Madison was getting rained on in a gas station forecourt in Everett when a call came through on her cell.
“It’s Deputy Walbeck from Pierce County.”
It took Madison a second to remember. Jerry Wallace.
“Deputy,” she said.
“I’ve got some news, and it’s pretty bad. Did you know the man?” the officer said, trying to gauge how to best deliver the information, whether she was talking to an acquaintance or a stranger.
“No, I’ve never met him.”
“Well, we found human remains. The body had been doused with lighting fluid, set alight, and then dumped in South Prairie Creek. What was left didn’t look human at all. Only good thing I can say about it is that he died of two GSWs to the head and didn’t feel a thing after that. The daughter identified a ring he was wearing.”
“Deputy, we’re holding a man who might have been involved in it. He’s just been arrested and goes by the name Henry Sullivan. You might want to check any trace evidence found in the house against his DNA. He’s already been connected to a murder here.”
“Will do.”
Out of the blue the sharp scent of gas from the pumps hit Madison. Lighting fluid and a match.
Chapter 57
John Cameron finished reading the last document and replaced it on top of all the others. They had spent the day going through Tod Hollis’s files and matching Cameron’s account of the events with the reality of who these men were.
“Nathan,” he said abruptly, “do you remember that last Fourth of July when we went to Conrad Locke’s estate?”
Quinn nodded.
“David, Jimmy, and I went off wandering by ourselves in the woods, and Jimmy said something to us. He said that he’d overheard his father talking to someone on the phone and saying that he would ‘use his bat to put a dent in their future’ if they ever came back to the restaurant.”
“Jimmy’s father said that?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“Nothing. That’s all he’d heard. We thought it was pretty grown-up stuff and decided to keep our ears open and see what was going to happen. Did David ever mention it to you?”
“No.” Quinn had left that night before the fireworks and had not come back for days.
They were both thinking the same thing, and Cameron said it. “Is it possible that something happened between Jimmy’s father and one of these men who’d come around like jackals sniffing for easy prey?”
“Jimmy’s father was not the kind of man who’d likely respond with a baseball bat to anything less than a direct threat.”
“Like I would? People do strange things when they’re afraid.”
Quinn didn’t reply. He was thinking about Jimmy’s father—always kind, always ready to play with the younger kids. Had the jackals threatened the boys?
Later, while Quinn was on the phone to the alarm company, the doorbell rang, and it was the daily delivery from Chef O’Keefe. Cameron opened the front door and walked up to the gate. The chef was a world-class poker player, and it was their luck that he was just as good in the kitchen. During the weeks in KCJC his senses had been dulled by the quality of the prison food, and O’Keefe’s clam chowder had provided a fitting return to life.
The gate swung open, and Cameron moved to take the packages from the delivery man—a busboy he didn’t know wearing whites under a leather jacket, his motorcycle helmet on the bike’s seat.
The movement was subtle: perhaps a shift in the man’s eyes, perhaps a rushed move forward to pass him the bags. Cameron’s heartbeat was as slow as his instincts were quick. If he held the bags, both of his hands would be full. And then he saw the Taser gun ready to fire.
Cameron let go of the bags as he lunged forward faster than the man could step backward. The busboy pulled back his gun hand to have enough room to fire, but Cameron had already reached for his knife and struck in one swift movement. The man’s white throat was exposed and vulnerable. A single lethal slash and the blood flew in a red arc. The man fell backward, eyes wide, his mouth gasping short, ragged breaths. It’s never just one man. Cameron turned snake-fast, and the blade hit a soft target behind him; then Taser wires found him, and his muscles tensed and cramped as the electric shock traveled through his body.
Three men in total: one down, one injured.
Hands cuffed him behind his back and snapped tape over his mouth. Hands lifted him off the ground and pushed him into the back of a van. He saw two men grab the body of their dead comrade off the pavement and throw him next to him in the van.
They shoved the door closed and were off. The attack had lasted seconds, and it had happened in complete silence. Cameron’s last thought, as a needle in the arm sent him to sleep, rang out from the overwhelming darkness: Nathan’s not here; Nathan’s safe.