Chapter 38
Ifound West in his office. He looked up from the paperwork spread out in front of him. “He’s in processing. We got a name. Wayne Randell.”
“Is he local?” I asked.
West shook his head. “Not exactly. Permanent address is in Seneca, in the upstate of South Carolina. He’s a former Marine. Honorable discharge, but since then racked up a few charges of petty theft. Some assault charges. Minor possession charges. No felonies, but from what I”m seeing, that”s probably because he hasn”t been caught. According to the permits—back when we still needed them—the guy likes his guns.”
West”s desk phone rang, and he picked it up. “Yeah, yeah, I”m on my way.” He hung up. “They”re bringing him into the interview room. I”m going to go talk to him. You good to observe?”
I nodded, intensely curious about this guy. What did he want with Quinn? West followed me into the small observation room on the other side of the two-way glass. We watched the deputy bring in Wayne Randell. He strolled into the room in a confident, long-limbed stride. West and I watched him in silence. Randell was the right height. A little taller than me, leaner, but fit and strong. Brown eyes. He wore faded gray/brown camo. Not the winter camo of before, but as West had pointed out, it wasn’t snowing anymore. Randell looked annoyed, but not overly worried.
He fit, but everything about him made me itch. I studied him, looking for something that would rule him out as a suspect. It wasn’t there. He was a fit. And yet?—
This wasn’t the first time I’d had to identify someone I’d only seen once and under extreme circumstances. I wouldn’t make a positive ID unless I was sure. And I wasn’t fucking sure. I’d expected to be. There’d been something about the guy while I was fighting him. A feeling that I’d know him anywhere, that I’d find him and we’d finish things. But this guy, Wayne Randell— I wanted him to be a puzzle piece, snapping into place, but the best I could say was that he fit.
“I’m going in,” West said. “I’ll see if I can get him talking before he lawyers up.”
“Ask him about the laptop and the necklace,” I said. “And how he got around the security system.”
West nodded. He closed the door to the observation room behind him. A few seconds later, the door to the interview room opened, and West entered. His voice through the speakers was distant and formal, as I rarely heard it.
“I’m Chief Garfield,” he said, pulling out the chair opposite Randell and sitting.
He went on with the standard intro, informing Randell he was being recorded, that he had a right to call an attorney, and the rest. When he was done, he slouched back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest, all formality gone. If he’d tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and taken a nap, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“So, Randell, you want to tell me what you were doing in Harvey Benson”s office this morning?” West looked across at Randell with half-closed eyes, as if barely interested in the answer.
Wayne Randell sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking West’s posture. He leveled dark eyes on West and said, “Not doin’ your job for you.”
“Fair enough,” West said easily. “So far we”ve got you on breaking and entering. I can charge you with that, but a little conversation might help your case.”
Randell set his jaw and stayed silent. Questioning people wasn’t my specialty. I liked to do my work behind the scenes. But West had told me once he loved it. Thrived on it.
Undeterred by Randell’s silence, he went on. “You”re from Seneca? I haven’t been down that way since I caught a Tigers game with my uncle last year. Done some fishing down there. Davidson River’s got some good fishing, but I caught a trout on the Chattooga last year?—”
West droned on about his trout for so long that I thought Randell and I were both going to fall asleep. Lulled by West”s loving description of a twelve-inch rainbow trout, Randell finally shook his head and said, “Y’all get the tourists up here with your breweries, but the fishin’ is better in the upstate. I got a pool on the Chattooga that always gets me at least a sixteen incher. So far, nothin’ as good up here. Just a lot of overpriced rooms, fancy food, and small fish.”
“Why are you still here, then?” West asked, letting his eyes seem to drift shut.
Randell slouched back farther, kicking out a foot and resting it on his knee. He jerked one shoulder up in a shrug. “Hopin’ things would take a turn.”
If I was West, I would have launched over the table to get Randell to talk. Instead, West raised an eyebrow, as if this was a normal, everyday conversation.
“Yeah? Did they?” West asked. “Take a turn?”
“Turned fuckin’ down is what.” He jutted his chin out, looking sullen and defiant, but he didn’t say more.
West appeared unbothered. “It happens. You planning to stick around?”
“Guess I have to now,” Randell sneered, shaking his cuffed hands so they rattled.
West sat up straighter, opening his eyes all the way and meeting Randell’s belligerent gaze dead-on. “About that.” He lifted his chin in the direction of Randell’s cuffed hands. “I’ve been short-staffed around here. And I don’t like paperwork.”
“Yeah?” Randell asked, leaning forward a fraction.
“I could talk Harvey out of pressing charges if you could fill in a few blanks for me.” West let that sit between them for a minute.
After long consideration, Randell shook his head. “Put it in writing. Immunity or whatever it is. Or I’m not talking.”
“You haven’t said anything worth making a deal over,” West said. “What brought you to Sawyers Bend? I know it wasn’t the fishing.”
“Had a job offer,” Randell said, grudgingly.
“Yeah?” West sounded mildly curious. “What kind of job?”
Randell clammed up with a shake of his head.
West nodded. “I”m curious,” he said. “Any chance that job had something to do with a necklace?”
At this, Wayne Randell stiffened, his arms still crossed over his chest, but they tightened as if he were pulling closed an invisible barrier. His chin went hard and jerked up.
Direct hit.This guy wasn’t as smooth as he thought he was.
“I don”t know anything about a necklace,” he said.
West nodded slowly, as if he’d bought Randell’s obvious lie. “I’m just curious,” he said. “See, I”m guessing that”s not what we’d call a truthful answer. Not a lot of good reasons to ransack a lawyer’s office. If you needed a little spare cash, there”s plenty of businesses on Main Street with some money in the till and light security. I keep telling them to get better locks, more cameras, but you know how small-town people can be.” West shrugged as if helpless to reason with his citizens.
Randell sneered. “They’re idiots. It’s way too easy to bust open a regular lock.”
“I agree,” West said, nodding. “I noticed that there weren’t any busted locks at Harvey”s.”
Randell shook his head.
“So how’d you get in?” West asked.
“Do I look stupid?” Randell demanded, suddenly sitting up and lurching forward, his eyes hard. “You want to ask questions? Get me a lawyer.”
West shrugged. “You want me to call a lawyer? I can do that, no problem. We can stop talking right now and I’ll call a lawyer. Then we”ll pick this up later. After charges have been filed.”
Randell leaned forward, bracing his arms on the table. “What charges are you filing?”
“Breaking and entering, to start. Add on felony theft. That fountain pen you slipped in your pocket was worth at least two grand. Harvey likes his fountain pens,” West said with a note of apology at Randell’s appalled expression. “Or—” He stopped and shrugged. Propping a foot on his knee, mimicking Randell’s earlier position, West waited.
Randell asked, “Or?”
West shrugged again. “Or you could tell me what you were doing in Harvey’s office. See, I’ve got a curious situation going on around here. Break-ins we can’t explain. Looks like somebody”s looking for something. If I could get that figured out, if we knew what that someone was looking for and why, if we knew they were going to stop and leave town… Maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to press charges on the breaking and entering this morning. Maybe I could let it go and save myself some paperwork.”
Randell sat back in his chair, the cuffs on his wrists jangling with the sudden movement. “Take these off,” he said, thrusting his wrists at West.
West let out a sigh and leaned forward, key in hand. “You don’t keep those hands to yourself, you’ll find yourself in a world of pain. Understood?”
A shadow of fear flashed in Randell’s eyes. He nodded. “Understood,” he said, his voice so low I almost missed it.
West didn’t. He unlocked one of the cuffs, leaving the other on Randell’s wrist. Randell curled his lip at West but didn’t protest.
“You gonna drop those charges, then?” Randell asked.
West gave another of those languid shrugs, as if he didn’t care all that much about any of this. “I really can’t say. Not at this point, when I don”t have any useful information.”
“Are you telling me that if I talk, you”re not going to charge me?” Randell asked again.
I couldn’t see West”s face, but I saw the shift in his shoulders, the tilt of his head. He”d hooked his catch. Now he just had to reel him in.
“I can’t make any promises until I hear what you know. But I can promise that if it turns out you can fill in some blanks, I’m not that interested in the breaking and entering. Nothing was damaged, and Harvey will get his pen back. I’m more interested in why you were there in the first place.”
Randell sat back in his chair, tipping his head to stare up at the ceiling. A long moment later, he sat up, the belligerence drained from his expression. This was a man ready to do business. “Yeah,” he said, “I know about the necklace.” He crossed his arms over his chest again and gave a defensive shrug of one shoulder. “It”s known around my parts that I”m available to help people out with certain problems. Usually retrieving lost items.”
“Lost items?” West asked with a raised eyebrow.
Randell ignored his question. “I got a call from a friend of a friend sayin’ that somebody had some work for me. He brought me a burner phone. Told me to answer when it rang. Weird shit. I mean, who does that?” Randell shook his head slowly. “Said he”d pay well and I’ve been thinking about going down, doing some fishing in Mexico. I could use the cash. So I took the phone, and later that day it rang. The guy on the other end sent me a picture of a necklace. A gold oak leaf on a chain. Told me to find it, but he had shit for intel. Said the pretty little guide had it. Said she might have hidden it somewhere in that big-ass compound the Sawyers have. Or maybe she gave it to the lawyer. Or maybe she was carrying it around with her, or she brought it to work.”
Randell raised his hands in exasperation, the loose handcuff slamming into the metal chair, letting out a clang that echoed in the small room.
“Did you find the necklace?” West asked, knowing the answer, considering the necklace was locked in his office safe.
“No!” Randell spat out. “Fuckin’ no, I did not. I fuckin’ looked everywhere I could get to.”
“So this is all about the necklace? Is that why you jumped Quinn in the woods? You thought she had it with her?”
Randell’s eyes clouded. “The pretty guide? I didn’t fuckin’ touch her. Wasn’t paid to rough up a woman.”
West’s eyes flicked to the camera. I didn’t need the silent message. I was already dialing Holly’s phone. Quinn wasn’t alone out there, but if Randell wasn’t the man in the woods, she wasn’t as safe as I wanted her.
“Why the necklace?” West asked. “Why not cash? As far as I can tell, a small gold oak leaf on a chain isn’t exactly valuable. Why does your client want it so badly?”
“Fucked if I know,” Randell said with disgust. “He was willing to pay me ten grand if I found it, but so far all I’m doing is burning cash in this fuckin’ town and I’ve got nothin’ to show for it. I just want to get paid.”
He shook his head, raising his eyebrows as if expecting West to commiserate.
“The client’s pissed because he wants me to find the necklace, sayin’ I got two more days and then he’s pulling the plug. Then he called last night. Said the necklace was definitely at the lawyer’s office. Said it was in his desk, and I could get in without worrying about the new alarm, but I had to get there—” Randell shook his head as if in disbelief. “He gave me a window. Fuckin’ weird. Said I had to be there between seven thirty-five and seven fifty in the morning. I’d have fifteen minutes to get in, search the desk, and get back out. I figured I”d take one last shot at it before I left town.”
“And how did you get in?” West asked.
Randell shrugged. “Just like he said on the phone, I walked right in the back door. It was unlocked.”
“And the alarm didn”t go off when you opened it?” West asked.
“No, man, I told you it was unlocked. I walked right in.”
“And the man who called last night, he was the same man who called before?”
At that question, Randell went still. “I— Yeah— He—” Randell fell silent for a long moment before shaking his head. “He sounded the same, but the guy talked low and kind of rough. Like he was disguising his voice. The guy last night did the same. He sounded the same, but—” Randell shook his head once more. “I can’t swear it was the same person.”
West nodded slowly as my gut went cold. None of this was adding up. Holly didn’t answer her phone. I tried James.
“So what did you do when you got inside?” West went on as if the issue of the caller wasn’t important.
Randell relaxed back into the chair. “I started going through the desk. Only got through three fucking drawers when you showed up.”
His words stopped the breath in my lungs, and I realized what was wrong.
The timing didn”t line up.
Up until he got to the phone call, there was a chance this was our guy, despite his protest about not hurting Quinn. The way he talked and his attitude didn”t match the efficient, highly skilled man I”d fought on the snowy trail, but enough matched up that it could have been him.
But the time frame was wrong.
The hits on the system at Heartstone had come in at seven twenty-five a.m. The caller had told Randell he had to enter no earlier than seven thirty-five. And he hadn’t said anything about touching the laptop.
West had followed the same train of thought. “Why’d you go for the laptop?”
“What laptop?” Randell asked, looking truly confused for the first time.
“The laptop on Harvey’s desk,” West said, his voice sharp, all pretense gone. “What did you want with the laptop?”
“Nothing! I wasn’t sent after a fucking laptop. I’ve got a laptop. Jesus. I was looking for the necklace, which wasn’t there. So now I”m not going to get paid.” Randell slapped his cuffed wrist on the arm of his chair, seemingly soothed by the loud clang.
West ignored his tantrum. “So you didn’t touch the laptop.”
“No. I fucking told you. It was open when I got there. It was loud, like—” He waved his hands in circles. “Like the fans were on or something. But I didn’t touch it. I was there for the necklace.”
West went completely still for a beat before smoothly coming to his feet. “Hold that thought,” he said.
I was at the door when he opened it, closing it quickly behind him. “He”s not the guy from the woods.”
“No,” I agreed. “He’s our guy for the break-ins, but he didn’t have anything to do with Heartstone’s system. He isn’t the guy who attacked Quinn.”
“He was set up,” West said grimly, looking through the mirror at Randell tugging at the cuff on his wrist. “Whoever took Quinn set him up so you’d feel safe enough to leave her. Fucking hell.”
I tapped Quinn’s contact on my phone. No answer. “Fuck.”
“You know where she is?” West asked.
I was already out the door, sprinting for my SUV. My phone rang in my hand before I could wrench open the door. My heart lurched to see Sterling”s name on the screen.
“Sterling, what is it?” I said, breath tight in my lungs.
“Hawk,” she sobbed. “Hawk, Quinn”s gone.”
No.Fear flooded me, dragging me down. Terror was a roar in my ears, drowning out logic, drowning out everything. Gone. Quinn was gone, and I was no closer to finding the man who had her than I had been weeks ago.
No.I had to let go of the fear and embrace the ice. I had to be ice-cold. A machine. I couldn’t let the horror of Sterling’s words penetrate or I wouldn’t be able to think.
“Sterling,” I said, reaching for calm. “Take a breath. Get it together and tell me what happened. Where are Holly and James?”
“They”re here. They”re here. They”re looking for Quinn. But we can’t find her. She”s gone. We?—”
I listened to her rough breaths. She went silent, and there was a slow inhale followed by a slow exhale.
When she spoke again, her voice was steadier. “We weren’t far in. We were just at the bridge, you know?”
“I know the bridge,” I said. I’d taken the same hike with them earlier in the week. The bridge was a little more than a quarter mile from the trailhead.
“One of the twins,” Sterling said. “The girl, she”s a goof. She likes to joke around. She was messing around on the railing and she fell over the side. We all stopped, looking over the railing, and James jumped down to get to her. She was screaming, she was scared, and she cut her leg pretty badly. It looked like there was a lot of blood. When we turned back around, Quinn and Jay were gone.”
“Quinn and Jay? Who’s Jay?” I asked. There hadn’t been a Jay in their group when I left for the station.
“Jay,” Sterling said. “He’s a repeat. A client from the fall. Quinn took him hiking in September and then fishing in October and again in November. We know him. He showed up late, said he was in town to visit friends, and— But he can’t be— We know him!”
“What’s his last name, Sterling?” I asked, my mind racing through the possibilities. From the bridge, they were close enough to the parking lot at the trailhead that he could have carried Quinn right to his car. If he’d knocked her out, she’d barely have slowed him down.
“His name?” Sterling asked, her voice shaking. “It’s Jay. Jay…something with an R. Jay Ra— Jay Ro?—”
Sterling tried to jog her memory, but as she spoke, the sounds in my ear twisted and reformed into a name that sent a wave of dread through me. “Sterling, was it Jay Reynolds?”
“That’s it,” Sterling shouted, relieved for only a second. “How did you know?”
I didn’t answer her question. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to tell her that this was my fault.
Jay Reynolds wasn’t here for Quinn. He was here for me. He always had been.
From the beginning, this hadn’t been about the Sawyers or the necklace. It was me. It was my past. It was the evil I thought I’d left behind, reaching out its oily tentacles to drag me back to hell and bring Quinn down with me.
I couldn’t think about Quinn in his hands. I’d seen what Reynolds was capable of. As my CO, he’d given me orders I never should have followed. He’d wallowed in the dark, using his team for profit, for vengeance, without thought for the value of human life. When I’d left him, I’d dismantled his operation. Now he wanted payback. He was a monster, and he had Quinn.
“Tell Holly and James to get everybody back to Sawyer Outdoor Adventures,” I barked into the phone. “No stopping. If the girl has to go to the hospital, let her parents take her. You stay under guard. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” Sterling said. “What are you going to do?”
“I”m going after Quinn.”
I just hoped I wasn’t too late.