6. Three Ways This Goes #2
I need to get to her before he knows I’m there.
I can feel every pair of eyes in the room on my back, waiting to see whether I crack, and Christ, I want to. I want to put my fist through the board. Every deputy. Every detective. Waiting to see whether their sheriff breaks.
I don't.
I leave the photograph where it is, even though every instinct I have tells me to pull it from the board and shove it into the inside pocket of my jacket where nobody else gets to look at her, but I force my hand to fall back to my side.
The board isn't there for me. It never was.
I don't need photographs connected by red string or timelines scrawled across cork to tell me who took her or what happens if I don't find her first.
It's there because one day somebody higher up is going to walk through those doors wanting answers.
Broadacre. The State Police. The FBI, if this reaches far enough.
They'll want to see an investigation that followed procedure, evidence catalogued properly, resources deployed, leads assigned, every decision documented by the book.
They'll want paperwork. They'll want structure.
They'll want to believe the sheriff in charge kept his head while everyone else around him was losing theirs.
They'll find exactly what they're looking for.
That's the trick to surviving this job. You learn very quickly that people rarely question what looks legitimate.
Give them organized files, signed warrants and incident boards covered in evidence, and they'll stop looking beneath the surface.
They won't see the phone calls that never make it into the log.
They won't know about the men I'll bring in because a badge doesn't make someone useful.
They won't ask where the information came from when it isn't written down anywhere they can trace it.
They'll see procedure, because procedure is comfortable, and comfortable people don't dig.
Let them believe I'm running an investigation.
The deputies need one. The county needs one. Anyone watching from the outside needs one.
I don't.
I already know where this ends.
Somewhere between finding Summer and putting Jackson Moore in the ground, the law is going to become a problem instead of a guide. When that happens, I'll do what I've always done. I'll make whatever decision brings her home first and deal with the consequences afterward.
If anyone ever asks, the paperwork will tell them I followed every rule, but I know Rivers Ridge isn’t on any map. To everyone else, it doesn’t exist. So I can burn the fucking place to the ground.
I don't realize Black's beside me until his hand settles on my shoulder. I don't look at him straight away. I already know what I'm going to find if I do, but when I finally turn my head, his expression confirms it.
Sympathy.
It sits strange on his face. Black isn't built that way. He's the man who keeps everyone else standing when the world goes to shit. The one who gets on with the job while everybody else is still trying to make sense of it. Seeing that look on him is worse than if he'd started shouting.
He doesn't speak. Smart man. Because the second somebody tells me they're sorry, or that we're going to find her, or that it'll be okay… I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do.
"Constance and Adelaide?" I ask, my voice so level it barely sounds like my own.
"They're still at the hospital," Black says. "Doctors want them overnight."
"As soon as they're cleared, I want them here."
"Yeah."
I turn to him properly. He looks like shit.
Eyes bloodshot. Stubble creeping over his jaw.
His shirt's a crumpled mess, and exhaustion hangs off him so heavily it changes the way he carries himself.
He's angry too. I can see it sitting just beneath the surface, looking for somewhere to land.
Not useless, but getting dangerously close if he doesn't get a grip on himself.
"Where are you at?"
He drags a hand over his face before letting out a slow breath. "Nothing solid."
My molars grind together hard enough to hurt.
"The butler's daughter. Sarah." I watch his face as I say her name.
"He says she's been to Rivers Ridge. Says that's where Summer will be.
" I glance back toward the map spread across the table.
"Problem is, it looks like fucking wasteland in the mountain terrain.
No roads. No buildings. Nothing that tells me why anyone would choose to hide out there.
" Silence settles between us. "It could be nothing," I say eventually.
"Could be a trap. But it's the only lead we've got. "
The possibility hangs in the room long after the words leave my mouth.
There's every chance the old man gave me exactly what Jackson Moore wanted me to hear.
Every chance we roll out to a stretch of empty land with nowhere to search and nowhere to run once the shooting starts.
But then I remember the look in his eyes when he said his daughter's name.
I've spent too many years sitting across from frightened people not to recognize the difference between rehearsed lies and the kind of terror that strips a man bare.
The fear in him wasn't calculated. It wasn't desperation born from self-preservation.
It was the fear of a father who believed he'd failed his child.
"Sebastian Vale," Black says. "We've been trying to track him. Last known location was Denver airport. That's the last place his Amex was used. Rumor has it he has contacts in Europe."
"A whole fucking continent doesn't exactly narrow it down, Black," I snap, shaking my head. He doesn't react.
My eyes find the board again. Find her. Summer.
The photograph catches her mid-smile, taken long before any of this. Before Jackson. Before blood. I stare at it for a long moment.
"I believe the butler," I say eventually.
"But we can't just storm the place. The second Jackson knows we're there, he either puts a bullet in her head or disappears again.
" My hand slams into the wall hard enough to rattle the frame beside it.
Pain shoots across my knuckles, but I barely register it.
"And then we're right back where we started. "
The room falls silent. My chest feels too tight.
"I need to get to her before he realizes I'm there." The words scrape against my throat. "I need one way in. One chance."
Black's eyes settle on the board beside me. His jaw locks so tightly a muscle jumps beneath the skin.
"Because if I only get one shot at this..." I swallow hard enough to hurt. "...I can't waste it."
He nods once.
"I've got three options," I say, more to myself than to him. "Only one gets me to her fast enough."