Chương 9
“I know.”
“Then act like it.”
I looked through the glass at Sarah.
She was watching me.
“What else?”
“The company owns two trucks.”
“One white?”
“Yes.”
“Registered plate?”
“Sending it.”
“Owner?”
“Front Range Municipal Consulting.”
“Who uses it?”
“Unknown.”
“Brother-in-law?”
“Maybe.”
“Name.”
“Paul Renner.”
I knew the name.
Not well.
Everyone in a small county knows everyone a little.
Renner had once bid on replacing courthouse security doors.
He lost.
Then somehow his company kept getting county work anyway.
“What does Renner look like?”
Marcus sent a photograph.
I opened it.
The man in the hospital had close-cropped hair.
So did Renner.
Same jaw.
Same narrow eyes.
Same pale face.
“That’s him.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell Price.”
“Dennis.”
“What?”
“Luis found something else.”
My patience thinned.
“Say it.”
“Renner’s company leased the gravel site eighteen months ago.”
“So?”
“It includes three storage buildings.”
“What were they storing?”
“County emergency supplies.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“Paid for by the county?”
“Yes.”
“Authorized by Crane?”
“Yes.”
“Security overseen by Barnes?”
“Yes.”
The shape of it was becoming visible.
Not clear.
But visible.
A private company with public contracts.
A sheriff.
An emergency manager.
A missing girl who had been looking at invoices.
A boy shot after seeing too much.
“Marcus.”
“Yeah.”
“What was the eighty-four thousand for?”
“We found the invoice.”
I waited.
“Hazardous material disposal and document destruction.”
A cold pressure settled behind my ribs.
“What documents?”
“It doesn’t say.”
“Date?”
“Three days after Emily filed a public-records request for county emergency procurement files.”
I looked through the glass again.
Sarah had fallen asleep in the chair with one hand resting beside Tyler’s.
I lowered my voice.
“Send everything to Price.”
“Already did.”
“You enjoy that.”
“A little.”
For the first time that night, I trusted someone else to move before I did.
Then every light in the hallway went out.
Emergency lamps clicked on a second later, bathing the corridor in red.
An alarm began somewhere below.
Nurses stepped into doorways.
A voice came over the hospital intercom announcing a facility power disruption.
My first thought was equipment.
My second was Tyler.
I turned toward his room.
The monitor beside his bed was still running on backup power.
Sarah woke.
“What happened?”
“Stay with him.”
I looked toward the elevators.
They were dark.
Then my phone rang.
Price.
I answered.
Her voice came fast.
“Dennis, listen carefully.”
“I’m listening.”
“We located the white truck.”
“Where?”
“At the gravel site.”
“And Emily?”
“Not there.”
My stomach dropped.
“What is?”
“A second vehicle.”
“What vehicle?”
“Walter Crane’s county SUV.”
I looked toward the red-lit corridor.
Price continued.
“And Crane is missing.”
A door slammed somewhere in the stairwell.
I turned.
The man standing at the far end of the hall wore a county emergency management jacket.
Walter Crane looked at me across forty yards of red light.
Then he raised a handgun.
Walter Crane looked at me across forty yards of red light.
Then he raised a handgun.
I did not move toward him.
That surprised him.
I could see it in the little hitch of his shoulders.
“Dennis,” Sarah whispered behind me.
“Get Tyler’s bed away from the door.”
Crane’s gun shifted toward her voice.
“Don’t.”
The word came out flat.
He looked back at me.
“Phone.”
I held it where he could see.
“Put it down.”
Price was still connected.
I lowered the phone slowly and set it on the floor without ending the call.
Crane took two steps closer.
His county jacket hung open over a wrinkled dress shirt.
There was sweat along his hairline.
He looked less like a man who had planned to threaten a hospital and more like somebody who had run out of rooms to hide in.
“Hands where I can see them.”
I raised them.
Behind me, I heard Sarah unlocking Tyler’s bed wheels.
Crane heard it too.
“Stop moving him.”
Sarah did not.
“Sarah.”
She stopped.
Tyler made a weak, confused sound.
Crane’s jaw tightened.
“I don’t want him hurt.”
I stared at him.
“He’s already hurt.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Something moved in me.
Not anger.
Recognition.
The language of cowards always arrived wrapped in passive voice.
“Who was supposed to get hurt?”
“No one.”
“Emily Carver?”
Crane’s eyes flickered.
That was enough.
“Where is she?”
“You don’t know what this is.”
“Then tell me.”
“You think Barnes runs this.”
“I think Barnes shot my son.”
“He panicked.”
“He shot him twice.”
“I didn’t tell him to do that.”
“But you told him to stop Tyler.”
Crane’s mouth closed.
Sarah had stopped moving the bed.
The corridor stayed quiet except for an alarm somewhere downstairs and the faint electrical hum of emergency power.
A nurse peeked from a doorway halfway between us.
I saw her.
Crane did not.
I moved my left hand slightly downward.
Stay.
She understood.
Crane stepped closer.
“Emily made copies.”
“Of what?”
“Records.”
“What records?”
“Things she didn’t understand.”
“That’s what people say when they’re scared someone understood perfectly.”
His gun rose a fraction.
“You always were an arrogant bastard.”
I almost laughed.
“You signed my overtime sheets for six years.”
“I’ve known what you were for longer than that.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“You think Barnes never ran your background?”
The red emergency light pulsed against the walls.
Crane gave a humorless smile.
“He hated that you never acted afraid of him.”
“So he checked.”
“He checks everyone.”
“How much did he find?”
“Enough.”
I glanced at the phone on the floor.
Price could hear every word if the connection was still active.
Crane followed my eyes.
“Kick it over here.”
I did.
The phone slid halfway across the corridor.
He bent just enough to pick it up.
That was the first mistake he made.
Not because it gave me an opening.
Because he expected me to take it.
I stayed still.
He straightened.
The call screen glowed in his hand.
His expression changed.
“Price.”
May you like
I said nothing.
He looked at me.
