“Yep,” I say. “Don’t you use the new facility?”Or is that too high tech for you?I want to ask.
“I like it out here. Peaceful,” he says, pulling his lips in for a tight smile. The old acne scars on his face appear deeper and more purple in the sunlight. “Other than the pistols firing, that is. So, tell me, how is it?”
I don’t ask,How’s what?because I don’t sense an ounce of sincerity behind his ugly grin.
“Huh? How is it to be hunted instead of being the hunter?” His lips stay open like a fish’s when he stresses theer.
I shake my head, say nothing, move down the firing line to the very end of the range, as far away as possible. I feel his eyes on me.
I wonder if he’s referring to what happened with Railes and Coleman, as if we hunted those boys down on purpose. What does it matter?
Suddenly, I miss Allison. She was a welcome buffer among the guys, even during the worst of it. When I’d mentioned Hartley’s name and she could tell I was frustrated, she’d said, “Try putting a picture of him on that bull’s-eye.” I laughed, imagining Hartley’s fuming expression if he walked in to see his own face on a target frame. I think of my friends in general. Wallace isn’t cutting it, and Fiona? I’m not sure I trust her 100 percent. My words to Jess back in high school return again:You don’t have to try to fit in with people you don’t particularly like all the time to be popular, Jess. It’s okay to keep your distance.
Distance.That word. Again, my therapist’s question—When did this loner streak rear its head again?—rings in my ears.
Distance.It seems to have become my motto with everyone but Jess and Sam since the night with Railes. Lately, I’ve separated myself so much that I’m not sure I trust anyone at all. It strikes me how much of a loner I’ve become over the past year, even without the onset of this sketch business. I think of my mom and how she became a hermit near the end, how she was choosing the bottle over her friends, over Les, over even her daughters.
I don my earmuffs and eyewear and wait for the range operator to give the green light.
There are only three others in the firing line, and all wait patiently. For some reason, my heart speeds up as if I haven’t done this a gazillion times before.
“Commence,” the operator orders. We all start blasting away at our targets, pistols and rifles cracking until we’re told to cease, and the silence falls among the pines. The familiar scent of gunpowder swirls. My heartbeat slows, and already, I feel better. I’ve been fairly accurate, with only a few shots more than five inches off my bull’s-eye.
I shoot three more rounds, falling into a bit of a transcendent headspace, more than a few times picturing Hartley’s face on the target. Or Railes’s. Or Coleman’s.
When I imagine my own face, I shudder and call it quits.
Not yours, Cros,I tell myself. The face of the killer, that’s the one to imagine.
And what the hell doesitlook like?
Chapter 26
Workers’ comp cases often involve a level of IQ that leaves me wondering about the quality of public schools today, and Aaron Lasserio is another shining—check that, depressing—case in point.
I’ve surveilled him enough for the past week and a half since I got the go-ahead from Graham Insurance several days after returning from Choteau to know that he stayed home with his girlfriend last Tuesday evening but went to a poker game on Wednesday at a bar down the road from his house. I’m assuming he might keep the same schedule this week, and since it’s late Tuesday afternoon, I figure Lasserio is in for the evening.
After I left the shooting range, I went to Target, bought a multicamera system, and went home and installed the cameras around my place: at my front and back doors; one on my garage; one on a post at the main entrance, where Deputy Zane is stationed; and on both sides of my house, where I have my bedroom and office windows. I hated running my plastic up even more, especially so soon after the Dallas charges, but since hiding out in a safe house isn’t an option if I want to continue working and have a shot at catching this guy, this is a wise choice.
Parked under a large maple tree down a little from Lasserio’s house, I’m relieved tofinallybe at work. I refuse to get distracted. I amnotdropping my Lasserio stuff or the Ridgeway investigation. I am not, if I can help it, going to let another man get away with harming another woman.
But it’s hard to sit still. In my rearview mirror, I catch my own big eyes. They’re lit up by the unnatural buzz of adrenaline trying—but failing—to mask my exhaustion from the past two sleepless nights. Three, if you count the red-eye out of the valley.
I check my new home-surveillance app and see that everything around my place is quiet—the front stoop is empty, the driveway clear, the back porch and yard peaceful.
I roll my window down for some fresh air. The early-September sun throws long, moody shadows. Some kids are playing in the yard of the next house over, but the other homes are quiet. It occurs to me now that I’ve forgotten to eat all day, and my stomach is gnawing away at itself. I fish a granola bar out of my console and munch on it while I open my laptop and connect to my phone’s mobile hot spot.
I wish Greene and Alderson would have given me the name of the man who is still alive, the drug rep from Spokane.
I study the third sketch again. Except for the one slightly wonky eye, there’s nothing that distinctive about it. That is, no specific detail like my earrings. His shirt collar is nondescript and he has no necklace, hat, or other identifying detail like a mole.
I search the Carssen Pharmaceuticals website, but there’s no information on the individuals or their territory sales forces. That leaves me with LinkedIn and a search of all the Carssen reps I can find. Most of them have profile pictures, so I can discard the ones who look nothing like the sketch. Carssen is a big outfit, so scrolling down is a slow process—a fresh source of irritation—when my eye is drawn to movement at the Lasserio house.
The front door has popped open and Aaron Lasserio steps through it carrying what looks to be an old microwave. He lugs it down his front steps and across his yard, sets it in the back of his pickup, then goes back in, leaving the front door open.
After a few minutes, Aaron emerges again. This time, he and his girlfriend are carrying a midsize dresser that could be oak and looks burdensome. I snatch my phone and video their journey to the truck. Hislight-haired, tiny girlfriend rests her end of the dresser on the driveway while Aaron, with his curly mop of dark hair and ripped jeans, leans his end against the tailgate. Aaron hops up into the bed like a twenty-five-year-old Olympic hurdler, grabs his end again, and sets about gallantly hefting the dresser up without her assistance. It’s a pretty manly display, especially considering the limitations he listed on his insurance claim.
He jumps down from the bed, slams the tailgate shut. His woman goes back into the house, and he climbs in behind the wheel of the truck and backs out. I follow him out of the neighborhood to a run-down storage business south of town. I followed him twice before Jess and I flew to Dallas, both boring and fruitless trips, and never to a unit. The place seems right out of the seventies or eighties. There’s no coded entry gate, no security cameras that I can spot, and no front office. Just a sign out front with a number you can call to rent a unit. I pause on the shoulder of the main road to give him a minute, and go in.
