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Haley didn’t approach Jenna after she struck her in the head. Although Jenna hadn’t moved since receiving the blow, Haley refused to take any chances. Instead, she grabbed the gun and her cell phone and went outside to call 9-1-1.
Victor and Luke pulled up in their police cars at the same time. Haley watched them park near the curb as she sat in the front yard. She figured they had both come from the station.
Luke spotted her first. “What happened?”
“Jenna stopped by,” Haley told him. “She confessed to her involvement with the drugs.”
“Did she reveal her partners?”
“One of them, the truck driver.” Haley closed her eyes and cradled her head with shaky hands as she thought about what had happened soon after Jenna’s confession. “Luke, I hit her in the head with a pot.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Is she okay?”
Haley’s hands fell away from her face. “She passed out, but I think she’s alive. I didn’t dare get near her.” She pointed to the revolver on the grass. “She planned to shoot me.”
Luke pulled a baggie out of his back pocket and inverted it before wrapping the gun inside. When he finished, he patted her arm. “Stay here and give your statement to Victor. I’ll check on Jenna. When the paramedics arrive, send them in.”
Haley nodded, then watched Luke storm into her house.
She looked over at Victor standing in her driveway, wondering how he’d react when she told him what had happened. He might go crazy when he learned that his case against Zepeda was disintegrating. But with Jenna lying unconscious in her living room, she couldn’t delay a confession any longer.
Haley steeled herself as she stood up and walked toward where Victor was waving the ambulance into her driveway behind Jenna’s red sedan. Before the vehicle even came to a complete stop, the woman in the passenger seat flew out. She leapt onto the ground with her feet braced, looking as fierce as an actress auditioning for a part in an action movie.
Victor pointed to Haley’s house. “In there, Sandy.”
Sandy saluted before grabbing her medical bag and charging forward with a verve that suggested she’d need to mow through the front door in order to get in.
“I have to take your statement,” Victor said when Sandy disappeared. He sounded almost apologetic, as if he already knew he didn’t want to hear what she had to say.
“I expected as much,” Haley replied.
He regarded her. “You feel up to it now? We can sit in my cruiser.”
She nodded. She didn’t feel up to anything at the moment, but the sooner she told Victor what she knew the sooner his force could start looking for Jenna’s partners.
She followed Victor to his patrol car, sinking into the passenger seat as he settled into the driver’s side. He started the car and turned on the air conditioner.
“Where do you want me to start?” she asked, folding her hands in her lap.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning.” Victor flashed her an encouraging smile as he fished a notepad and pen from his breast pocket.
Haley thought back to when she’d found Michael slumped in their bed, his face bloodless in death, and tears stung her eyes. If Victor wanted the beginning, that moment five months ago was the real starting point.
Although, technically the beginning might even fall before then, when Michael had first told Haley about his drugs originating from Sobaco. Or would a more accurate beginning start even earlier, when Michael had lost his job four years ago and first discovered pot?
“Why don’t you tell me how Jenna ended up unconscious in your house,” Victor said.
Haley glanced at him. “Has Luke told you anything?”
Victor shook his head. “We both left as soon as we received word of your call.”
She swallowed. “Well, Jenna belonged to the drug ring responsible for that pot.”
Victor’s pen stilled over his notebook.
“It’s true. She confessed to it herself. Plus, there’s evidence of her involvement at her house.” Haley filled him in on how she’d watched the Moreno’s delivery driver transporting stolen merchandise to Jenna’s, and the garden supplies she’d spotted in Jenna’s spare bedroom.
“Did you get a good look at this truck driver when you followed him?” Victor asked. “With any luck, we can locate him before he gets wind of Jenna’s escapades tonight.”
Haley thought about the data she’d copied from the MIT spreadsheets. The confidentiality oath she’d signed briefly entered her mind but just as quickly disappeared. Nabbing Michael’s drug suppliers was too important to withhold information if it might help.
“I did see the driver,” she said. “In fact, I know some things about him.”
Victor raised an eyebrow. “You know him?”
“Not technically. Or I should say that technically, I only know him technically.”
Victor crooked his lips.
“From a database,” Haley added. Knowing she wasn’t making any sense, she took a deep breath. She’d need the oxygen before violating her employment contract. “His name is John Ramirez.”
Victor jotted something in his notepad. “What else do you know about this man?”
“Everything.”
Her response caused Victor to arch his eyebrow again. “Everything?”
“Well, I have all his personal and professional information as stored in MIT’s system,” Haley said.
“This truck driver went to MIT?”
“Not the technical school. Mitchell Independent Trucking, my client. They match businesses needing regular shipments and deliveries with qualified independent drivers.” She recited the line by heart, having heard it a nauseating number of times from Stan Williams. But for Victor’s sake, she omitted MIT’s many accolades thanks to Stan’s brilliant leadership.
“Is there a way for me to get this MIT data?” Victor asked.
Haley hesitated, then nodded.
Victor bent forward, looking like a puppy being teased with a just-out-of-reach treat.
She gestured toward her house. “I copied Ramirez’s information onto a piece of paper in my purse. If you need the raw data, it’s stored in several spreadsheets on my laptop.”
Victor didn’t seem aware that she’d just broken a sacrosanct corporate vow. “With your permission, I’ll retrieve the aforementioned paper from your purse before I leave the crime scene.”
The thought of her house being labeled a crime scene sent a shudder ripping through her body. But she nodded, somewhat grateful that she wouldn’t need to personally hand over the information she’d technically stolen from MIT.
“Oh.” She fumbled in her jeans pocket and pulled out her BlackBerry. “I have photos of John Ramirez leaving Moreno’s with stolen garden supplies in here.”
Victor accepted the BlackBerry, although he didn’t make any attempt to access the pictures. He looked dumbfounded by the wealth of information available to him. He probably wasn’t used to citizens conducting their own investigations on his department’s behalf.
“The password is ‘Michael,’” Haley told him, her heart twisting.
“Michael?”
“He was my fiancé in Seattle. He died five months ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” Haley blinked and tried to keep the vision of Michael’s lifeless body from invading her thoughts. “I’ll have to tell you about him, but not now, please.”
Victor didn’t say anything. He was probably flummoxed as to why he would need to know anything about her late fiancé. Her stomach clenched when she thought about confessing her true motive for moving to Sobaco. She didn’t care to explain herself to the police, but with the drug cartel about to face narcotics charges, she wanted to know whether the individuals could also be tried for manslaughter.
“There’s another person involved besides Jenna and John Ramirez,” Haley told Victor.
“Ricardo Zepeda.”
His sharp tone made her flinch. She didn’t want to believe that Victor would frame the man, but she knew too much to fool herself. And she could no longer pretend to still be going along with Victor’s ploy to finger an innocent man.
“I know Zepeda isn’t the man I saw in the woods,” Haley said.
Victor didn’t reply. Haley kept her face down, but she darted a glance at him. From his tight expression, she could tell he wasn’t pleased. But was he upset over Haley’s defection or merely wondering if he could counteract this setback by depositing a smoking gun on Zepeda’s property?
“We have hard evidence against him,” Victor finally said.
Haley opted not to mention how she knew he’d planted that evidence. “Zepeda is too short to be the person I ran into.”
“What do you mean he’s too short?”
Haley aimed a trembling finger at her upper arm. “The Farmer bumped my shoulder with his elbow when he ran past me.” When Victor didn’t respond, Haley added, “Zepeda is about my height, right?”
Victor squinted at her, his lips compressed into a white line. She held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t ask how she knew how tall Zepeda was. She didn’t want to admit to rummaging through Zepeda’s house at the request of the chief’s lovestruck wife.
Victor turned his face away and stared out the window. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“I didn’t remember until recently.”
He whipped back around, his eyes narrowed. “Then you should have told me as soon as you remembered.”
Haley kept her mouth shut, not willing to admit she had second thoughts about confiding in him even now. She still didn’t trust him. She only hoped he would accept that his ruse was up and put some effort into locating the true person she’d spotted in the woods one month ago.
Victor’s knuckles turned white around his pen. “So if the third partner isn’t Ricardo, who is he?”
“Jenna didn’t say. She just told me he transports the marijuana to her house.”
“Then he’s most likely local.” Victor turned to look out the windshield, as if the third partner might magically appear in front of him.
She and Victor weren’t so different after all, Haley considered as they sat in silence. Long before he had died, she’d lost her fiancé to pot. And although they were still married, after seeing Tracy Lamb’s efforts to free Zepeda, Haley knew the chief had essentially already lost his significant other too. She couldn’t justify his determination to ruin the man who had stolen Tracy from his life, but she could certainly understand it given her own obsession to destroy those who had stolen Michael from hers.
Movement outside the car caught their attention. She and Victor watched as Luke emerged from her house. His shoulders were slumped and he looked grim. He raised his head and scanned Haley’s property, locking eyes with his boss before shaking his head.
Victor sighed. “Haley, I need to talk to Luke. Do you mind if we put this interview on hold?”
“No, go ahead,” Haley said, grateful for the interruption.
Victor got out of the car. Luke gestured toward Haley’s house as he relayed something to his boss. Curious, Haley shut off the engine and scrambled out of the passenger seat. With everything that had happened since she’d moved here, she had almost come to think of busting this drug organization as her case.
As she approached them, she could tell Victor would have preferred if she’d stayed in the car. But he didn’t order her to leave so she stood her ground.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Jenna didn’t make it,” Luke said.
Haley’s head spun. Although she knew she’d only done what she had to, the knowledge that she’d killed a woman still made her dizzy. Before today she had never participated in so much as a hair-pulling match. And now, the burden of another woman’s death rested on her shoulders.
Overwhelmed with emotion, she sank onto the driveway, sitting cross-legged on the warm concrete as she dropped her head into her hands.
“Haley?” she heard someone say. The speaker could have been Luke or Victor or the Pope for that matter.
Someone placed a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t derive any comfort from the gesture, but neither did she shrink from it. Her body was numb.
“I don’t think she should be alone.” The voice sounded like Victor’s.
Haley lifted her head in time to see Luke nod.
“She probably shouldn’t be driving either,” Victor said, eyeing Haley as though she might disintegrate in front of his very eyes. He turned toward Luke. “You’ll have to take her wherever she needs to go.”
Apparently Victor failed to realize she could hear him. Or maybe now that she’d confessed to knowing about Zepeda’s innocence, he lacked the patience to talk to her directly.
“She’s friends with Mindy Larkin, right?” Victor said to Luke. “Drive her over there. She can stay with Mindy until tomorrow.”
“I’m fine,” Haley said.
Both men frowned at her. Haley wanted to roll her eyes, but she didn’t think she could manage it.
Luke faced Victor again. “She can stay with me. I have a spare bedroom.”
Haley waited for Victor to protest, but the objection never came. When he nodded once, she didn’t know whether to feel relieved or panicked. Spending the night at Luke Justice’s wouldn’t calm her frayed nerves any.
Since they’d evidently settled the matter of who would babysit her overnight, talk turned back to the case. “We’ll need to process Jenna’s house,” Victor told Luke. “I’ll contact the judge for an expedited warrant.”
Luke nodded. “I’ll get right on that.”
“Oh my God!” Haley yelled.
Victor and Luke jumped away from her, their hands automatically reaching for their firearms.
Haley’s eyes roved between them. “Someone needs to get Jane.”
Luke frowned, evidently not enamored with the idea of chauffeuring his black bane around, not when he had a real crime to investigate.
“Jane is all alone in Jenna’s house,” Haley screeched, prompting Victor to wince. She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth to ward off the sick sensation building in her stomach. “Someone needs to rescue her.”
She hated how crazy she must sound, but her tone matched her budding hysteria. She couldn’t explain why she felt so panicked at the thought of the cat spending one day alone. After all, cats were fairly independent. As long as Jane had food and water she would be fine.
But this knowledge failed to comfort Haley. With crystal clarity, she could envision the police flinging Jenna’s front door wide open as they trampled into her house, and Jane, terrified from all the commotion, sneaking out the front door and getting lost in the woods forever.
Luke cleared his throat. “Why don’t I fetch Jane while I’m processing Jenna’s?”
Haley bobbed her head, although he’d clearly directed the question to Victor. Apparently neither man wanted to engage her in conversation right now.
“Have Brian go with you,” Victor commanded. “I’ll return to the station to see what kind of support I can get from the Lane County force on short notice.”
Luke started walking away, presumably to radio his partner. On his way to his patrol car, he darted a quick glance back at Haley. His expression left her with the distinct impression that he was relieved to be escaping from her presence.
Haley inhaled and willed her racing heart to return to normal. She had to calm down before Luke retracted his offer for her to stay with him. She still wasn’t sure bunking with Luke was a better option than camping at Mindy’s, but at least with Luke she wouldn’t need to recount tonight’s events all over again.
And returning to her own house didn’t even merit consideration. Haley doubted she could sleep there knowing her living room had just been labeled a crime scene.
Luke returned a minute later. “Brian and I will head over to Jenna’s and wait for the warrant,” he said to Victor. He pulled out a set of keys. “I’ll get Haley settled inside before I leave.”
“Good idea,” Victor said. “Make sure she has water while you’re at it.”
“I don’t need water,” Haley said.
Neither man appeared to hear her. They crouched down on either side of her and took hold of her arms.
Haley shook them off. “I can manage myself.”
Luke grabbed her bicep again. “Humor us.”
She figured letting the police manhandle her would be easier than protesting. Besides, the sooner she made it into Luke’s house, the sooner they would hit the streets to pursue the arrest of John Ramirez.
Still, she tried not to lean too heavily against them as they led her across the yard. They didn’t need to know that she felt less steady than she wanted to.
The threesome paused just across Luke’s threshold. Nobody seemed to know what to do next. Haley considered assuring them that she was fine again, but she doubted they would listen to her.
Luke was the first to speak. “I can take it from here,” he told Victor.
Haley glowered at him, resenting his reference to her as an “it.”
Victor left, and Luke guided Haley into a loveseat. She resisted somewhat purely to prove she remained in control of her own body, but for the most part she obliged.
“I’ll get you some water,” Luke said.
Haley folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not thirsty.”
Luke ignored her and disappeared into the kitchen. So as not to be rude, she accepted the cold plastic bottle he offered upon his return, but she didn’t go so far as to twist off the cap.
He pointed down the hallway. “Your bedroom is the first door on the right. The guest bathroom is just across the hall.”
Haley nodded.
Luke eyed her, his brow furrowing. She reached up and touched her hair, attempting to smooth down the mess she found there. She hadn’t thought much about her appearance before that moment, but under Luke’s scrutiny she couldn’t help but feel self-conscious. She had to look frightful after the evening she’d had.
Luke averted his gaze. “Well, I’m off to Jenna’s.”
Despite how unreliable Luke Justice was at keeping her in the loop, Haley debated asking him to call her with an update. But then she remembered Victor’s possession of her BlackBerry and left the request unspoken. Besides, as his overnight guest, she could grill him after he returned.
“Don’t forget about Jane,” Haley said.
“I won’t.” He paused in the foyer to look at her for a brief moment. Then he disappeared, locking the front door behind him.
