Fogel began keying random numbers into the security pad.
A red LED came on, and the panel buzzed.
She beat on the door until the LED turned off, then entered more numbers.
When the panel buzzed for the fourth time, she cursed under her breath and went back to the reception desk.
The blonde woman looked up at her and smiled. “May I help you?”
“I don’t know what bullshit kind of game you’re playing, but you’re interfering with a ongoing homicide investigation, and you’re dangerously close to getting arrested for obstruction of justice.”
The receptionist cocked her head to the side and frowned. “Did somebody die?”
Fogel had enough. She rounded the desk and pulled her handcuffs out from her back pocket. “Stand up and turn around. You’re under arrest.”
On the opposite end of the large white room, the door opened and a man in his mid-fifties dressed in a stark white three-piece suit stepped into the waiting room. “Detective? Please come with me.”
9
I found rope in the garage.
I also found a white Chevy Suburban.
When I told Preacher about the SUV, he glanced back at the dead man on the floor next to Stella’s sleeping body. Cammie followed his gaze from the man on the floor to the sofa, the shotgun still trained on Hobson. “That her?”
“Yep. And her boyfriend here is Jack Thatch.”
“Eddie and Katy’s kid?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be damned.”
I finished the last knot on Hobson’s ankles and stood. The frustration building. “Where the hell is my father?”
The little girl had followed all of us into the house but hadn’t said a word. She was behind her mother, her arms wrapped around her leg. She shrunk back when I spoke. I didn’t care. “If the two of you know what’s going on, you need to tell me.”
Preacher raised both palms. “What happened when you got here?”
I told them.
For the next thirty minutes, I explained everything that had happened since finding Stella in the club in Fallon. I even told them about Leo Signorelli and the man I killed at the hotel. I didn’t leave anything out. I didn’t care anymore.
Dalton said they spoke to my father less than three hours ago.
“So he’s here?”
“He was,” Cammie said.
The man on the floor killed him.
That’s why he’s here.
“We need to search the property. He could be hurt somewhere, dying,” I said.
Preacher and Cammie exchanged a look, and I knew exactly what they were thinking. These people had no desire tohurtmy father. They only wanted him dead.
I shook my head and started for the door. “I’m looking.”
