“Suspicious how?” Simmons asked, poking at something on his phone then looking up at the roof of the building. Presumably checking different security checkpoints.
“Somebody shows up at Franny’s doorafterthe car she IDed is found in Idaho. The Feds, allegedly, pull out of Wyoming to focus on Idaho.”
“Likely the kidnapper ditched the car in Idaho, then doubled back here to make his threat.”
“Likely, yeah. But only if that meant they’d dropped Albennie Ward off with someone.” He didn’t come out and sayif she wasstill alive. Royal figured her being dead was just as possible, but he also knew that sometimes kidnapping people for information or ransom was a more complicated endeavor.
He assumed whatever past Albennie Ward had leaned more to that than quick, easy murder. Otherwise someone would have taken her out here.
“What’s your point, Deputy?”
“My point is, this only makes sense if the guy who kidnapped Albennie was for hire. He drops off the kidnapping victim, ditches the car, but he knows he’s got a loose end. The woman who saw him. I’m worried even when we get him, he’ll have no connection to the real brain behind this, and we’ll be exactly where we are right now, except Franny will be safer.”
Simmons was quiet for a long humming moment. “I don’t love that theory, deputy, I’ve got to say.”
“Then what’s yours?”
“Runs similar to yours at first. Yeah, I’d wager a bet he’s a kidnapper for hire. He drops Albennie off with whoever actually wanted her. There’s no on-paper connection.” Simmons shrugged like that was obvious. “But when we catch him? There’s no honor amongst thieves, Campbell. None that I’ve seen. He’ll talk, and it’ll lead us to whoever really has Albennie.”
“If you have the right kind of ringleader, loyalty is a hell of a drug. It’s not honor amongst thieves, it’s…belief.” He thought of the way his father had worshipped Ace Wyatt, leader of the Sons. Like the man was God himself. His dad would have doneanythingfor Ace. Kept any secret, weathered any punishment, because he’d believed that someday, somewhere, there’d be something in it for him.
“You know what else is a hell of a drug?” Simmons asked. “Threat of the death penalty.”
“For kidnapping?”
Simmons sighed, shoving his phone into his pocket. “That’s where things are…tricky.” He started walking to his car, so Royal fell into step next to him.
“The Feds know who did this, don’t they?”
“Know? No. Have some ideas? Yeah, that’s my take, but as many friends as I have, as many strings as I can pull, I’m not FBI any longer. I don’t have access to everything they know. I can only wager some guesses based on how things have gone, based on what little information I was given when Albennie came here.”
“So, when are they going to come back?”
“They’re not.”
“What?”
“They don’t know about the break-in. If I can help it, they won’t.”
“Why the hell not?” Royal demanded. He wasn’t too thrilled with the Feds keeping things from local police, but he happened to feel like right now the more law enforcement agencies were working on this, the better.
“Because I’m starting to worry that Albennie’s location was leaked somewhere on their side of things. It shouldn’t have been possible for anyone from her past to find her. So unless she gave herself away, which I just can’t fathom, it’s there. Somewhere in there.”
“Then why’d you involve them in the first place?”
Simmons just spared him a look.
“It’s complicated. Right,” Royal muttered. But it made him remember the strange woman he’d assumed was a Fed. “Did you know all the agents who were here after the kidnapping?”
“Not all of them personally.”
“But you know. Who should be here. Who shouldn’t.”
Simmons narrowed his eyes. “Sure. Or I could find out. Why?”
“What about a brunette, brown eyes, mid-thirties. Five-six, a buck twenty, maybe more. She had some muscle on her. A tiny trio of moles on her chin, and Ithinka birthmark, faint, on the back of her neck.”
“That doesn’t describe anyone I can think of off the top of my head, but I can poke into it deeper.”
