Chapter 18
Sawyer waited in a San Francisco Starbucks while Cash ambushed his friend, Ken, outside the Phillip Burton Federal Building on Golden Gate Avenue.
The coffee shop was the closest Cash would let Sawyer get to the courthouse. Even so, Sawyer was grateful for the concession.
Afterward, they were meeting Cash’s parents, Aubrey, and Ellie for dinner.
Cash had grown up in the West Portal neighborhood, eighteen miles away from the federal building.
His dad—Sawyer’s uncle—was a retired SFPD homicide lieutenant.
Law enforcement ran through the family’s blood as much as ranching.
Sawyer stared out the window, sipping his third cup of coffee, wondering what was taking so long. Cash had been gone nearly two hours.
He checked his phone in case Cash had tried to call or text.
And while he was at it, he scrolled through his Gmail account for a message from Gina.
He hadn’t heard from her in days, not since they talked on the phone.
According to his mother, Gina was holed up in a hotel because the paparazzi had made it impossible for her to stay in her own home.
Maybe she’d come back to Dry Creek Ranch, maybe she wouldn’t. Sawyer told himself he was beyond caring. Unfortunately, he’d never been a good liar.
On a lark, he’d called that blogger friend of his who worked for Eater and left a message. Sawyer wanted to run a few things by him on the latest tabloid BS that Gina and Danny were engaged. What a joke. Why didn’t these asshats check their facts?
He glanced at his watch again and peered outside at a group of tourists in shorts and freshly purchased fleeces from Fisherman’s Wharf to keep them warm.
“The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” The quote had been attributed to Mark Twain, but no one knew if he’d actually said it. Regardless, there’d never been a truer statement. Even in August.
Occasionally, the sun would peek out from the overcast sky and heat the City by the Bay for a few hours. Then, back to the fog. It was as different from Los Angeles as the West Coast was to the East Coast.
Although Sawyer had been raised in Beverly Hills, he liked San Francisco better. The people were more interesting, the city was more diverse, and more important, it was closer to Dry Creek Ranch.
His phone dinged with a text and he quickly put down his coffee.
On my way, Cash had written. That was it. No hint of what he’d found out, which Sawyer assumed was nothing. Two hours of wasted time, though he’d managed to send his article off to his editor and had made deadline. At least by California time.
Six minutes later, Cash came through the door. He’d dressed for the city. No cowboy hat; just jeans, boots, and a windbreaker, tossed over his arm.
“Well, you get anything?” Sawyer stood, but Cash motioned for him to sit back down.
“I want to do this before we meet with my folks.” He eyed Sawyer’s coffee. “Hang on a second.”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
Cash ignored him and joined the coffee queue behind a kid with purple hair and enough piercings to open his own earring shop. Sawyer would’ve given Cash his cup. Another sip and he’d swim home.
Cash returned with a frappuccino and Sawyer rolled his eyes.
“There’s something to the email.” He sat next to Sawyer at the counter. “Ken was tight-lipped at first…afraid someone might see us together. Maybe waylaying him outside the federal building wasn’t such a good idea. Especially because I’m persona non grata around there.”
“I would think you’d be a goddamn hero after what went down.”
Cash had tried to save the Bureau’s ass on a serial-murder case that had consumed the nation.
The killer had targeted female joggers in the Presidio.
Naturally, the Bureau’s top brass wanted to tie up the case in a neat little bow as fast as possible.
They didn’t want a serial killer tainting a national treasure.
Despite Cash’s warning that they had the wrong guy, his bosses made an arrest anyway.
The problem was Cash was right. The guy they’d nabbed was a scumbag to be sure—an ex-con with a rap sheet for sexual assault—but not responsible for the Presidio killings.
Cash shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anyway. What Ken learned is classified.”
Ah, jeez. It was just as Sawyer suspected. Whoever Angie had gotten caught up with was being investigated by the feds. What the hell had his sister gotten herself into?
“Is she alive? Please tell me he at least told you that much.”
Cash blew out a breath. “He wouldn’t go there. But what I was able to wheedle out of him was that the email address is a burner used by the US Marshals Service.”
“How do they fit in?” Sawyer asked, perplexed. Marshals provided security in the federal courts, transported criminals, apprehended fugitives, forfeited assets, and performed tactical operations. What on God’s earth did they have to do with Angie?
“So it wasn’t Angie reaching out, it was someone from the US Marshals Service with a wrong email address?” He tried not to sound flip but it didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense.
“I may be wrong here but, yeah, I suspect it was her.” He pinned Sawyer with a look, waiting for him to catch on.
“WITSEC?” Sawyer exhaled, because the US Marshals Service also relocated witnesses in important federal cases. He tried to wrap his head around the implications. “You think she’s been in the Witness Protection Program all these years?”
“Not all of them, not if you believe she was on that Taos commune two years ago. But she may be in WITSEC now. It’s the only thing I can come up with that would involve the marshals. And when I asked Ken point-blank, he got real squirrelly.”
“Classified. That’s what he told you?”
“Yep.” Cash tilted his head to the side. “WITSEC is about as classified as you can get, short of national security.”
“Holy shit.” Sawyer scrubbed his hand over his eyes. “What about the first three years she was missing?”
Cash shrugged. “Don’t know. Clearly, she was involved in something she shouldn’t have been. Something dangerous.”
“You make it sound as if she was running around with the mob. This is Angela. The same Angela who spent a year in Japan, protesting the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji. The same Angela who chained herself to a Shell oil drilling rig in New Zealand. The same Angela who thinks she can change the world. Not Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano.”
“WITSEC isn’t just for gangsters, Sawyer. These protest groups may seem benign, even heroic, but some of them are breaking the law. Some are even committing acts of domestic terrorism. The feds take that shit seriously.”
“So Angela turned state’s evidence against the followers of the Dalai Lama?” Sawyer didn’t know why he was reacting with such vitriol and sarcasm. If Cash was right, he should be thanking his lucky stars that his sister was alive.
Safe.
“Don’t kill the messenger.” Cash took a sip of his Frapuccino, put the cup down, and hitched his shoulders. “I don’t even know for sure that this is the case. It’s only a theory.”
“How can we confirm it?” Sawyer had sources on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He didn’t like to use his influence as a journalist for personal reasons, thought it was unethical. But for the sake of his family he would. He would move mountains if it meant getting his sister back.
“I’ll make a few calls. Ken’s a mid-level analyst. I doubt he even knows the full story. More than likely he set off alarm bells when he traced the email to the marshals and was told to keep his nose out of it. There are higher-ups who owe me favors. Let’s see what strings I can pull.”
Sawyer started to say “thank you” and stopped himself. Cash had been right to complain the last time Sawyer had thanked his cousin. This is what the Daltons did. They looked out for one another.
Cowboy strong.
“This is good news.” Sawyer chucked Cash on the shoulder. His findings filled Sawyer with so much hope that he’d nearly wrapped his cousin in a bear hug. But not in the middle of a Starbucks.
“We don’t know that yet,” Cash cautioned. “This is merely speculation. But we’re on the right track. I feel it in my bones.”
Cash had always had good instincts. That’s why he’d been such a successful agent in the FBI. And now, a badass investigator for the Bureau of Livestock Identification.
“How soon until we know more?”
“I’ll do my best, Sawyer. But greasing the right wheels takes time. In the meantime, let’s not tell my folks. My dad’ll go apeshit and start making a lot of noise. This needs to be done quietly, with discretion.”
Sawyer nodded. “Until we know more, I won’t say anything to my folks, either. I don’t want to dare to hope yet.”
“And even if it’s true, Sawyer, the likelihood of a big, happy family reunion is next to nil. For her own safety, she may have to stay lost to us forever.”
The answers could be bittersweet for sure. But Sawyer could only focus on one thing at a time. Right now, proof of life would be a major victory.
* * * *
The next day, Sawyer returned to Dry Creek Ranch. Cash, Aubrey, and Ellie stayed behind to take advantage of summer vacation and spend a few more days in the city. His aunt and uncle wanted to take Ellie to the zoo and to Alcatraz.
He’d been invited to stay but had declined, yearning to get home and begin hunting down the US Marshals’ lead. Cash wasn’t the only one with friends.
He pressed his back against the lumbar support of his leather seat to soothe the ache from sleeping on his aunt and uncle’s sofa sleeper.
All night, a metal bar had pressed against his vertebrae.
He’d offered to get a hotel room but his family wouldn’t hear of it.
And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t slept in lots worse places.
Besides, it had been a fun evening. They’d all stayed up late, playing a rousing game of Texas Hold’em, eating popcorn, and sipping his uncle’s killer martinis.
Ellie, of course, had stuck with grape juice.