Chương 3
“Mr. Irwin?”
“Yes.”
“Special Agent Naomi Price, Colorado Bureau of Investigation.”
She showed me her credentials without flourish.
“This is Agent Daniel Cho.”
Cho nodded.
“We understand your son was involved in an officer-involved shooting tonight.”
“My son was shot.”
Price did not correct me.
“We need to establish exactly what occurred.”
“So do I.”
Her eyes stayed on mine a fraction longer than necessary.
“Then I need you not to interfere with our investigation.”
Sarah stared into her coffee.
I wondered what she had already told them.
“I haven’t interfered.”
“Sheriff Barnes reported that your son approached his vehicle aggressively during a traffic stop and reached for what Barnes believed was a weapon.”
“What weapon?”
“No weapon has been recovered.”
Cho shifted his notebook against his knee.
Price continued.
“Barnes also stated he fired both rounds within approximately two seconds.”
I looked at her.
“That’s not what Tyler said.”
“We know.”
The corridor suddenly seemed very quiet.
“What did Tyler say?”
“I’m not going to discuss a minor victim’s full statement in a hallway.”
“You just told me Barnes’s.”
“I told you enough to explain why we’re here.”
She slipped her credentials away.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“The sheriff’s department says Barnes’s body camera malfunctioned before the stop.”
Sarah finally looked up.
Price’s expression remained neutral.
“And the dash camera in his county vehicle has no recording from the twenty-six minutes immediately preceding the shooting.”
Nobody spoke.
A television somewhere behind us erupted with canned laughter.
Cho glanced toward it, then back at me.
Price lowered her voice.
“Mr. Irwin, if your son saw something before Sheriff Barnes stopped him, I need to know what it was.”
I thought about Tyler saying there was somebody in the back of the sheriff’s truck.
I thought about the frightened deputy at the courthouse.
I thought about Marcus asking what kind of help I wanted.
Then I looked through the surgical doors.
“My son saw someone in Barnes’s vehicle.”
Price’s face changed for the first time.
“Someone where?”
“In the back.”
Cho stopped writing.
Price asked, “Did Tyler identify the person?”
“No.”
“Male or female?”
“He couldn’t tell.”
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes moved to Cho.
It lasted less than a second.
That was enough.
“You were already looking for someone,” I said.
Price said nothing.
“Who?”
Cho closed his notebook.
Sarah stood.
“Who was in that truck?”
Price looked at each of us before answering.
“At this point, we don’t know.”
I stepped closer.
“But somebody is missing.”
Her silence answered before she did.
“A sixteen-year-old girl named Emily Carver hasn’t been seen since yesterday afternoon.”
Sarah sat down again so suddenly that coffee spilled over the rim of her cup and onto her hand.
She did not seem to feel it.
“Emily Carver?” she said.
Price nodded.
Sarah looked at me.
“You know her.”
“Tyler knows her.”
“Everybody knows her,” Cho said.
He opened his notebook again.
“Junior at Livingston High.”
“On the debate team,” Sarah said.
“She works weekends at Jensen’s grocery.”
Price watched her carefully.
“When did Tyler last mention her?”
Sarah shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
Her voice sharpened.
“Do you have children?”
Price did not answer immediately.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t tell me to think while my son is in surgery.”
Cho looked down.
Price absorbed it without reacting.
“You’re right.”
Sarah blinked.
The apology seemed to disarm her more than an argument would have.
“She came to our house once in June,” she said.
“For a group project.”
“Was Tyler close to her?”
“No.”
Then Sarah looked at me.
“Was he?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer annoyed her.
She rubbed at the coffee on her hand with a tissue.
“We live in the same house.”
“Seventeen-year-old boys have managed secrecy under worse conditions.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
Price stepped between the edge in our voices.
“Did Tyler ever mention Sheriff Barnes in connection with Emily?”
“No,” Sarah said.
I shook my head.
Cho turned a page.
“Emily’s mother reported her missing at eleven forty-eight last night.”
“What happened before that?” I asked.
Price hesitated.
“She left work at Jensen’s at six twelve.”
“Alone?”
“The parking lot camera shows her walking toward her car.”
“And?”
“Her car was still there this morning.”
Sarah’s tissue stopped moving.
“Her phone?”
“Found near the irrigation ditch off Miller Road.”
“That’s fifteen miles from Jensen’s,” I said.
Cho looked at me.
“You know the area.”
“I clean a courthouse, Agent Cho.”
“I wasn’t insulting you.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Price gave Cho a quick glance that told him to leave it alone.
“We have no verified connection between Barnes and Emily,” she said.
“Except my son says somebody was in his truck.”
“Yes.”
“And Barnes shot him.”
“Yes.”
“And twenty-six minutes of video disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“So what part of this are you treating as coincidence?”
Price’s expression hardened.
“The part where we don’t build a criminal case from a frightened teenager’s incomplete observation while he’s bleeding.”
Sarah stood again.
“He was shot through both knees.”
“I know.”
“By the sheriff.”
“I know.”
“Then stop talking about him like he’s some unreliable kid.”
Price’s mouth tightened.
“I’m talking about him like a witness whose statement matters enough that I don’t want his father contaminating it.”
The words hung between us.
Sarah looked at me.
There it was.
Price had seen something in me too.
Maybe not the old version.
Maybe just the part that made people careful.
“What do you know about me?” I asked.
“Enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting tonight.”
A surgeon in blue scrubs pushed through the doors.
All four of us turned.
Harold pulled down his mask.
Sarah crossed the hall before he could speak.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s stable.”
Her knees nearly gave.
I caught her elbow.
Harold continued.
“We repaired what we could tonight.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
May you like
“It means the vascular damage was less severe than we feared.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
