by RJ Scott
“No, of course they’re on a watch list. I was on a freaking watch list. I get it. I do. But I wanted to help, needed to find connections between the missing women, anything so you’d be done here in town.”
That confused me, and I sat on the opposite small wall, the scent of rain on the bricks in every breath.
“You want me to leave town?” Hang on. Why was I saying it like that? It didn’t matter what he wanted. I was leaving after we solved this mess of cases.
“No. I don’t want you to go anywhere, but I was hoping that you’d be Lucas, my lover, not Lucas, the federal agent. I promised myself I’d pull back from what I was doing, sell the hotel, rent or buy a smaller place if I can, and then maybe you’d… I don’t know… visit or something.”
“That is so messed up,” I finally said, and he nodded.
A clattering and banging alerted us to the fact that Harry and Marco were joining us in the yard, giving us both enough time to get our game faces on. “Dad? You said you’d help with the photos?” He looked at me apologetically.
“I promised Harry I’d help,” he murmured. “But you and I? We haven’t stopped talking about the important things, about us—”
I couldn’t help the sigh that escaped me and watched his body language change in an instant. “We’ve done all the talking, and you know being with someone on a watch list… hell, if I want any credibility in my career, you and me together is an impossible thing.”
“True.” He gave me a lopsided smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “It was fun while it lasted Special Agent Beaumont.”
He walked into the hotel and my heart shattered into pieces. I almost called him back. Almost. But what was the point? Where could this whole mess of a relationship go from here? Work. I needed to concentrate on that. It was where I needed my head at, so I joined Avery in our space, where she had notes strewn around her and she launched right into what she’d found.
“There are connections between Sandoval and the other two, financial mostly. Sandoval also made payments to Pastor Kirkland.”
I bent over the same printouts. “And any connection to Adam Gray?”
“From PD archives. Sandoval visited Adam Gray six years ago, a welfare visit, but the notes are thin.”
Much like everything that had happened at Lancaster Falls until two years back when Sawyer had arrived.
A loud crack tore into the house, and at first it sounded like that high-pitched snap of thunder, but then it happened again, and realization slapped us hard at the same time. Gunfire.
We left the hotel at a run, a bullet smacking into the wall next to us, and we took cover behind the car. I released the trunk catch and reached in for my bulletproof vest and the lockbox holding my gun. I slipped the jacket over my head, checked the rounds in the chamber, cautioning Avery to stay, as her vest was out of reach.
“Call 911,” I muttered and then rolled out from the side of the car. The scene in front of me was something out of a nightmare. We didn’t have to call the cops. Sawyer and Logan were already there, guns drawn, behind Sandoval with no clear shot that wouldn’t end up hurting civilians.
Sandoval stood on the edge of the park, pointing his weapon at a group of people huddled by the tree.
I could see Josh. Harry. A couple of others were there. I assumed Marco was with them, but couldn’t see so well through the shade of the old oak.
Calculating my best move, I stepped quickly into the space between the civilians and the weapon. Sandoval’s hold on the gun wavered as I stepped forward with my own weapon pointing right at him.
“Put down your gun,” I instructed.
“I can’t. I need to do this. You don’t understand anything.”
“Why don’t you try me? I’m here to listen, Peter.”
He scoffed at me. “That’s all I am to you, right? ‘Peter.’ Not a cop, not someone to be respected or feared, not someone who you can look up to. Just ‘Peter.’”
“What would you like me to call you?”
Sandoval’s grip strengthened, and once again, the gun pointed at my chest, center mass, just as he’d been trained. Was he really going to shoot a federal agent here in the park, in front of witnesses?
“I have a family,” he said, his voice shaky and broken.
I saw movement in my peripheral vision, Sawyer on my right, Logan on my left, both with guns drawn, and the few people trapped between Sandoval and the railings were huddling close. Josh guided them farther back behind the tree, Harry gripping his arm, looking terrified. Josh was pushing Officer Beiler, out of uniform and likely unarmed, Doc, and Grandma Garton behind him as if he was going to be able to stop them all from getting shot.
I won’t let that happen.
It’s my job to keep them safe.
It’s my heart that needs to protect Josh and Harry. “I have a family!” Sandoval shouted. “My son has a family. I have grandchildren, my wife…” He refocused on me. “They don’t know anything. I made a promise.”
“Of course you would keep your promises.” I reacted the only way I could see to, acknowledge his statement, support his assertion, work out what was going on.
He sighed. “Stokes didn’t tell, nor Dwyer. But Adam, he found it, and his mind wasn’t right.”
“Is that why you killed them?”
He shook his head, his eyes wide. “I didn’t kill them. And I would never tell secrets, not when my family could be hurt!”
More movement in my sightline. Sawyer was closer, Logan as well, and that got Sandoval agitated. He looked at my chest, would see the bulletproof vest I wore, but this close, even a bullet to the chest would possibly break ribs. I took a slow and cautious step back, and then another, but all the time I was talking.
“What did Adam find, Peter? Tell me, and it could help your case. It doesn’t have to end this way.”
He ignored my question, a look of sudden relief on his face. “I know how this works. I’ll shoot you if they don’t back off, and then they’ll shoot me. Then it will be over.”
We were at an impasse. I doubted either man would get a shot off quick enough to stop me from getting a bullet to the chest. My only hope to get out of this alive and away from the wide-eyed panicking man was to talk him down.
“Sawyer, Logan, holster your weapons.”
“Beaumont—”
“Now.” I waited until I heard them do as I’d asked. “Peter, you know they will take you down if you hurt me.”
He worked up a smile then, but instead of relief, there was madness in his eyes. He glanced toward the civilians, who had shuffled closer to the wide oak tree in the corner, and that smile made me nervous. I’d seen this reaction once before. Suicide by cop.
“Sharing secrets sets you free.” He snorted a laugh. “I don’t want to have this secret anymore, because my family will be hurt. You understand, right?”
“Yes,” I lied. “Tell me what Adam found.”
“Not about him,” he spat on the floor, “Adam was nothing. No, I killed his wife and her son,” he said firmly. “It was an accident, but I killed them both, because even though I loved her, I didn’t want anything to do with her son. Not Adam’s son. The kid was nothing to me. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I would never hurt her, but that brat got in my way, and it was an accident. So it was all okay, wasn’t it?”
Shock warred with disbelief. He was all over the place with his admission, but was he really telling us that he’d murdered Lily Dwyer and her son? Was he admitting to something that had been classified as an accident, something that wasn’t even on our radar except to inform Adam Gray’s background? Or was he lying? If he was telling the truth, then had Adam known his family’s death hadn’t been an accident? Had Adam found out? Is that why he was dead?
“I know you would never hurt anyone you loved, Peter.”
He huffed triumphantly. “I knew you would understand. Lily would smile at me in church, said that one day she would show me the new cabin, all kinds of proud like I would love w
hat she and Adam were doing. But I knew in my heart she should never have married him or had that baby, because it should have been me. So I met her at the cabin.”
He wasn’t waiting for my reply. He was getting everything off his chest.
“There was electricity, this old system Adam had rigged… he was a useless man, broken after the war, couldn’t give her what she wanted, and I could, you see. That day I tried to show her how I could make her feel. It was a moment of madness. Only the kid was there, shouting and yelling and carrying on, and I belted him to keep him quiet, and he didn’t move. It was an accident, yes?”
“Of course it was,” I lied, and my training paid off because he nodded, and the gun wavered again.
“She was screaming, he was lying there, dead, and I had to shut her up. I had to.” His eyes filled with tears, and one rolled down his cheek as he was silently crying about the horrors he’d inflicted on another person. I didn’t want to be standing here listening to him, but he was opening up.
“What happened?”
His features hardened. “I had to do it, you see. She would never love me if I’d hurt her son, I shoved her off me. She was clawing at my face. I panicked. There was a hole, the basement, where the door would be. I didn’t mean to kill her. I just wanted to scare her into keeping quiet.”
“And she died.”
“They both did, and I shoved the kid in with her, and it was so hard. But what did you expect me to do? My wife and kids… I had to keep the secret, but people would know, and we hid it. I wanted to put them in Hell’s Gate, but he just laughed at me and said no.”
“Who laughed? Who said no?”
“Do I look stupid like I’d tell you that? I have a family, and he’d hurt them, just like the boys he wanted to save.”
The tears had dried up now, and in their place was a dead-eyed look.
“What boys?” I waited for him to answer, but there was nothing. “What about the others in Hell’s Gate? The women and Casey?”
“Casey? He was all wrong. You have to tell his family that if I’d known there were boys that he had … I thought he’d stopped his game. If I’m gone, he can’t hurt my family. I’ve won this time.”
The grip on the gun changed. He held it like a cop, unwavering, and he stepped back. I moved away. I had to get far enough away. Somewhere in all that, I’d lost the connection. He was going to do what I’d feared.
The bullet hit me just off center, but straight into my vest, the force of the explosion twisting me around and shoving me to the ground. I heard two more shots, and in seconds, Sandoval crumpled to the grass. Fire spread in my chest. I knew I’d been shot, I couldn’t breathe, panic and confusion filling my head with noise.
“Step back!”
“Jesus, what the hell just happened—?”
“He has on a vest—”
“That won’t stop—”
“Can you hear me?” It wasn’t Doc or Sawyer or Logan whose voices I latched onto. It was Josh asking if I could hear him. I reached blindly in the direction of Josh’s voice, and he gripped my hand. “Talk to me,” Josh demanded.
Doc yanked at my shirt, and there was a collective gasp of relief. The bullet would be mashed into the metal.
“Bruised ribs, maybe broken if he’s unlucky,” was Doc’s medical opinion. “Someone call 911.”
“No, I’m okay.”
The press of Josh’s lips to mine was a magic kiss, and I felt the weight of everything lift from my chest.
“Jesus, Lucas, you fucking asshole,” he muttered near my ear, then kissed me again, this time a little desperately. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
All I could think was that I hoped Harry wasn’t there, because his dad was sure doing a fuck ton of swearing.
I didn’t take the time to rest as Doc wanted me to. I didn’t take the time to be pampered and hugged, which was what Josh wanted me to do. I went straight to the PD, took Tylenol, and hoped to hell the lessening pain proved I hadn’t gotten cracked ribs.
The coroner had collected Sandoval. We’d waited until he was gone, and it was Sawyer and me who went to visit Sandoval’s wife.
She didn’t look surprised to find us at the door, but she did usher us in quickly and glanced at the street beyond us. Looking for what, I didn’t know.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you but—”
“Peter’s dead. I know.”
“You know because—?”
“He kissed me good-bye this morning, and he hasn’t done that in forty years. He said he loved me, said he was sorry, that he’d kept secrets, and that he wasn’t going to let the family get hurt.” She said all that in a dead tone as if it was something that didn’t touch her at all.
“Mrs. Sandoval—”
“You’ll want to search the house, I guess.” Still, she sounded flat, as if she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“We have a few questions,” I began.
She held up a hand. “I knew he’d taken a liking to Lily Dwyer, and I saw the marks on his face the day she died, and I knew what he’d done.”
“But you stayed with him?”
She glanced around her at the hallway, with the photos of kids and grandchildren lined up. “We had two children. I wasn’t going to leave them, and he never touched me after that night. We had separate rooms, and I was good with that.”
“Can you point me in the direction—?”
“My room is left at the top, his to the right. I’ll make coffee.”
Sawyer pressed a hand to her arm. “Is there anyone you want me to call?”
She huffed and then laughed. “In this town? No. My son will be here soon, so you don’t need to worry about me.” She headed into the kitchen, and I wondered for a moment if one of us should stay here and look out for her welfare.
“I’ll stay here,” Sawyer murmured. “You check the rooms.”
Donning gloves, I headed up to Sandoval’s room, immaculately tidy, the bed made, and on his bedside cabinet his last will and testament, held down by a Bible. I turned three-sixty, and nothing jumped out at me, but opening his closet was another matter altogether. Yet another board with timelines of death, similar to the one we had at the hotel and to Sawyer’s at the PD.
He’d been looking for something as well, circled parts of reports, and I tugged everything down, after taking photos, and parceled everything in evidence bags.
By the time we left the Sandoval house, I’d concluded that Sandoval had been driven by guilt and fear at being exposed as a murderer, and that someone out there was pulling the strings.
“I don’t know who,” Sawyer murmured.
“Huh?”
“Sorry, I was thinking. If you had asked me a year back about suspects for any shady deals in this town, then you’d have Mayor Stokes, Joe Dwyer, Peter Sandoval. All dead. Adam Gray the loose weapon with his terrors. Dead.”
We headed back to the PD, and one by one, we congregated in Sawyer’s office.
Sawyer was at his desk, Logan and Drew leaning as they did on the edge of it, Heather perched on a chair she’d dragged in, Avery at her side, still looking shaken at what she’d been party to, and I shut the door.
She didn’t fuss over me, just gave me a concerned glance and a fist bump.
I went back over what had happened in the park, and when I was at a point to summarize, I turned to the board, taking the picture of Sandoval and putting it front and center, then picking up a Post-it note block.
“He admitted to murdering Lily Dwyer and also her son.” I scribbled the notes and put them to one side of his picture.
“1972, their deaths were ruled accidental,” Sawyer confirmed.
“Any link to the same coroner who lied about how my father died?” Drew asked, and I was glad he was the one who mentioned it, as that would have been my next question.
“Twenty years apart, different coroner, so that's a dead end.”
“This clearly was a secret that someone knew about and informed the remain
der of Sandoval’s life.”
“The payments to the church? You think the pastor knew?”
I added his name to a note and stuck it there. “I got the sense that Sandoval was scared. Did anyone else feel that, or was I projecting?”
“Sandoval said that ‘he’ knew the secret, that ‘he’ was threatening Sandoval, making him keep the secret for all this time. Sandoval also said ‘he’ wanted to put the bodies in Hell’s Gate. Who the hell is ‘he’, and did Sandoval know that the sinkhole was a dumping ground? Could there be victims in there from a time before 1974? Also, he mentioned something about boys—that he didn’t know about the boys. That admission ripped out of him like it was breaking free of a cage.”
“Probably connected to Casey,” Drew murmured, and I caught Logan leaning into his partner in a supportive connection.
“None of the remains we found down there were boys. It’s all women, all twenty-three or older, no boys, no children.”
“But Casey was running from something,” Logan pointed out.
“And Gerald Stokes had all those photos in his possession, although there’s nothing else to back up that it was him who had the photos, nothing in his personal possessions, nothing electronic, just anecdotal reports of him acting inappropriately, but the lack of hard evidence doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening.”
I moved to the map of the area, with the stark details of the points where Casey could have been mown down by the Kirklands. If they had been heading out of town for their standing meeting at the community hall in West Falls, then the road they would have taken was around the side of the mountain, at the point where Adam’s land ended, and Vernon Dwyer’s began, near to the sinkholes.
“The pastor clearly knew the sinkhole was somewhere to…” Dispose of remains? Throw Casey?
“To hide Casey after he died,” Drew finished for me, and I was grateful for the assistance at the same time as feeling guilty that it was Drew to be the one to fill in his brother’s name when any of us hesitated.
“Someone out there is responsible for killing Mayor Stokes and revealing his link to abuse. The way his throat was cut is in part similar to the way the women were killed, but that isn’t conclusive. Someone arranged Joe Dwyer’s body to look as if he’d committed suicide, but it was so clumsily done it was as if the perpetrator was sending a message. About what? That he lied and now even his death is a lie? And finally, someone had put Sandoval in such fear for his family finding out from someone else about what he’d done that he admitted it and then committed suicide by cop.”