WE ARRIVED AT RED OAK Park a few minutes before Little Freddie's deadline. Children littered the playground. They climbed on the giant dinosaur, kicked balls in an open field and dashed beneath several large oak trees that formed a long tunnel in the field.
Little Freddie's silver SUV was at the far end of the parking lot. It backed up against a steep berm that formed the rear boundary of the park.
I pulled to a stop about one hundred yards from the SUV. I scanned the park grounds looking for Valerie or anyone who might be working with her. Nothing. I watched in the rearview mirror as Turner hugged his daughters and whispered something into their ears, but I couldn't make it out. He glanced up at me.
"What are we supposed to do now?" he asked.
"Sit here for a long as we can and hope the marshal comes through."
The phone rang.
"Tell him to walk over to my car," said Freddie. "I let his wife walk as soon as he gets here."
I stepped outside the SUV so the girls wouldn't hear me. "I've got Turner's daughters in the backseat. How do I know you won't off him and his wife?"
"I have no interest in orphaning those kids, Finn. The wife walks as soon as Turner steps to the car. You've got my word."
I checked my watch. "Okay, but give the guy a few minutes. He knows it's the last time he'll see his kids."
"He's got two minutes. That's it."
I hung up the phone and scanned the parking lot again. No Valerie. No team. No cowboy hats.
Goddamn it. Where are you?
Two minutes passed and the phone rang.
"Now!" said Little Freddie.
Turner opened the rear car door and hugged his daughters again. I didn't know what he said to them, but it was obvious they had no idea what was happening. He peered at me but didn't say anything. He didn't have to. I'd seen that expression before. He looked like a man who knew he was about to die.
"All right," I said, then hung up the phone.
Turner closed the door and I stared at him over the roof.
"Walk slow. Real slow."
TURNER WAS HALFWAY TO THE silver SUV when the first marshal came over the berm. Within seconds four others, including Valerie, had surrounded the car. One approached the driver's door with his weapon raised. He yelled something, but I couldn't make it out. A moment later he fired four bursts through the driver's window. At the same time, someone on the other side of the SUV yanked the rear door open with one hand while training a weapon in the backseat with the other. He pulled a woman, who I assumed was Turner's wife, out of the vehicle as Valerie looked on a few feet away. The marshal who had fired at Little Freddie gave an all-clear signal and the remaining marshals holstered their firearms and helped Christina off the ground. It was over in less than ten seconds.
Turner sprinted across the parking lot and wrapped his arms around his wife. Valerie walked to him, patted Turner on the shoulder and waved me over.
The marshals cleared the playground of people as I slowly drove over to the silver SUV.
"Get out of the car," said Valerie. She didn't have to repeat herself. She pointed to the SUV. "Do you know who that was?"
"No."
"No? All this bullshit and you don't even know who you were up against?"
"Like I said, I was hired to find him. That's all."
"By whom?"
I didn't say anything.
"I'll spare your conscience and just assume it was Willie Baker." She squinted at me. "What am I going to find when I leave here and go to Flower Mound?"
"Nothing good," I said.
"And you had nothing to do with it? I find that hard to believe."
"It's the truth. I was hired to find Vance and Turner. Nothing more." I pointed to the silver SUV. "I didn't know he was following me."
"So you led him right to them?"
"I guess so."
"You must have been a really shitty PI." She shook her head. "Don't think you're walking away from this unscathed. I'm still holding you responsible. There will be an investigation."
"One thing your investigator might want to look into is the video camera tucked inside the smoke detector in the boys’ bathroom at Vance's daycare center. I'd check the girls’ bathroom too. Check his computer and you'll probably find what he's been recording. Oh, and there's this." I opened the rear door of my car and sensed Valerie's hand go to her hip. She relaxed when the two girls jumped out and ran to their parents.
I handed Valerie Vance's laptop and the yellow USB drive from Memphis.
"What's this?"
"Vance was involved in some child porn ring. Your friends in the FBI will cream their Men's Wearhouse slacks when you turn this over. Apparently they've been looking for the guy behind this operation for a long time. This will help them find him. In Parkersburg."
She smirked.
"Oh, and have fun explaining why someone under your protection was shooting and distributing child pornography under your nose. That won't look too good."
"Technically Vance was no longer under my watch. He opted out of protection ten years ago. I checked in on him from time to time as a favor to my boss, but he wasn't my responsibility."
"But Turner was?"
"Turner was terrified someone would come after him. He followed every rule we gave him. Television stations hounded him for interviews about the missing kids his organization helped find, but he refused every one because he didn't want his face out there. He really tried to do it right. Turned his life around. I like to think he started the charity to make up for the Baker kid." She stopped herself. "To make up for what he did to Josh."
A black minivan with blue-and-white government license plates parked next to my SUV. Two men in blue-and-yellow US Marshal jackets stepped out of the back, ushered Turner, his wife and two daughters into the van and drove away.
"I think Turner did all right given his past," I said. "But how did the Feds get roped into protecting him and Vance anyway? Doesn't seem like a good use of taxpayer resources."
"Of course it isn't a good use of resources. I don't know how it happened. That was all before my time. I just lucked into the detail. And by luck I mean got shit on. But thanks to your shitty PI work, I can put all this behind me."
"What do you mean?"
"The Marshals will relocate Turner and his family. Far away from here. It's protocol. But I'll stay put. He can be someone else's problem and I can get back to more important things, like protecting people who really deserve it." She shook her head. "I'm with you on this one. They should never have gotten the protection, but they did. And somehow I ended up running it." She poked me in the chest with a bright red fingernail. "I can't make up my mind about you."
"How's that?"
"Can't tell if those are angels or demons on your shoulder."
"Don't we all have a few of each?"
She shrugged.
"Speaking of demons, did you order a bag over my head?"
She smiled. "I don't know what you're talking about."
An ambulance pulled into the park, its red lights flashing to the wide eyes of the crowd gathered around the perimeter of the park.
"I think we're done here," she said. "Go back to Ohio. Hug that little girl of yours."
"So what about that investigation?"
"I wouldn't be too worried about that."
I nodded and turned toward my car. As I passed the silver SUV I looked through the open driver's door. There, slumped across the front seat was a thirty-something, bald, white male with four holes in his chest and what looked like a Glock in his right hand.
It wasn't Little Freddie.