“But why wait eight years to exact revenge?” Finn asked.
“Yeah, that doesn’t make sense.” Tobias sat back and planted his hands on his thin knees. “I don’t know. When you called earlier to say Keenan died in the bombing, I wondered if we’d gotten it wrong. That maybe we shouldn’t be looking at ecoterrorists. Just a thought.”
“And one worth looking into,” Ryleigh said. “Thanks for bringing this to our attention.”
“I’ll see you to the door,” Finn said, eager for Tobias to leave so they could get over to this Vick guy’s place.
Tobias turned back on the porch. “Promise you’ll let me know what happens with this.”
“Will do.” Finn closed the door and went back to Ryleigh, who was still reading the paper.
“Did you notice that Vick’s a ranger? He works at the Oregon Caves.” She looked up. “Could explain the marble dust found at the bomb site.”
“We need to pay him a visit,” Finn said, finally glad to have something to act on but with Avery asleep, he couldn’t go until the morning.
“Let’s give Russ a call.” Ryleigh picked up her phone and put Russ on speaker. She succinctly updated him on the newspaper and visit from Tobias.
“We need to raid Vick’s place,” Finn said.
“Agreed, but it’ll be law enforcement only, and you won’t be in on the action,” Russ said.
Not in on the action.
His gut cramped. Not good. He thought he’d dealt with that kind of response. Guess not.
But not in on the action was his life motto from now on, and he had to learn to fully deal with it. At least if he wanted to live a quality life that God wanted for all of His children.
An hour later, Ryleigh exited Russ’s patrol car out front of Barney Vick’s ranch home. The sixties house had a red brick exterior, black shutters, and older wooden windows and sat on an oversized lot at the edge of town. The windows looked like they needed replacing but otherwise the home seemed to be in good repair.
She marched straight to the door. Russ joined her, warrant in hand. The place was dark and buttoned up, but Vick could be sleeping. She knocked and stood back to wait. She rested a hand on her sidearm as did Russ. Vick didn’t have a record of any sort—not even a traffic ticket—but if he was their bomber, he didn’t care if people got hurt. That could include law enforcement officers who came to question him.
Her pulse tripping, she tapped her foot, but Vick didn’t answer her knock.
Russ pressed him thumb on the doorbell a few times and pounded harder. No answer.
“He’s not home,” the neighbor lady yelled from her front porch. Ryleigh spun to look at her. “He went camping for the weekend and is going straight from there to work tomorrow.”
“Hey, Lucy,” Russ called out. “Thanks. You wouldn’t happen to have a key, would you?”
“I do, but what for?” The older woman wore a flowery housecoat, and she eyed them from under pin curls held in place with bobby pins in an X shape.
“We just need to take a look around.”
Russ’s vague reply got a raise of the woman’s eyebrows, moving the pin curls. “I know you’re the law and all, but I’m not sure Barney would appreciate me giving you a key.”
“He’d like it a whole lot better than me busting down his door.” Ah, yes. Appeal to her practicality.
“I suppose.”
Russ held up the warrant. “The judge approved this visit if that helps.”
“Does indeed. Be right back.” She spun, her housecoat flapping in the breeze.
“I didn’t want to mention the warrant,” Russ said. “Now it’ll be all over town within an hour and people will be speculating.”
Not good. “Let’s hope Vick is really camping and doesn’t get wind of it.”
Lucy’s screen door came open again, but didn’t snap closed behind her as a guy, likely her husband, peeked his balding head out.
