He cut through the parking lot, shoulders set, jaw locked, moving like a man with somewhere to be that had nothing to do with the dead woman inside.
Someone who’d just left an important voice mail that nobody answered, and whatever he was going to do next couldn’t wait.
The decision to follow took about three seconds.
I walked Jolly across the parking lot, loaded him into the truck. I closed the door and climbed behind the wheel.
Briggson’s vehicle was already out of sight, but I knew the direction he’d gone. I started the engine.
I’d thought the job was done.
It wasn’t.
Chapter 28
Ben
Briggson’s vehicle had already disappeared around the bend by the time I pulled out of the Ridgewood Apartments lot, but there was only one way out of this part of town, and I’d watched the direction he’d turned.
Jolly stood in the back seat, his body taut, locked on to whatever was running through me. I hadn’t said a word since we’d gotten in, hadn’t given a command, but the dog didn’t need either. He felt the current and he matched it.
I spotted Briggson’s car three blocks later. Dark blue sedan, personal vehicle, moving north at a steady clip through the residential streets on the east side of town. Not speeding but not hesitating either. The driving of a man who knew exactly where he was headed.
I fell in two cars back and kept my hands loose on the wheel.
Briggson turned east, away from the ski corridor, heading toward the older part of Summit Falls where the roadsnarrowed and the houses got smaller and the tourist money hadn’t reached yet. He kept going. Away from the station. Away from anything I associated with police business.
I let another car slide between us. Jolly settled onto the seat behind me, eyes forward, steady.
The first stop was a house on Delancey. Single story, chain link fence, patchy yard. Briggson pulled up to the curb, tried the front door, found it locked, walked around the side and came back thirty seconds later. Got in his car and pulled away. The second stop was an apartment building four blocks east. Same pattern—inside through a side entrance, out in under two minutes, jaw tighter than when he’d gone in.
Both stops were brief. Both were purposeful. And evidently, neither provided what Briggson wanted.
I called Jace, read off both addresses, and asked him to cross-reference them against the investigation files.
“Hold on.” The typing stopped. “Aren’t you supposed to be done with this? Didn’t you and Donovan close the book on the leak?”
“Yeah. But I think we might have been wrong.”
A beat. Then the typing resumed, faster. “Got it. Yeah, both addresses are in the system. First one was flagged six months ago as a suspected distribution point. The second showed up in the phone records of one of the suspects from the cabin raid.”
“So both are drug-related.”
“Both are absolutely drug-related.” His voice had lost any trace of casual. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll call you back.”
I hung up and stared at Briggson’s taillights through the windshield. Two addresses, both connected to the Drift investigation. This was looking worse and worse.
I called Donovan.
He answered on the first ring. “Hey. How’s lemon ginger tea life without me?”
“I think we might have fucked up with our investigation.”
The banter dropped out of his voice immediately. “Go.”
I gave him the short version. Briggson’s phone call at the OD scene. The personal tone. The lie about never having heard the victim’s name before. And now, hitting known drug addresses, one after another, with purpose and familiarity.
