Chapter 39
Diane’s brother’s cabin sat at the end of a gravel road that pretended to be a driveway for the last half mile and made the SUV’s undercarriage earn its keep.
It was, by Gabe’s generous count, two and a half actual rooms, a main room with a wood stove, a sagging plaid couch, a dining table whose stains suggested it had gutted more salmon than meals, and a kitchenette built around a two-burner propane stove and a sink that complained when you turned the tap.
A loft up a ladder held two mattresses and an ambitious definition of the word bedroom.
Another tiny room had been added on to the rear of the house.
Not that he was complaining. Safe and secure mattered far more than amenities.
Piper took one look at the loft and climbed the ladder. “Mine.”
Her head popped back over the edge. “Wade. A question. How exactly do you know Diane’s brother well enough to get us a cabin on four hours’ notice?”
Wade was lowering a duffel onto the floor. He didn’t look up. “Diane called him.”
“Oh did she.”
“Let it go, Piper.”
“I’m just saying. That’s a favor.” She disappeared into the loft, cackling.
Tom had his laptop set up on the salmon table.
He’d spread a clean shop towel over the worst of the stains—the ones that were clearly biological—and arranged his gear with the air of a surgeon setting up in a garage.
The kerosene lanterns Wade had lit threw warm yellow light across the walls and turned the steelhead’s glass eye into a faint amber marble.
Outside, the Pacific was doing its winter thing—the sound of waves coming in on a steady beat from a cove Gabe couldn’t see in the dark.
Elena had claimed the armchair. Reagan had the couch.
Cara made tea at the kitchenette completely not commenting on the fact that the kettle appeared to be older than her.
Wade set up two sleeping bags on the floor in a pattern that left a clear path to the door.
Instinct. Gabe watched him do it and said nothing.
His phone buzzed. He stepped onto the creaking porch to take it. “Sawyer.”
“What’s up, Gabe?”
“Hey, Becs, thanks for doing this,” he said.
“I haven’t done anything yet. Tell me what you’ve got.”
He gave her the short version—the analysis of the drug, Elena’s testimony, the shell structure, the Julian payment. She listened without interrupting, which was how he knew she was taking notes. When he finished, there was a pause.
“You’re asking me to stage agents at a private medical facility based on a drug analysis of a substance not legally obtained, and a dead man’s bank records.”
“I’m asking you to have two agents in a car within ten minutes of the facility tomorrow morning.
If we can prove the missing medical director’s name is on those logs, your people move in and make a high-profile arrest. If not, they drive home like they were never there. It’s a no-lose for you, Becs.”
A longer pause.
“Two agents,” she said finally. “Plain-wrap vehicle. But my people stay outside. No way I let them do an illegal search.”
“That’s fair.”
“Gabe.” Her voice softened. “I don’t know what you’re doing up there. I know there’s a missing person’s report with your description on it. And I know if this goes sideways, I can’t help you.”
“I know.”
“Don’t make me regret this.”
“I won’t.”
She hung up. Gabe stood on the porch in the cold dark and listened to the ocean for a minute. Then the phone buzzed again. Tyler Price.
The State Police commander had the tone of a man who’d been holding news for an hour and didn’t love delivering it.
“Graham escalated. Our Portland field office has a formal complaint now. Interference with medical care.” A beat.
“They’re asking questions about you, Gabe.
They’ll make the connection by tomorrow. ”
“I know.”
“I can’t cover this.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
Price was quiet for a moment. “For what it’s worth. You’re doing the right thing.”
“It feels right. I’m not sure it’ll end right, though.”
“I’ll add my prayers,” Price said.
“Appreciate it.” Gabe hung up.
As he headed back inside, Tom waved him over.
“I’ve been running the metadata on the surveillance photos of Piper,” he said.
He eyed the loft above. His daughter was asleep.
Or pretending to be. “I finally got the timestamps and the geolocation trace. The photos were commissioned through a corporate security firm based in Minneapolis.”
“Whitfield has people in Minneapolis?”
Tom looked up. “That's the thing. He doesn't. I've been through every contractor on his books—he's got an outfit in Portland he uses for background checks, a couple of local PIs on retainer, and a corporate security guy in Seattle he calls when he needs real heat.
That's his pattern. He likes people he knows.” He tapped the screen.
“This firm isn't on any of his paperwork.
He's never hired them. And they're the kind of shop that works for...” He paused, chose his word carefully.
“Clients who want deniability. Tech money. Silicon Valley.”
Gabe felt the small cold thing in his chest that had been there since the Oakland lab grow another inch.
It wasn't that Graham couldn't afford this firm.
Graham could buy the firm outright if he wanted.
It was that a man like Graham didn't suddenly abandon his own vendors to hire a stranger out of Minneapolis to handle a sixteen-year-old girl in coastal Oregon.
That wasn't how Whitfield operated. So far, the man had kept everything in-house. He used his own people.
Somebody else had commissioned these photos.
“Get some sleep,” he told Tom.
“I will when you do.”
He sat on the edge of the cabin’s second mattress—the one in a narrow back room behind a curtain that passed for a door—and put the badge on the nightstand.
The nightstand was a split-log end table. The lamp beside it was a kerosene lantern turned low, and the glass chimney threw a soft ring of orange light across the badge’s tarnished edge.
He thought about the chief application. Unsigned. Deadline passed now.
Becky Hammersmith’s warning: “If this goes sideways, I can’t help you.”
He’d spent years believing the badge was the answer.
He’d been wrong.
The answer was the people standing next to you. Or, as it turned out, the people stuffed into a two-and-a-half-room cabin on a gravel road on a cold Oregon coast, listening to each other breathe and pretending to sleep.
He turned the lantern lower. Pinched his eyes closed.
Lord, he thought, I hope this is the right thing.
Outside, the Pacific churned. The steelhead on its plaque watched him with its amber glass eye and offered no opinion.
He left the badge where it was and lay down.