Cam closed in, shouting again, “I said hands up, Porter!”
Reid raised his hands, the nail beds black with grease, and fell back in his seat, laughing. “That was fun.” Was he high? Judging by the rail-thin form, sagging yellowish skin, and missing teeth, Cam wouldn’t doubt it. “Hey, Twenty-four. Just the man I was looking for.”
“Where’s Shannon?”
“Shannon who?”
Not seeing a weapon, Cam yanked the car door open and hauled Reid out onto the pavement. “Check the car,” he ordered Jamie as he holstered his weapon, cuffed Reid, and turned him over. He had at least fifty pounds on the guy. He wasn’t getting away or putting up a fight.
“Nothing inside,” Jamie called.
“Check the trunk.”
Jamie reached across the seats from the passenger side and pulled up the lever. The trunk popped open, and Cam’s heart sank, not hearing anything. Jamie ducked out and around to the back of the car. He raised the trunk lid the rest of the way and slumped.
Cam held his breath, fearing the worst.
“It’s empty.”
Not the very worst but a close second.
Nic stood on the observation side of the two-way glass, watching as Cam and Matt questioned Reid.
“Where’s Shannon?” Matt asked for what had to be the tenth time. “Who are you working with? There was a second voice.”
Reid squirmed in his chair, but he still wasn’t talking.
“You were blackmailing Murphy,” Cam said. “To steal or destroy evidence from a case implicating Brian Koehler. When Murphy didn’t work out, you were going to try and blackmail me using my past because you knew I used to run in those circles.”
“How long have you been on Koehler’s payroll?” Matt said. “Since he started dealing meth to you?”
“Or is it blow?” Cam said. “We’ll have the drug tests back later today.”
“Wonder how your boss feels about one of his shops getting blown up last night?”
It would be great if they could ask him, but Koehler was in the wind. Security footage from Logan yesterday had him boarding a flight to Doha with fake papers. The footage showed him alone as did pictures of him in a half dozen other places the past week. They had no reason to think Shannon was with him. Hell, it was unclear if he even knew about any of this. It might have just been Reid trying to earn stars, and when he’d gotten a whiff of it, Koehler bolted on the first flight out to a nonextradition country, escaping the pending charges against him and the idiocy of the flunkies on his payroll.
Wait . . . “Koehler’s payroll,” Nic murmured.
“What’s that?” Jamie asked behind him, pausing his warp speed typing.
Nic rotated, leaning back against the glass. “Can you pull up the payroll for Koehler’s businesses?”
“The legitimate ones, yes. The others, not as quickly.”
But not a no. Nic couldn’t help but chuckle. “Let’s start with the legitimate ones. Cross-check them with the list Becca gave me.”
Jamie nodded, and Nic turned back around, eyes tracking Cam around the room. From the whispers he’d heard, Cam and Jamie were lucky to be alive after the car chase this afternoon. He’d been waiting at the station when they’d returned, but there had been so much activity—from booking Reid, to throwing Murphy and Smith, whom Di had apprehended, into temporary holding, to running all manner of traces on Reid’s phones and personal data—that Nic hadn’t gotten a minute alone with him before Reid was ready for questioning. As much as he’d wanted to kiss and hold Cam in his arms, reassure himself that Cam was in one piece, there was no time to waste.
For Shannon’s sake or Cam’s mother’s.
At last check-in, her condition hadn’t worsened but she hadn’t improved either. Her not waking up yet was starting to concern the doctors, which in turn was putting Cam even more on edge. His questions were clipped, his patience thinned, his orders sharpened—more than anyone here was used to from Agent Hard-Ass.
Proving Nic’s point, he smacked the table in front of Reid. “This is a girl’s life on the line, Porter! Who’s holding Shannon?”
“Two hits,” Jamie said, and Nic spun back around. “Both have records.” Nic moved to stand beside Jamie, who’d pulled up two rap sheets on-screen. Petty crimes, possession, breaking and entering, except the one on the right for Timothy Harper also had numerous domestic violence charges filed against him by an ex-wife.
“That one.” Nic tapped the right side of the screen. “Now search against?—”
