Harland Grout could not concentrate on the White Mountain Mall’s security camera feeds in the mall security office. He had never heard fear or panic in Frank Rath’s voice in all the years he’d known him. Going back to seventeen years ago when Rath had served as Grout’s mentor as a state police detective in the ’90s, Rath had always been stoic and composed in the face of any atrocity. Yet in their phone call just now Rath’s voice was cut through with both fear and panic. It unnerved Grout so much he’d called the deputy in Johnson and told him to get up to the house Rath had described, like yesterday.
Ned Preacher meant Rath’s daughter harm. Preacher: serial rapist who’d gamed the system and served a third of the time he should have for multiple rapes and murders by pleading to lesser crimes and being the golden boy saint while inside prison to reduce his time served for good behavior. Preacher: slippery, evil con man and murderer of Rath’s sister and her husband while their baby, Rachel, had slept upstairs. Rachel left for Rath to raise alone, the reason he’d quit as state police detective sixteen years ago. Preacher: paroled early from prison. Preacher: in Rachel’s apartment, and calling Rath to torment him.
When Rath had said those two names together—Preacher and Rachel—Grout’s initial fear had been replaced by disgust and the need to act. Then, futility. Because Grout was stuck here, unable to act. Stuck in a mall in northwestern New Hampshire watching the camera feeds until a rogue form of OCD compelled some poor woman to take a five-finger discount on a tchotchke from the Hallmark store, so Grout could bust the poor soul as if she’d committed infanticide.
Grout was stuck wearing a uniform that made him look and feel like a Webelo. No sidearm. No cuffs. All the legal authority of a dormitory monitor. No ability to do what was in his nature, what he was good at, being a detective. He’d quit his position as the Canaan Police senior detective following the Mad Doctor case and taken this gig to do what he believed was best for his wife and two kids, all for an extra $75 a week. He’d known it was a mistake his first day on the job. He might as well have lopped off his own nuts with pruning shears.
How could he just stand here, rooted like a potted plant?
How could he—
A voice spoke to him.
Grout blinked.
“Sir.” The newest and most earnest of the young recruits from Granite Private Security addressed Grout from his CCTV station that covered the C Quadrant of Spencer Gifts.
“What?” Grout said.
“We’ve got a live one, sir.” The newbie could hardly contain his prideful and slippery grin. “A red hander.”
On the monitor, a teenage boy slipped an item in his hoodie’s front pocket. The item looked like a pet rock.
“That’s the second one he’s put in his pocket,” Newbie said, his voice trilling. He was all but drooling. “He’s making his way out, sir!” He stabbed a finger at the screen as if Grout couldn’t see the shoplifter. Newbie’s body coiled. “Soon as perp exits premises! And . . .” His body coiled tighter. “We got ’im DTR.”
“DTR?”
“Dead to rights, sir.”
“Go get ’im.”
“Really, sir?” Newbie’s eyes gleamed.
Grout nodded.
Newbie broke for the door and exited in a blur.
Grout looked at his car keys on his desk. Do it, a voice said. The voice of the detective he’d once been, still was. Do it. Just go.
Instead he sagged in Newbie’s abandoned chair and moaned for Frank Rath and for his daughter, Rachel, who in all likelihood was dead by now.
Or worse.