CHAPTER NINETEEN
Wednesday, June 21
6:40 p.m.
Vic couldn’t make himself move away from the door. Maggie reclined against the pillows in the hospital bed, looking like she’d been through hell. She was too pale, the circles beneath her eyes making them look bruised, her hair lank and still filthy from hitting the ground as hard as she had.
She looked breakable, and he didn’t know how to deal with that.
“Get over here and update me.”
He blinked. This Maggie he knew. She couldn’t be as bad as she looked if she was still able to bark at him like that. He breathed a small sigh of relief and crossed the room to grab the chair next to the bed. “You’re okay.”
She started to snap at him but made an obvious effort to rein it in. “Everything hurts and I’m furious that he got the drop on me, but I’m alive. I’ll recover. I’m also on paid medical leave through the end of the week.”
All of which went to explain the bad attitude. He’d be feeling the same if their positions were reversed. “Have you eaten anything yet?”
“No, the nurse is bringing something back for me when she gets a chance.”
He eyed the empty packet of crackers on the bedside table. “Do you need anything else?”
“What I want is for you to stop treating me like a child and just update me.” She made a face. “Please.”
There was nothing for it. He hated giving her bad news, but he didn’t have anything good to combat her pissy mood. So Vic sat back and gave it to her straight. “Tucker met me here when they brought you in, and part of updating me included informing me that someone had been following him for the last day or so in Mark Conlon’s pickup truck.”
“One of Mark’s cop-hating friends?”
“That’s what I assumed, but we cornered the guy, and it was none other than Ethan Conlon.”
“What?” Maggie tried to sit up, but the IV tubing got tangled, and she had to settle for waving her free hand. “What the hell? He’s out of the park? He’s been out for long enough to figure out that Tucker is at least one of the investigating agents and follow him—and he never thought to, I don’t know, give us a heads-up about his friends?”
“That’s what it looks like. He says he doesn’t trust law enforcement and was just trying to get information on Madison, but it rings false.”
“I don’t like going to the dentist, but I sure as shit will if I think something’s wrong with my tooth.”
Vic barked out a laugh. “The dentist, huh?”
“Mouth butchers, every one of them.” She started to run her fingers through her hair, grimaced, and dropped her hand. “Does he know where the girls are?”
“He says not—he also says he hasn’t seen Madison or Ashleigh since the night they scattered.” He gave her a quick rundown of what he’d gotten out of Ethan before he’d left. Tucker would keep at the kid, but Vic wasn’t optimistic at this point. “He’s got an alibi for the final kill—and for the attack on you—and it’s pretty damn unshakable. Even if Tucker can’t place the exact time he first saw him, for him to have shot you, let alone killed Josh, would be—”
“Impossible. Unless he has a teleporter tucked away.” She slumped back into the pillows, but her dark eyes were still watchful. “What’s got that look on your face?”
“There’s something off about his story.” He couldn’t put his finger on it. “He’s worried about Madison and that feels genuine, but the guy has a significant amount of outdoors experience. He says he heard screaming the night they scattered and thought it was a bear. He had to have known that running off into the dark was more dangerous than any other option, short of running to confront the theoretical bear.”
She narrowed her eyes. “There are a truly outstanding number of bears in that area of the park. If he’s as experienced as his father makes it sound, he would have known the safest course of action is to climb a tree and wait it out. There are a whole lot in the way of options in trees between Fifty Mountain and the west entrance—I’m assuming that’s where he came out of the park—but instead he hiked down to the road?”
“That’s what it’s looking like.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “That’s what’s bugging me. No one would expect him to run to save those girls, no matter how much he cares for Madison or how much shit I gave him over it. If he really thought it was a bear attack, why not do what you just said—climb a tree and wait for morning?” That would make sense. It would even make sense if he realized that the rest of the group had scattered in a panic and decided to hike out of the park. Did it make him an idiot for not reporting anything to the park rangers? Without a doubt. But it was a more plausible story than the one he’d put forth.
Not to mention shadowing Tucker.
He sat forward. “He knew at least two of them came back dead, and he had to know it was foul play or the Feds wouldn’t be involved.”
Maggie watched him closely. “You think he’s connected to the killer. They’re all connected to the killer, at least technically.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “God, I need a shower and a gallon of coffee. My head is all fuzzy.”
“That will happen when you’ve been shot.” Just saying it had his chest tightening in fear as the scene from earlier played out in his mind. He’d actually thought for a short period of time that he might lose her. There’d be hell to pay for calling Caroline—if there was one thing Britton didn’t budge on, it was his ex-wife—but Vic would do it again in a heartbeat. “You need to rest.”
“What I need is to get out of this bed and get moving.”
The door opened, and a nurse in pink scrubs came in with a tray of food. Every good nurse Vic had encountered over the years had perfected the no-nonsense attitude that managed to be firm and empathetic at the same time. This one was younger than most, barely out of school, if he didn’t miss his guess, but she carried herself with confidence. For being so close to the Blackfeet reservation, Kalispell didn’t have nearly as diverse a population as he would have expected, but the nurse was one of the few Native American people he’d come across since starting this investigation.
She nodded at him, but her focus was on her patient. “You know very well that you’re going to have to stay overnight for observation. Don’t make that face—if it was him in this bed, you’d be agreeing with me.”
Maggie’s gaze found him, and her lips twitched. “I suppose you’re right.”
“I am.” The nurse set up the food on the table that would swing over Maggie’s lap so she didn’t have to strain herself, and then she took her vitals. “Looks good. Eat what you’re hungry for, and see how you feel.” She checked her watch. “The doctor will be in before the end of his shift. If you want to be difficult, you can be difficult with him.”
This time, Maggie did smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“See that you do. And you”—she pointed at Vic—“don’t rile her up. She needs calm and rest, and getting her all excited or angry is going to potentially lengthen her healing process.”
She was a good foot shorter than he was, but under that steely, dark gaze, he had a hard time not shifting his feet like he was back in grade school and had just been caught pulling on Rachel Westerman’s pigtails. “Yes, ma’am.”
With one last look at both of them, she walked out of the room and closed the door softly behind her.
Vic turned back to Maggie. “She’s right. I shouldn’t be talking about the case.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.” She lifted the lid off the plate and set it aside. “My back hurts and I’m tired, but there’s nothing wrong with my brain. If I’m stuck here overnight, you can’t sit around and babysit me.”
He knew what it cost her to say that instead of demanding he get the hell out of here and take her with him. As much as he wanted to do exactly that, he needed her healed and safe. It was a selfish need, and maybe not how he’d feel if it was Tucker in that bed instead of Maggie, but he didn’t even try to fight it. Instead, he crossed to the bed and leaned down to press a soft kiss to her mouth. “I’ll be back as soon as we figure out what we’re doing with Ethan Conlon.”
“He knows more than he’s telling, but you’re going to have to trick him into admitting it.” She picked up half of her sandwich. “The girlfriend is the pressure point. If he cares about her as much as you think, it would have to be a difficult choice to leave her behind. He was following Tucker for more information, which he had to know was suspicious in the extreme. Hit that subject the right way and he’ll react instinctively.”
It was a good point—and one he might have gotten around to if he wasn’t so damn worried about her. Vic stopped at the door and just took her in. She was alive. A little banged up, a lot tired, but she’d be fine before too long. “Get some rest.”
“Pretty sure that nurse is going to sweep back in here with some excellent drugs that will knock me on my ass before too long.” She shrugged. “I’ll stay overnight. That’s all I’m promising.”
“That’s all I’m asking.” Trying to get her to slow down longer than that would require divine intervention. “Did they give you back your cell?”
“I think it’s still in my pack.”
The one he’d kept when she’d been admitted to the hospital. Vic nodded. “I’ll go get it from the rental now.”
“Just drop it at the nurses’ station.” She gave him a half smile. “If you come back up here, you’re going to end up feeling guiltier, and then it’ll slow you down when you should be back at the station questioning Ethan—I’m assuming he’s at the police station.”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t keep his grimace internal. “Officer Jenkins is a pain in the ass.”
“He’s territorial. He’s not a bad guy.” She shrugged. “Most of the cops around here are just as suspicious of big government as the rest of the population is. He’s not going to welcome you with open arms, but he’ll do his job.”
It would have been really useful to have Maggie at his side to help him navigate the situation, but he’d been doing this shit for years without her. It shouldn’t feel so damn wrong to walk out of the room and leave her behind.
But it did.
Wednesday, June 21
7:32 p.m.
Vic met Tucker in the small room next to the interrogation room that Officer Jenkins had provided them. His partner’s jaw was clenched and his blue eyes severe. “I can’t get shit out of him.”
He’d expected as much, but it didn’t stop him from feeling guilty for walking out in the middle of the interview. “Maggie says that if he was telling the truth about the bear, an experienced outdoorsman would climb a tree and wait it out rather than run blindly into the night and risk getting himself killed.”
“Makes sense.”
Yeah, it did. Ethan struck him as stubborn, and he obviously had some shit in his past plaguing him, but he didn’t appear to be dumb. “You want me to take another crack at him and then let him cool his heels for a bit while we figure out the next step?”
“By all means.” Tucker waved him at the door, though he held up a piece of paper. “I wrote out all the times I saw him within the nearest half hour. Even if he had access to a helicopter to get him into the park with ease—and if it was feasible that no one would notice it—the timeline is too tight for him to be good for the most recent body. Or for Maggie being shot, for that matter.”
Vic had already come to that realization, but he nodded all the same. “But it doesn’t cover him for the others.”
“A potential pair? It’s a stretch, but I guess anything could happen.” Tucker propped his feet on the table in the room—the only piece of furniture other than the chair he occupied. “Though serial-killing pairs—even spree-killing pairs—tend to have one dominant partner and one submissive one. I don’t see Ethan submitting to anyone, not with that chip on his shoulder.”
“Maybe. But he was in the Army, and they like to train their people to obey, so we can’t rule anything out.” Vic scrubbed a hand over his face, suddenly tired. It seemed the farther they got into this investigation, the more questions arose. Never any answers, just more questions. He needed to wrap this up and wrap it up now before anyone else was hurt.
Unfortunately, he could want to finish it, but that didn’t mean it was going to happen. “I’ll see what I can get out of him.”
“Vic.”
Something in Tucker’s voice stopped him in his tracks. His partner sounded almost . . . guilty. He pinned him with a look. “What did you do?”
“Don’t get pissy with me. You know how Britton likes to be kept in the loop.” Tucker paused, seemed to realized that he was stalling, and rushed forward. “He’s coming here.”
“What?” Britton came into the field so rarely, Vic couldn’t actually remember the last time it’d happened. “What did you say to bring him here?” He hadn’t told Tucker about calling Caroline. There was no reason for him to know, and beyond that, she and Britton had been divorced well before Tucker joined the BAU. It would just confuse the issue.
He held up his hands. “I told him that Maggie got hurt. He wants to see for himself.”
Vic relaxed, but only marginally. Maggie might not want to face Britton yet—ever—but there wasn’t much either of them could do about it at this point. He’d tell Britton personally that he’d talked to Caroline and deal with any damage control as required. Not that his boss would do more than level a disappointed look at him, but Britton didn’t need to raise his voice to bring his people to their knees. He didn’t do it often, but the knowledge was there all the same.
Tucker gave him a significant look. “Have another pass at Ethan. We’ll talk about this later.”
There wasn’t a damn thing to talk about. Britton was coming, end of story.
He had a suspect to interrogate—even if that suspect was looking less like a suspect and more like a material witness.
At least if they could get him to stop stonewalling them.