Chapter 63
Vaughn was fuming.
Darnell . . . after all the times he’d covered for his partner, Darnell had gone behind his back and mentioned Ivy.
It would have come out. Of course, it would have come out.
Zeke had attacked her, making her both a victim and a material witness in the murder of Rebecca Quinn. But Vaughn wanted to tell Daniels himself. Use the time to break it to him softly, explain the situation.
He was pissed at Delaney, too. If the man hadn’t ratted them out initially, Darnell wouldn’t have choked him.
Or maybe he would have.
Vaughn still wasn’t sure what was going through his partner’s skull. Cops fought a lot; detectives, too.
It was a high stress profession. Maybe the most stressful.
But if there was one golden rule, it was you don’t put your hands on another member of law enforcement. The moment you did that, you were cooked.
Vaughn had heard many a story about cops who had gotten into drunken fistfights after a dozen too many drinks at the local watering hole.
They eventually squashed the beef.
Or thought they did.
Then, when it came time to work together again, the animosity resurfaced. Only not in the form of a fistfight this time.
It was an accidental gun jam during a shootout.
Oops, sorry. Would have had your back, but my gun . . . you know how it is. This stuff happens. I feel bad that you now shit out of a bag and are stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. But hey, at least we aren’t fighting no more.
Vaughn pulled Delaney aside.
“Delaney, why the fuck did you tell the captain about Ivy that night in the field?”
The man immediately became defensive.
“I didn’t.”
“The fuck you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t. Vaughn, I swear, I didn’t say anything.”
“Who was it then? You were the only one—” Vaughn stopped. Delaney wasn’t the only one standing outside the barn when he’d shown up.
Horowitz had also been present.
Shit.
Vaughn backpedaled. Attempted damage control. He knew this was second-tier in the grand scheme of things, but there was nothing they could do for Dr. Moorehead now.
Nothing they could do for any of the victims.
Too late, just like the note said.
“Look, Darnell’s being going through some shit. He didn’t mean to grab you.”
Vaughn was still doing it. Still defending his degenerate partner. He just couldn’t help it.
“He’s been going through shit for years.
” Delaney’s eyes narrowed. Not the response that Vaughn had been expecting.
Thought the cop would back down, nod, say something along the lines of, I understand, I get it.
But the man finally seemed to have grown some balls.
Now, of all times. Fuck. “He shouldn’t have grabbed me. Motherfucker grabbed my throat.”
“I know, I know. But he’s fucked up.”
“He’s a liability, that’s what he is.”
Vaughn couldn’t argue with that.
“He’s going to get help, Delaney. Cut him some slack.”
“Too late for that. I didn’t say nothin’ to Daniels yet because this shit blew up, but I will when it’s over. I’m going to report his ass. He thought I was gunning for his job before?”
Fuck.
Vaughn saw his partner in bed, his gun resting by the pillow.
It’s all I’ve got, man . . .
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll make him get help.”
“It’s—”
—not enough.
“And when a spot opens up in the detective ranks, I’ll go to bat for you. Tell them that when we catch this asshole, you helped. Invaluable, all that stuff.”
“I want the collar.”
Vaughn winced. He’d been fine with Delaney bringing in Perry partly because he didn’t think the man was responsible.
Even if Perry had been, things had changed since.
Darnell needed the collar as much as anyone.
Maybe even more. For Delaney, catching the asshole behind these gassings meant a promotion. For Darnell, it meant keeping his job.
His life.
“I’ll put a word in—I promise. Remember what you said about Darnell holding me back? I’ll use that. I’ve got some sway with the captain, keeping Darnell in check for as long as I have. Please, Delaney.”
Delaney was still on the fence, but Captain Daniels’s arrival put an end to the discussion. And the cop was right. Daniels was pissed, his face so red it bordered on purple. He stomped his feet like some sort of granite golem.
Delaney’s little meter indicated that the levels of H2S gas outside the barn had finally had dropped too low to do any damage, but Vaughn kept his mask on anyway—and instructed Ivy to do the same. Daniels didn’t have one.
With all the smoke coming out of his nose and ears, no gas could enter his system.
“Detective Ryan, what the hell—”
Like Delaney, it took the captain a few seconds before he noticed Ivy.
“What the hell?” Same words, very different intonation. “I thought I told you that Dr. Reeves was not to be involved!”
“I know. But—”
“You disobeyed a direct—”
“I am involved,” Ivy said, stepping forward.
The captain glared at her.
“You’re a civilian, Dr. Reeves.”
“I know that. But the note was addressed to me. I’m the one who reported Zeke to Dr. Moorehead. I’m the one who should have gone to the cops after he assaulted Rebecca the first time.”
Vaughn didn’t know how much Darnell had told Daniels, how much the captain knew. He couldn’t read the man’s scarlet face, either. The captain’s lack of reaction to the mention of a note and the initial assault on Rebecca Quinn hinted that he was apprised of everything.
Vaughn wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing. Either way, it saved him from explaining, which might make Ivy second-guess herself, repeat her claim that if she had worked faster, they might have been able to save her boss.
It’s not your fault, Ivy. It’s not.
“That’s Dr. Moorehead?” The captain indicated the man on the ground. Unlike Delaney, the sight of the body seemed to have no effect on him. “The department head?”
There was familiarity to Daniels’s voice, and Vaughn recalled the police report from the fire and Detective Howe’s words. Howe saying that the PPD went to Princeton and they pressured them to close the case. Mark it as an accident. Suspicious, but still an accident.
“Yes,” Ivy and Vaughn said at the same time.
“God damn it. When did this happen?”
“Just a few minutes ago,” Vaughn said. “We got here as fast as we could. He was already DOA.”
Daniels snarled, walked around the corpse toward the shed. Pointed at the canister.
“Same remote trigger?”
“Yeah,” Vaughn confirmed.
“Could be Zeke Godfrey. You like him for this?”
“I don’t know. He would have had to move quick—”
“One of my colleagues said that Moorehead was in the office until about an hour ago—an hour and thirty minutes now. He left alone,” Ivy interjected.
Daniels frowned, and Vaughn mentally went over the timeline.
Zeke had gone to Rebecca’s house, killed her, then accosted Ivy.
He didn’t know exactly how long the kid had kept her hostage, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.
Ten, tops. The door to her house was still open when he’d arrived.
Vaughn had then apprehended Zeke, and Delaney had come to pick him up.
Then the lawyers, Devon Godfrey, Ivy’s truncated interview . . . how long had all that taken?
Definitely more than an hour and twenty-seven minutes.
Even if Zeke had set this all up beforehand—possible; Vaughn had no idea how often someone actually came to look in this small barn—he would have still had to kidnap Moorehead, leave the note for Ivy, bring Moorehead here, bind his wrists, and lock him in.
“There was a camera back in Dr. Moorehead’s office,” Ivy said. “Someone was watching me. Started a twenty-seven-minute timer as soon as I read the note,” Ivy said. “Zeke was already in custody by then.”
This was just a guess—Ivy couldn’t have known if someone was actually monitoring the video feed.
Vaughn assumed that the hiss they’d heard around the time Ivy’s alarm went off was the gas starting to be released but it could just have likely been the end of the tank.
And he had no idea how long it took to empty.
Hadn’t thought of asking Dr. McGill. The person who left the note could have just estimated when Ivy was going to read it and programmed the automatic release nozzle to go off around that time.
“Detective Ryan?” Daniels probed.
“If Zeke Godfrey is behind this, he’s not working alone.”
Daniels grunted.
“And there’s one canister still missing?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m going live. No more deaths, Detective Ryan. No more fucking deaths.”