18. Char #2
I shook my head. “I need to hear you say it. You’ve seen the footage?”
A grin spread across her face. “Yes, I’ve seen the footage. And if Nielson here can pull off what he believes he can pull off, I won’t have one single issue with this if it gets taken to court.”
“If?” I asked.
Nielson smiled his toothy little smile. “Like she said, keep doing exactly what you’re doing and let us work things from this angle. Okay?”
I swallowed hard, but I forced myself to nod. I didn’t like not being in control. This was my plan. These were my boys. But bodies? The bodies were at the morgue? Being examined?
Clearly, something was being done right.
“Okay,” I said with a nod of my head, “okay. I can do that.”
“Now ask,” Nielson said. “I know you want to know how they are.”
I eyed him carefully before looking back over at my lawyer, and I thanked my stars that she was a woman of culture. She immediately clocked my wary stare, and she stood before picking up her briefcase.
“I think I’d like to go speak with Marcie. You know, get her take on this new development,” she said as she wiggled her eyebrows at me.
I snickered softly. “Try not to drop a house on her or anything.”
Abbie cupped her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter, but it didn’t stop her from collecting herself before she left the room. If compartmentalization was what we needed for all of this to pan out, then I’d play that game in style.
However, the second that door closed behind her, I wasted no time.
“How are the guys, Sheriff? Have you talked to them? Are they okay? None of them are here in the precinct, are they?”
He dragged his chair closer to the table before reaching across it. He gathered my hands in his, cupping them gently. As if a father were taking his daughter’s hands. I blinked back tears as I searched his face for answers. Why did it take him so long to open his fucking mouth?
“Nielson, please,” I whispered desperately, “just tell me how they are.”
He squeezed my hands before smiling at me. “They’re missing you. A lot.”
“They are?”
“Yeah, they are. But they’re more worried about you than anything.”
I blinked back more tears. I was so tired of crying all the time. “But they’re okay?”
“I’m making sure of it.”
I couldn’t help it as I lowered my voice to a whisper. “How in the hell did you get to Bait?”
He moved one of his hands away from mine and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“Deac hotwired an old excavator in a junkyard we’ve got about seven miles outside of town.
A bit of gas, a bit of grease, and it was good enough to drive out to the bunker so we could dig it up out of the sand the explosion dumped all over it. ”
My jaw swung open in shock. “They were there when you recovered his body?”
“They were.”
Dread filled my gut. “Was Rat there? Please tell me Rat wasn’t there to witness it.”
“Not the entire time. He popped by for a little while, but once we hauled out Bait’s body wrapped in towels?—”
The pain in my heart was unlike anything I ever experienced. Pieces. They brought that poor man out wrapped in towels… in pieces.
“It was hard for them,” Nielson said as he continued, “but it proved fruitful, and that’s given them a lot of hope. Hope that they needed badly. Hope that you now need.”
“I take it the other body you have with Dr. Agemon is Captain Murphy?”
“It is.”
“So what now? What do I need to do?”
Sheriff Nielson stood and threaded his thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans.
He hiked them up underneath his paunchy belly that had now sort of become his signature trademark.
He rolled his shoulders back and let his head fall forward.
The cracks and pops that came with that man’s body stunned me.
He offered me his hand. “Right now, you focus on what you’re doing and make sure you keep your head in the game. We’ve got good progress, but we aren’t out of the woods yet.”
I took his hand as he helped me stand. “I can do that.”
“And I’ll see what I can’t do about getting you a more comfortable chair to sit on.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“No?”
I pinned him with a look. “No. If we need to keep trucking with business as usual, then we can’t switch up the game now. I’m okay in that holding cell as long as I don’t have to piss myself again.”
He chuckled. “I have to admit, when you dig in, you really dig in.”
“I don’t have a choice. Marcie dug in first.”
“Damn right, the fucking bitch.”
My jaw hung open at his words and I clutched my heart playfully. “Why Sheriff, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use such language.”
“Where is that fucking psychiatrist!?” Marcie exclaimed outside.
“Special Agent Dickerson!” Commander Hadley bellowed. “Watch that language! We are guests in this house!”
“Then quit yelling across it,” Nielson muttered beneath his breath.
“I’m sorry, Commander. It’s just that?—”
“Interrogation room. Now.”
“But, sir?—”
“Now, Dickerson.”
I slowly looked over at Nielson and I found him looking back at me. The slamming of the door pulled our attention to the right, and I froze as I listened to their conversation.
Well really, we both listened.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, and I don’t like the fact that you don’t know what’s going on here, either. What bodies is that sheriff talking about? Who the hell is Dr. Agemon? What is going on, Dickerson?”
“Sir, I’m sure there’s a rational explanation to what’s happening. But I told you that this stuff is moving quickly, and it’s all very intertwined, and if Sheriff Bullshit?—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck if it’s so intertwined that it’s having children, sort it out and get me the facts that I need.
Because right now? All I see is a broken woman who keeps urinating on herself while the men my agent claims are guilty roam around as free men.
Get it together, or find me someone who can! ”
“Yes, Commander. Of course.”
“Now!” he bellowed.
“Ah,” Nielson said as Marcie rushed past our interrogation room without even looking inside, “music to my ears. Come on, I’ll get you back to your cell.”
I couldn’t have said it any better myself. “Lead the way, Sheriff Bullshit.”
And the look Nielson shot me forced me to take a second and gather myself.
Because I just couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled up the back of my throat.