Chapter Twenty
Kelsey Collins entered the Colorado Correctional visitors’ area right when it opened that afternoon.
Bree wasn’t surprised when none of the guards who had checked her in a few days ago recognized her.
Her brown hair was tucked up under a short blond wig.
Her freckles were covered by a pound of makeup.
Her whole posture was different than how she normally carried herself.
And they all matched the ID she’d handed the guard as she checked in. The guard had scanned it and handed it back to her when it came back clean.
Bree had not doubted it would.
Tanner, on the other hand, was a half step above a nervous wreck waiting out in the car.
For a few minutes—especially when she’d come out of the bathroom in full Kelsey Collins gear—she hadn’t thought he was going to let her do this.
Could almost see him trying to find a way that he could take the risk on himself rather than allow her to do it.
The fact that he really didn’t want her doing this had actually made her desire to do it even greater. She could practically feel Tanner’s concern and need to protect her surrounding her like a cocoon.
It was...nice.
So much more than nice. It was what she’d been waiting for her whole life and never thought she’d find.
Damn it, she wanted to help clear Tanner’s name so they could go on that getaway he’d talked about. Whoever this master puppeteer was, he needed to be stopped, not only because of all the bad murderer stuff but because he was getting in the way of Bree’s love life.
She’d never had one before, and now that she did, she was tired of waiting.
Bree kept her Kelsey Collins persona wrapped around her as she walked to an empty visitors’ table, just a couple down from where they’d met with Carrico last time.
She refused to let her fears—not that she would get hurt, but that she wasn’t capable of doing this—get the best of her.
She would talk to Carrico, study every bit of his nonverbal behavior that she could and get the answers she needed.
The Kelsey Collins disguise didn’t fool Carrico very long. He hadn’t been across from Bree more than a few seconds before his eyes narrowed.
“You’re looking a bit different than the last time I saw you, cop lady friend, not that I mind the blond. Where’s Mr. Cop today? You decide to trade up for a real man?”
Carrico was slouched in his chair, face set in a half smirk. Bree forced herself to look deeper at the man, beyond the surface conceit and attitude. To study him the way Tanner would if he was here.
Carrico’s thin face was even more gaunt than it had been a few days ago. Dark circles had taken up residence under his eyes. The man was worried. Not nearly as flippant as he pretended to be.
She needed to get through to him and keep him from becoming defensive. Otherwise he’d never talk to her. She didn’t have any sort of interrogation training. She barely had any sort of conversation training.
She decided to go with what she did have: the truth.
“I owe you some thanks. Because of you I figured out I was in love with Tanner.”
One of his eyebrows shot up almost comically. “And how is that, exactly?”
“Because after we left here three days ago, Tanner planned to help you with your situation regardless of whether you’d given him any useful information to help him out or not.”
Carrico shrugged, not looking impressed.
“Tanner has his own problems,” she continued.
“Believe it or not, ones just as big as yours, but he still planned to help you—even though he doesn’t know you and you acted like a complete jackass when we talked last. He wants to help you because that’s just the type of person Tanner is.
Someone who does the right thing, even when it doesn’t benefit him personally. ”
He’d done that with her, too. Risked everything to protect her and get her out of a situation where she would’ve died.
Tanner Dempsey was courageous, strong, smart and just a little bit broken. Bree didn’t know a lot about feelings, but she knew with absolute clarity that she was in love with him.
“Yeah, well, I’m still going to Colorado State Penitentiary, so I’m not feeling like your boy is such a golden angel.”
She leaned forward. “He has to get himself out of trouble before he can help you. But he will help you, Darin.”
“My brother says not to trust cops. Not to talk to anyone else.”
“Believe me, I know what it’s like to trust no one but yourself. But I promise you, if Tanner can get himself clear of his own charges, he will do what he can to help you. Don’t you want to be able to know you did everything you could to be able to see your daughter?”
He didn’t say anything, but she felt like she was getting through to him.
“I can tell you’re not sleeping well—I know that feeling, too.
Staying awake, trying to figure out if you missed anything.
If anything can be done to change the situation you’re in.
I know what it’s like to sit alone with my own desperation, Darin.
Tanner will help you. He’s a man of his word. I’ve bet my whole life on it.”
He let out a sigh and leaned in toward the table. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“Why was Dr. Michalski here last week?”
Darin shrugged. “He was my last resort. I knew he’d talked to both Anders and Newkirk, and that he was part of the reason they’d gotten paroled early.
I never could get Dr. Michalski to come talk to me, though, to see if there was anything that could be done about my transfer.
Finally, my brother Glen convinced him.”
“Do you know how Glen convinced him?”
“Not really. Maybe used the cancer card.” His face tightened in grief. “Glen has Stage IV lung cancer. So maybe he played on the doc’s sympathy.”
Stage IV cancer. That would explain why Glen had looked even more gaunt than Darin when she’d seen him.
“Did Dr. Michalski say anything about Tanner when he was here?”
Carrico rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding? No. The guy would barely even talk about my situation. All he wanted to know was about how Glen knew his wife. How the hell am I supposed to know that? All I know is about what’s in here. Glen has his own life.”
This was it. The piece they’d been missing. “Glen knows Dr. Michalski’s wife? How?”
He snorted. “I can’t really keep track of my brother’s whereabouts from in here. But whatever. I think they both work in the courthouse together or something. Both of them do IT computer stuff.”
Which meant Glen could definitely have been the one to hack Dr. Michalski’s files.
“Do you think Glen tried to blackmail Michalski into coming to talk to you?”
The rest of Darin’s tough-guy facade fell away. “Glen has taken care of me since we were kids. He hates that I’m in here. He was helping my ex take care of Sharon, my daughter, sending them money and stuff. Keeping an eye on Sharon and making sure my ex treats her right.”
“He sounds like a good guy.”
“He’s the best. But now with the cancer, he’s...
” Darin trailed off, shrugging, obviously unable to say the word dying.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.
Especially once they send me to max security, he won’t be able to visit because he’s so sick.
He didn’t say that, but I could tell. And he’s only got a couple months left anyway. ”
It wasn’t difficult to see Glen was pretty damn sick. “So he got Dr. Michalski here to talk to you to see if he would recommend an earlier release for you like he had Newkirk and Anders.”
Darin nodded. “I wasn’t even hoping for early release, just maybe to see if he could get me kept here.”
“Did Dr. Michalski mention an Owen Duquette when you talked to him? Or do you know him?”
There was no light of recognition in Darin’s eyes. “No. Who is he?”
She shook her head. “Nobody important. So you don’t know how Glen finally got Dr. Michalski here to visit?”
“Nope. All I know is that the good doctor sure as hell wasn’t interested in helping me with my situation.”
Bree had been wrong. It was Glen Carrico they needed to talk to, not Darin. But there was still one thing that didn’t make sense—those emails she’d discovered with the cipher. The more she talked to Darin, the less sense it made.
She decided to come at it from a side angle rather than directly. “How old is Sharon again? Do you get to talk to her a lot right now? Phone? Email?”
Darin rubbed his hand across his face. “She’s four. We talk a little on the phone—twice a week. No email, but that’s probably more me than her.”
“You guys don’t get email in here?”
“No, we do, but computers are Glen’s jive, not mine. I haven’t touched one since I’ve been in here.”
She stared at him. Was he lying? She didn’t think so but couldn’t be sure. What he was saying made more sense than the complexly coded emails that seemed to have come from him. “Never? You’ve never emailed any friends or former associates? Your brother?”
Darin shook his head. “Nah. They know to call me if they want to talk. I can’t type worth a damn.”
It was time to ask him straight up. “So you never sent anyone a message about Anders or Newkirk?”
“Why does everybody care about them so much? I barely knew the guys when they were here, much less now. I can’t even remember what Anders looks like.”
“Everybody cares because they’re both dead. Murdered.” She hoped she wasn’t making a big mistake by telling him this.
Darin’s eyes got wide before he sank back hard against his chair. “They are?” Panic fell over his features. “Wait—do the cops think I had something to do with it?”
She shook her head. “Actually, the cops suspect Tanner did it.”
He relaxed a little. “Oh. Your man does have some pretty big problems, then. Why are you asking me about them?”
Bree believed Darin was legitimately surprised at the news of their deaths. “You’re the only other person who seemed to know them both, besides Dr. Michalski and Tanner. I was hoping you could remember talking to anyone about them.”
“No, only to Glen when we were trying to figure out a way to keep me here, rather than going up to state pen. I just remembered that Anders and Newkirk had both made deals that had gotten them out early.”
Glen again. Time was running out, and they needed to talk to him.
“That other guy you mentioned. Duquette. He dead, too?”
There didn’t seem much point in lying. “Yes. Unfortunately.”
He whistled through his teeth. “Then no offense, but glad I don’t know him.”
Even though it went against her nature, she reached over and touched Darin’s hand. “I’ve got to go. But I promise Tanner will look into what’s going on with your transfer.”
“Sounds like your man has trouble enough of his own to worry about.”
She nodded and let go of his hand. “He does. But I’m going to make sure that gets cleared up. And once I do, he won’t forget about you.”
He just gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I won’t hold my breath. I’ve been forgotten by damn near everyone.”
Before she could say anything further, he stood and walked toward the door.
THE HOUR brEE was inside the prison was one of the longest of Tanner’s life. He alternated between cursing himself for allowing her to do this at all and remembering that she was a genius and had handled circumstances worse than this since she was twelve years old.
Still, seeing her walking toward him with her unnaturally blond hair meant he could finally let out the breath he’d been holding for the past hour.
Her gait was leisurely, and she was pretending to talk on the telephone—both smart.
Nothing about her drew any sort of attention.
She could be one of any hundreds of women her age walking across a parking lot.
He forced himself to stay in the car. It was the least he could do in order to help her sell her act.
But it took every ounce of his control not to grab her and pull her into his arms and never let her out again.
“Any problems?” he asked when she got in beside him.
“We have all sorts of problems, but if you’re asking if I had any trouble getting inside, then no.”
Thank God. Tanner started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “Okay, so what were the problems?”
She began taking out the pins that held her wig in place. “This is probably going to sound like I’m just trying not to start my sexual experience as part of a conjugal visit with you...but you can’t turn yourself in yet.”
He swallowed a bark of laughter. This woman. “Colorado doesn’t allow conjugal visits, but I’ll still hear you out on why I can’t turn myself in yet.”
“I think this is all more complicated than we even thought.”
He didn’t even try to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Of course it is. What did you find out?”
“I don’t think Darin Carrico had anything to do with the murders. I told him Anders and Newkirk were dead, and he legitimately seemed surprised.”
“What about the emails he sent?”
“I don’t think he sent them at all. Someone just made it look like he did. If I look a little deeper, I wouldn’t be surprised if I found the emails hadn’t originated from Camp George West at all. Damn it, I should’ve looked into that further rather than take it at face value. It was stupid.”
He reached over and placed his hand on hers, which had curled up into fists on her lap.
One of his hands could cover both of hers.
“Hey. You’re doing the best you can under much less than optimal circumstances.
If it wasn’t for you, I’d be sitting in a cell with zero information about what was going on. ”
“It was still a careless mistake.”
“Yeah, well, your mistakes are still providing us forward progress, so let’s focus on that. If you don’t think Carrico has anything to do with the murders, then who do you think is involved?”
“I think all the answers might be with Glen Carrico, not Darin. Evidently he somehow knows Michalski’s wife, and I think Glen might be the one who hacked the doctor’s files.”
“And he’s setting up his brother to look like the murderer? They seemed pretty friendly a few days ago.”
“No, I don’t think so. I’ll have to dig deeper about the emails. But I definitely think Glen is the puzzle piece we’ve been missing in all this.”
He squeezed her hands. “Then you’re right. It’s time to pay the other Carrico brother a visit.”