RAMPAGE
The federal agent was a woman named Diaz, mid-thirties, efficient without being cold, and she shook Emily's hand and set her bag down and looked around the compound common room with the practiced neutrality of someone who'd conducted interviews in stranger places.
Rampage had arranged it carefully. He’d brought in the good couch, not the table. It was softer, less interrogation adjacent. Savannah was sitting on Emily's left, Makenzie in the chair nearby. Coffee was already made. The kind of setup that saidyou're supportedwithout making a production of it.
He stood near the back of the room.
Diaz had looked at him when she came in. At the position he'd taken, the distance he was keeping. She'd read it correctly. He’d made the deliberate choice to be present without looming, and given him a small nod of acknowledgment. He was worried she might make him or the girls leave. He’d raise hell if she tried.
She didn’t.
He'd taken stock of her in return. Good instincts. Clean interview technique. She'd do.
Emily sat on the couch with her hands wrapped around her mug and her spine straight and answered every question with clarity and detail. Rampage was incredibly proud of his girl. She was being so brave.
She remembered everything. The Facebook group, the first comment of his. It was a reply to a post she'd made about a local trail being closed for maintenance, anodyne and friendly. Then the listing two weeks later, appearing in her feed because they were in the same neighborhood group. He’d explained to her that he had two homes, one in each town, due to work, when she’d asked him why the gym equipment was three hours away from their community. She’d bought his excuses and he couldn’t blame her. They were believable.
The messages that followed, three of them, all transactional, nothing that would have triggered alarm.
The first visit when she came and looked over the equipment, leaving her car alone in the driveway. She’d entered his garage alone. Rampage’s gut churned thinking about her in there alone with him. He could have moved on her then but didn’t. Why didn’t he grab her then? She explained the condition of the garage and the empty hooks.
Diaz leaned forward when Emily described the hooks.
"How many empty, approximately?"
"Maybe thirty percent of the board. Upper section, larger hooks. The kind you'd use for heavy equipment."
"What was the flooring like?"
"Concrete. Clean." Emily thought. "There were scuff marks, though. Drag marks maybe. Wide ones."
Diaz wrote something. Emily watched her write it.
"During the first visit," Diaz said, "did he suggest a second meeting? Or was the hardware bag mentioned during that visit?"
"He didn't say anything about it during the visit. I came to look at the equipment and make sure it was worth what he wasasking for it. That was actually his idea. Told me to come check it out and if I liked it I could come back and pick it up. I told him I would have to come back. He texted me after I’d picked up the equipment on the second visit."
"How long between the visit and the text?"
"It was late that night."
Diaz nodded. "And when he texted, did he specify what the bag contained?"
"Mounting nails and hardware for the squat rack. He said he'd accidentally left it out of the lot." She paused. "It was specific enough to be believable. The squat rack did need hardware for proper installation."
"Did you verify the hardware was actually missing before you went back?"
She stopped for a minute and stared blankly ahead.
"No," Emily said. Quiet.
"That's not a judgment," Diaz said, quickly and genuinely. "I'm establishing the sequence. The pretext was convincing. That's by design."
Rampage watched Emily take that in. The small tension across her shoulders. The way she breathed through it. Savannah squeezed her knee in encouragement. God, his brothers had chosen so well. These women were good people.
"When you returned," Diaz continued, "describe his demeanor."
"He answered the door fast. Like he was waiting for me." She set her mug down. "He smiled. Wide. Slow." She stopped. "I know what you're going to say, that hindsight is making it worse in memory."
