Chương 8
Price shot me a warning look.
Tyler closed his eyes.
“Red shoes.”
“Anything else?” Price asked.
“He grabbed her.”
“Where?”
“Her arm.”
“Was she conscious?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she move?”
“A little.”
“What happened then?”
“Barnes saw me.”
Tyler’s breathing changed.
Sarah stroked his wrist.
Price waited.
“He asked what I was looking at.”
“And you said?”
“Nothing.”
“What did the other man do?”
“He put her in the white truck.”
Price went still.
“That’s important.”
Tyler looked at her.
“He drove away before Barnes shot me.”
Cho had stopped writing.
Price said, “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“What direction?”
“South.”
“Toward town?”
“No.”
“Toward the county line?”
Tyler nodded.
Price stepped into the hallway and called someone.
Cho stayed.
“Tyler, I need a description of the white truck.”
Tyler squeezed his eyes shut.
“Pickup.”
“Two-door, four-door?”
“Four.”
“Older or newer?”
“Older.”
“Anything on it?”
He shook his head.
Then stopped.
“There was writing.”
“Where?”
“Door.”
“What did it say?”
“I couldn’t read all of it.”
“Any word?”
“Front.”
Cho glanced at me.
“Front Range?”
Tyler opened his eyes.
“Maybe.”
My stomach tightened.
Cho saw it.
“What?”
I showed him Marcus’s photograph.
He read the contract.
His face changed.
“Where did you get this?”
“A friend.”
“What friend?”
“Marcus Vale.”
“Who is Marcus Vale?”
“Retired military.”
Cho looked at Price through the glass wall.
“You need to send this to her.”
“No, now.”
I did.
Price read it while still on the phone.
Then she ended the call and came back inside.
“Who obtained this?”
“I told Cho.”
“Legally?”
“As far as I know.”
“That answer is useless.”
“It’s the answer.”
She looked again at the contract.
“Front Range Municipal Consulting.”
“You’ve heard of it.”
“Tonight.”
“From where?”
She considered me.
“Emily’s mother.”
Sarah leaned forward.
“What did she say?”
“Emily had been asking questions about county contracting.”
“Why would a sixteen-year-old girl be doing that?”
“She was working on a state debate project.”
Cho shook his head.
“That wasn’t in the missing-person file.”
“It was in a supplemental interview an hour ago.”
Price looked at me.
“She found invoices tied to emergency preparedness grants.”
“Barnes and Crane.”
“Yes.”
“What was wrong with them?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Eighty-four thousand dollars to a company tied to Barnes’s brother-in-law seems worth noticing.”
“It is being noticed.”
“Was Emily noticed too?”
Price’s jaw tightened.
“She told her mother last week that someone from the county called her school and complained she was accessing records she had no business reviewing.”
“Public records?”
“Apparently.”
“And then she disappeared.”
“Yes.”
Tyler whispered, “I saw her.”
Everyone looked at him.
“She was awake.”
Sarah leaned closer.
“What?”
“In the truck.”
“You said you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t.”
His eyes filled.
“I was scared.”
Price softened her voice.
“What did you see?”
“She looked at me.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“She looked right at me.”
“What happened?”
“She tried to yell.”
“Could you hear her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There was tape.”
Sarah covered her mouth.
Tyler began crying.
“I should’ve done something.”
“No,” Sarah said.
“I should have.”
“No.”
“I just stood there.”
I moved to the bedside.
“You were seventeen years old on the side of a road with an armed sheriff.”
“He shot me because I saw her.”
“Yes.”
“I could’ve helped.”
“You survived.”
“That doesn’t help her.”
There was no answer good enough for that.
Price let the silence remain.
Then she said, “Tyler, helping us now helps her.”
He wiped his face with the heel of his hand.
“I remember one more thing.”
“What?”
“The white truck had a dent above the back wheel.”
“Which side?”
“Driver’s.”
Cho wrote it down.
“And a sticker.”
“What kind?”
“Mountain.”
“Describe it.”
“Black triangle.”
Price looked at Cho.
He was already searching something on his phone.
“What?” I asked.
“County fleet vendors use inspection decals.”
“That didn’t sound like a county decal.”
“It may not be.”
Cho turned his phone around.
A small logo appeared on the screen.
Three black peaks above the letters FRMC.
Tyler pointed.
“That.”
Price said, “Good.”
Cho walked into the hall to make a call.
Sarah leaned against the bedrail.
“How many vehicles does that company own?”
Price looked at her.
“We’re finding out.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
Sarah almost smiled despite herself.
“Now you know how annoying it is.”
Price’s mouth twitched.
A nurse entered and reminded everyone that Tyler had undergone major surgery less than two hours earlier.
Her tone suggested she did not care whether anyone in the room carried a badge.
Price stepped back.
“We’re done for now.”
Tyler caught her sleeve.
“Find her.”
Price looked at his hand.
Then at him.
“We’re trying.”
“That’s not what I said.”
I recognized my own stubbornness in his face and wished I didn’t.
Price nodded once.
“We’ll find her.”
The nurse dimmed the lights after everyone left.
Sarah sat beside Tyler.
I stood at the window.
Below us, the parking lot glowed orange beneath sodium lamps.
Hospital staff crossed between buildings in pairs.
An ambulance backed into a bay.
Life continued with insulting normalcy.
Sarah said, “Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re limping.”
“I’m fifty-four.”
“You’re dramatic.”
I sat.
She looked at me.
“You got old.”
“So did you.”
“Careful.”
For a second we were ourselves again.
Then Tyler shifted and groaned.
Sarah’s face changed immediately.
I looked at the clock.
2:43 a.m.
My phone buzzed.
Marcus again.
I stepped into the hall before answering.
“Tell me you found the truck.”
“Not yet.”
“Then why call?”
“Because Luis found the company.”
“I know where it is registered.”
“No, you know the mailing address.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The mailing address is Barnes’s brother-in-law’s accounting office.”
“And the real location?”
“Old gravel operation twelve miles south of town.”
I straightened.
“Near County Road Twelve?”
“Very.”
“How near?”
“About four miles.”
“Send me the address.”
“I already sent it to Price.”
I stopped.
“You did what?”
“I called the CBI tip line.”
May you like
“You called them?”
“Dennis, this is a kidnapping now.”
