“And Nicole?”
“I made that clear. We’re not asking to keep a killer alive for humanitarian reasons. We need him alive to find out where he’s put Nicole.”
“If he hasn’t already killed her.”
Dalton lowers himself onto the floor. “Jacob’s right, Casey. There’s no point in taking Nicole only to kill her. He’d have saved himself the hassle and killed her in bed. A big ‘fuck you’ to us.”
“What if it wasn’t her captor who took her? What if it was someone else?”
“Someone else?”
I close my eyes and lean back against the wall. “Ignore me. I’m tired and rambling.”
He moves closer, until his legs brush mine. “No, you’re not. Something’s going on in that head of yours. It’s been going on for a while, and now it’s clicked.”
“I’ve just been … I don’t know. Trying to figure out where the hostiles come from. Whether there’s a connection to the council. How coincidental is it that Val was attacked after they encouraged her to go on patrol? Then they covered up what happened, so you couldn’t investigate.”
“You think they did what they accused me of? Orchestrated it?”
I rub my face. “It doesn’t matter. Not right now. Hostiles didn’t take Nicole. It just made me wonder what else the council could do. What would they do, if it’s to their benefit? Tyrone said it’s a good thing we didn’t let Nicole leave. He seems sure they’d have killed her. Except she wasn’t threatening to tell anyone about Rockton. I made it up. I thought I was so damned clever, beating them at their own game. What if I…?” I look at him. “What if I did this? I made them think she was a threat so they took her and attacked Shawn to convince us it was our guy?”
“But Nicole wasn’t an exposure threat, Casey. She was staying here.”
“Maybe the council couldn’t take that chance. If she raised enough fuss, you might fly her out. If we discovered injuries we missed, you might fly her out. Regardless of what they said, you might fly her out. They can’t trust you. You’ll put the residents first.”
He’s quiet, face drawn, eyes clouded with worry, and that’s not what I want. I want arguments.
I continue, “Jacob was surprised that Nicole’s captor would dare come into Rockton and take her. Tyrone was, too. It is ballsy. Incredibly ballsy. Especially for someone who isn’t from Rockton, doesn’t know how the town works, what the house layouts look like, how to get in and out, how to access our drug supply. Roger wouldn’t know any of that. He’s a second-generation settler.”
“But he was asking about law enforcement.”
“And not getting any answers. Not enough to let him break in and take her.” I run my hands through my hair. “I’m not saying Roger couldn’t have done it. But we know the council has people here. Spies. The only one we can identify…”
Dalton shakes his head. “It’s not Will. Yeah, I know, consider all options. Not Will, though.”
Anders is indeed one of the council spies. Planted to keep tabs on Dalton, but he abandoned that long ago, his loyalty firmly with his sheriff.
“Will was at home and in bed moments after Shawn was attacked,” I say. “Whoever did this can’t be anyone we’d roust to help with the search, not if he had to get Nicole out of Rockton.”
“The boot prints…”
“They were roughly the same size as Nicole’s captor’s. But in that kind of snow, it wasn’t possible to say the tread was a match.”
We go quiet. Then Dalton says, “The plan with Nicole—telling the council she might be an exposure threat—we agreed on that. You came up with it, but we all agreed. Not one of us thought it could put her in danger. You never said Nicole threatened to expose us, only that you feared she might report the crime, which could endanger Rockton. That’s pure conjecture. And what about Diana? She is an exposure threat, but they haven’t taken any action except making her finish her term.” He looks at me. “You had no reason to think your suggestion would endanger Nicole.”
I don’t answer.
“For now, focus on Roger,” he says. “We need to wake him up and speak to him.”
FIFTY-FOUR
Roger is awake. Awake and yet not alert, floating in that semiconscious state where he can respond to questions but isn’t fully aware of what’s happening. Not aware enough to formulate a lie. Questioning him in that condition violates his rights, but no one here gives a shit.
The only problem with Roger’s condition is that he isn’t entirely coherent either. We’re left sifting through the flotsam and jetsam his muddled brain throws out.
“He attacked—he attacked—he attacked—” That’s how it begins, when I ask Roger what he remembers. He gets stuck there, like a record unable to complete a revolution.
“He attacked you,” I say. “Do you know why?”
“Girl. The girl.” He finds my face, and his scrunches up. “You? Yes, you. In the forest.”
“You saw me in the forest. During the storm. You attacked me.”
“Attacked? No. The storm … Yes. But not then. After. With him.”
I struggle not to put words into his mouth. “Where were you when you first saw me?”
“In the forest. During the storm. You had her. His girl.”