“Call first, eat later.”
“On it,” Ty nodded, picking up his desk phone. “While I’m dialing, here’s a little something to brighten your day.” He slid a printout across the desk.
Luke picked it up. It was a news story, from a year and a half ago, about a building fire in the city. The lead picture was Harper, covered in ash and soot, half carrying an elderly woman in her nightgown out of the flames.
Luke pinched the bridge of his nose as a stroke threatened behind his eyes. “Christ. She just told me she was home when the fire started. She didn’t say anything about dragging people out of the building.”
“Two people and one cat,” Ty said, covering the receiver.
Luke skimmed the story while Ty talked his way through a police station switchboard.
His brave, wild girl. Ready for any challenge. He wondered how she felt about Perry. Was she scared? She was probably planning something stupid like meeting him face to face.
Like hell she would. He’d make sure that she never had to face that monster again.
“Detective Rameson? This is Deputy Adler out of Benevolence —”
“No, she’s just fine, but she is the reason I’m calling. I’m here with a ... colleague,” he darted a look at Luke. “Do you mind if I put you on speaker phone? Great.” He stabbed a button on the phone and hung up the receiver.
“You there, detective?”
“I’m here,” her voice was clipped with a touch of Jersey. “What’s happening down in Benevolence?”
“Clive Perry. What kind of a threat is he going to be to Harper?”
Luke heard her sigh. “Thank freakin’ God she finally decided to tell someone. I’ve been on her for a year. ‘Yagotta have a plan,’ I keep telling her.”
Luke snorted. Harper with a plan.
“I can tell by that response that you know her pretty well then. You’re not the asshole who dumped her, are you? God, she’s got shitty taste in men.”
Ty cleared his throat. “I’m not, but my colleague is. He’s not so much an asshole as a dumbass.”
“You ask me, pretty often they’re one and the same,” Rameson said.
“Look, we just need to know if this Perry guy is going to come after her when he gets out,” Luke cut in.
“You read the letters?” she asked.
“I read them all. Ty here read enough to call you.”
“Here’s the deal. This Perry moron writes to her every couple of months since she hits eighteen. Everywhere she goes, he finds her and the letters start again. Always the same shit ‘You owe me, you’ll pay, blah blah blah.’ Good thing is, the letters didn’t play well for him in his parole hearings. Bad thing is, he never directly threatens her. No one’s gonna take him as a serious threat unless he gets more specific, know what I mean?”
“What’s your take on him?” Ty asked.
“I don’t know too much. I’ve kept tabs on him and the locals keep me up to date occasionally. Professional courtesy. Guy’s in his sixties and not the strapping, healthy, TV-commercial sixties. More like the ‘my liver’s failing and I smoke two packs a day’ sixties. But there’s something dark about this guy. My gut tells me he’s trouble, only I don’t got the proof. I need something on him that’ll get the key thrown away. I’m concerned we won’t have that something until he’s out and pulls some shit on Harper.”
“That’s not an option,” Luke growled.
“In this case, I agree with the dumbass. But I got nothing on the creep right now.”
Something shimmered at the edge of Luke’s consciousness and slowly started to take shape. “He’s in Sussex, right?” Luke asked.
“Yeah, been there his whole sentence.”
“Ty, where was Glenn serving time?”
“Son of a bitch.” Ty’s fingers flew over his keyboard. “Overcrowding in county and a repeat offender? Yeah.”
