the letterhead of the Woodson County Courthouse at the top. It’s a quitclaim deed
that shows the transfer of property from an LLC called Mustang River Ridge to Lone Tree Ranch. He finds the signatures at
the bottom of the deed. For some reason, Dix Drake has deeded millions of dollars of land to his brother.
For the last week, he’s been spending hours each day reviewing security-camera footage from the hardware store in Snowcap
where the PVC piping, duct tape, and double-headed nails were purchased. Today’s no different, and for the next six hours
he watches the footage until he thinks his eyes are going to start bleeding. Finally an image appears on the screen. The video
isn’t the best quality, but it clearly shows the items being purchased and who is buying them.
Bingo. Jamie makes a call to Greta and asks her once again to contact the US assistant attorney to arrange for another search
warrant ASAP. Fifteen minutes later, Greta faxes him a copy of the signed warrant.
He makes another call. All he can do now is wait.
An hour passes, then two. Jamie grows antsy, wondering if by triggering the warrant he’s tipped his hand. But it can’t be
helped. They have to do things by the book.
“Agent Saldano.”
Jamie looks up to see Ruby standing in the doorway. “Dix Drake is here. He wants to know when his brother’s remains will be
released from the medical examiner’s office. They told him to call you.”
Wes’s brother. Jamie takes a deep breath. “Can you take him to one of the interview rooms?” he asks. “I’ll meet him in there.”
He stops in the restroom to splash cold water on his face in hopes of clearing the cobwebs from his head.
Carrying his laptop and a file folder, Jamie steps into the interview room and finds a large man sitting behind the table.
He is hunched over the cup of coffee that Ruby has given him.
“Mr. Drake, I’m Agent Saldano, and I’m sorry about your loss,” Jamie says, pulling back a chair and taking a seat in front
of Dix.
Dix looks at him, his face awash with grief. He looks like his brother, handsome but not as lean. He’s broad-shouldered and
thick-necked and has the physique of a man who does manual labor but drinks a lot of beer. He gingerly shifts in his seat.
Of course he must be in pain, Jamie thinks, remembering the man had to have his spleen removed because of the explosion.
“I just don’t understand,” Dix says helplessly. “The bomb and coming after Madeline like that. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“These things rarely do,” Jamie offers. “You didn’t know about the troubles Wes and Madeline had?”
“Not at all,” Dix says, shaking his head. “I mean, I knew Wes had a temper—he was my brother, I grew up with him—but he loved
Madeline, and I can’t imagine him hurting her that way.” Tears fill Dix’s eyes, and he wipes them roughly away. “Did they
really have to kill him?” he asks.
“All the evidence points that way,” Jamie says. “If they hadn’t stopped Wes, he would have killed Madeline and their baby.”
“God, the baby,” Dix says, as if just remembering his sister-in-law was pregnant. “Is the baby okay?”
“I don’t know,” Jamie says honestly. “I hope so.”
Dix clears his throat and runs a hand across his wide face. “So what do I do now? What are the next steps?”
“I just have a few follow-up questions for you about the explosion,” Jamie says.
“Certainly,” he says. “Whatever you need.”
“Since I’m questioning you, I need to read you your rights,” Jamie says.
“Why?” Dix asks, confused. “Wes did this. I didn’t have anything to do with what happened. I’m not under arrest, am I?”
“No, no,” Jamie says. “Nothing like that. It’s standard when we interview witnesses. It’s for your protection. If you’d rather
have your attorney present . . .”
“That’s okay,” Dix says with the wave of his hand. “I want to help.”
Jamie reads Dix his rights and then slides the land deed he discovered earlier in front of him. “Tell me about this.”
Dix stares at the paper for a long moment before speaking. “I deeded my brother a chunk of land. That’s all.”
“But why?” Jamie asks. “I looked but couldn’t find any actual bill of sale. You just gave your brother the land? It’s worth—what?—three
hundred thousand per acre?”
Dix shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “I’ve got plenty of land left from my father’s estate, and Wes wanted to expand the
horse-brokering business. I was happy to help.”
“That’s very generous,” Jamie says.
“I loved my brother,” Dix says, his voice cracking. “Now, is there anything else? I really need to make arrangements for Wes’s
funeral.”
“Just one more thing,” Jamie says, turning his laptop screen so Dix can see it. “Can you tell me what you were purchasing
PVC piping, duct tape, and nails for?” Jamie presses Play and watches Dix’s face as he sees himself on the screen placing
PVC piping and two rolls of duct tape on the counter.
“Wes asked me to buy those things. I didn’t have any idea what he was going to use them for.”
“Okay,” Jamie says, laying a piece of paper in front of Dix. “Could be. But right now your property is crawling with federal
agents looking for anything that could have been used to make the bomb that killed Johanna Monaghan.”
Dix’s face turns stony. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“I don’t think Johanna was the target,” Jamie says. “Your brother was, but Johanna went into the barn and accidently triggered
the trip wire.” Dix shakes his head but stays silent.
Jamie’s phone dings, and he lifts it to check his messages.
Found it. PVC, nails, duct tape, plus a notebook filled with notes. We got him.
Jamie smiles at Dix. “Dix Drake, you’re under arrest for the murder of Johanna Monaghan.”
“No,” Dix says, getting abruptly to his feet. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Turn around, and put your hands behind your back,” Jamie says.
“I didn’t do it,” Dix says, face taut and hands clenched. He tries to charge past Jamie, and the two go down to the floor
in a heap. The interview room door opens, and Sheriff Colson and Deputy Ladd appear. While he and Dix are the same height,
Dix weighs a good fifty pounds more, but Jamie is lither and faster and quickly pins his legs while Colson and Ladd hold down
his shoulders.
Jamie’s eyes lock on Dix’s fawn-colored, metal-tipped cowboy boots.
His blood freezes in his veins as he sees the face of an owl staring back at him.
Not an owl, Jamie decides. The engraving and stitching on the boots give the impression of a winged animal with black eyes.
He’s seen these boots before. Twenty-seven years ago, when Jamie lay broken and battered in a roadside ditch.
He saw these boots approach him, illuminated by the beam of his assailant’s flashlight, then pause before drawing back and striking him over and over and over in the head.
He feels the blood pooling in his head, his heart hammering in his chest.
They flip Dix over onto his back, handcuff him, and bring him to his feet. He is at least six-four with shoulders as wide
as a linebacker’s, and Jamie feels as small and vulnerable as the twelve-year-old he was nearly three decades ago. Everyone
is breathing hard, sweating.
“Nice boots,” Jamie says when he catches his breath. “Is that a bird on your boots?” He looks down at the metal tips. “An
owl?”
“A nightjar,” Dix says, glaring at him. “I get them custom-made.”
Wes Drake wasn’t his attacker. It was Dix Drake, his older brother. Jamie feels it viscerally. His once-broken jaw aches,
and his skull radiates with pain. He clutches the tabletop in front of him to keep from swaying but steps toward Dix. “I know
what you did,” Jamie says, staring into the man’s flat, emotionless eyes. “You killed her.”
They both know Jamie isn’t talking about Johanna Monaghan.
“Prove it,” Dix says with a smirk as Colson and Ladd lead him from the room.
Jamie knows it will be nearly impossible to prove, but he won’t stop trying. It had to be blackmail. Wes must have known that
Dix killed Juneau and nearly killed Jamie. How else would Wes have found Jamie half-dead in the overgrown ditch all those
years ago?
He’ll reinterview everyone who was in town at the time of Juneau’s disappearance, he’ll test every bit of evidence in search of a forensic connection, and he’ll find a way to search the Drake property until his sister’s body is discovered.
At least, Jamie thinks, they’ll get Dix for the murder of Johanna and he’ll go to prison for the rest of his life.
Took you long enough. He feels Juneau at his elbow.
“You could have just told me, you know,” Jamie says, and he can almost hear his sister’s laugh.