“Black metal box,” the deputy said, still reading from the shipping form attached to the email. “Doesn’t say what’s in it.”
Rye gave another shrug. “Like I told you.”
The deputy closed out the email and slid his phone back into the pocket of his puffy jacket. “You and Dr. O’Neal know each other before tonight?”
“No.”
Rawlins tilted his chin down in apparent doubt.
“No,” Rye repeated. “Never heard of her. Never saw her before she came walking out of the foggy woods. Didn’t even know she was a woman. When I was told the client was a Dr. Lambert, I automatically figured a man.”
“Feminists would jump all over that.”
“I’m not proud of it. I’m just telling you that’s how it was.”
The deputy tried to stare a lie out of him, but ironically that answer was the unvarnished truth, so Rye stared back and didn’t blink. Rawlins was first to back down. He used the toe of his boot to nudge the leather duffel at Rye’s feet. “What’s in the bag?”
“It’s my flight bag.”
“Not what I asked.”
“Help yourself. But there’s a nine-millimeter in there. I have a permit.”
Rawlins extended his open palm. Rye pulled his wallet from his back pocket and produced the concealed carry license. The deputy inspected it as though Rye was on a terrorist watch list, several times comparing the photo on the license to Rye’s face, then handed back the wallet, squatted down, and unzipped the bag.
He mumbled something about the contents looking like a hardware store wrapped in leather, but, right off, he located the zippered pocket with the Glock inside. He stood up with it in his hand and looked it over. “There’s a bullet chambered.”
Since he’d stated the obvious, Rye didn’t say anything.
“How come?” the deputy asked.
“Bears.”
“Bears?”
Rye hitched his thumb up toward the painting on the wall behind him. “Before I saw Dr. O’Neal’s flashlight, I heard thrashing in the woods, something coming my way. I didn’t want to come face-to-face with a bear or any other kind of predator. So I chambered a bullet just in case.”
It was a logical explanation. Which wasn’t to say that Rawlins believed a word of it. But before he could test its veracity with a follow-up question, the deputy who’d been questioning Brynn called, “Rawlins? Talk to you a sec?”
“Stay here,” he said to Rye as he moved away to join his partner.
The crowd of personnel had thinned out. Apparently they’d come to the conclusion that the crime of the century hadn’t been committed on their watch after all. Of those who remained, one was shuffling through White’s paperwork as though to determine if any of it was relevant and would shed light on who had walked in and clouted him for no apparent reason.
Another was dusting the desk for fingerprints. When his interest moved to the collector’s items on the shelf above it, and he was about to reach for the airplane model, Rye pushed away from the wall. “Hey! Don’t mess with that.”
Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned toward him. Rye looked at Rawlins, who’d been huddled with the other deputy, comparing notes. Rye said, “Whoever hit him didn’t take time to handle his stuff. Leave it alone.”
Rawlins took stock of the articles on the shelf, considered it, then shook his head at the fingerprinter. Everyone went back to what they’d been doing.
Rye resettled himself against the wall and looked toward Brynn. She, who like everyone else had turned when he admonished the man doing the fingerprinting, was regarding him curiously.
3:21 a.m.
Rye Mallett’s stare was unmoving, unblinking, and unnerving.
She would give anything to know what he’d told the deputy. Their accounts of discovering Brady White would be similar, if not word for word. But she wondered about his version of their meeting at the crash site. How much had he told, how truthful had he been, what had he left out?
Working in her favor was the man’s innate terseness and avoidance of conversation. He also had a self-proclaimed aversion to involvement. He would want this to be over and done with as soon as possible, the same as she, so she doubted he would elaborate or give the deputies anything except brief answers to direct questions.
For her part, she’d been guarded when answering the deputy’s questions, but not so evasive as to arouse suspicion.
He had asked about the scratches on her hands. She had attributed them to stumbling into a thicket while making her way through the woods in search of the plane. “When I reached it, I was so relieved to discover the pilot alive and unharmed.”
“You and Mallett know each other?”
“Not at all. He was stranded out there, and so was I. We walked here together.”
The deputy—his name was Wilson something or something Wilson—had looked over at Rye where he was being questioned. Coming back around to her, he said, “Rough-looking character.”
She’d had to agree. His stance was arrogant, his mannerisms insolent. He had a surly disposition, the reflexes of a rattlesnake, and an air of menace, which was a troublesome combination when being questioned at a crime scene by officers of the law. A more congenial attitude and friendlier aspect would’ve been beneficial to them both, but it was too late to advise him of that.
“As I said, I didn’t meet him until tonight,” she’d told Wilson. “But, honestly, I was glad to have him with me. The fog and all.”
They’d gone back and forth like that without her revealing anything of substance. She’d been relieved when they moved from her initial encounter with Rye Mallett to their finding Brady White.
“The people who attacked him left shoe prints. Unfortunately…” She gestured at the floor.
The tips of Wilson’s ears had turned red with embarrassment when he saw that any prints left were now smudged and useless as a means of helping to identify the perpetrators.
He’d asked a few more questions, then posed the one she’d most dreaded. “What was he delivering to you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Sorry?”
“To tell would be a violation of my patient’s privacy.”
Wilson had studied her for a moment, then said in a lower voice, “I know your daddy, Dr. O’Neal.”
Her heart had bumped, but she’d kept her voice cool. “Do you?”
“Y’all going to spend Thanksgiving together?”
“No. I have to work tomorrow. In fact…” She’d made a grand gesture of checking her watch and, upon seeing the time, had made a small sound of distress. “I need to return to Atlanta as soon as possible, and since my car can’t be driven, I need to be making other arrangements for getting back. How much longer will this take?”
Showing no sympathy for her time crunch, he’d stuck to the subject of her father. “When did you last see Wes?”
“We haven’t had any contact in a long while. Years.”
He’d poked his tongue into his cheek and continued to search her eyes for an uncomfortable length of time, then had turned away from her and summoned his crony. “Rawlins? Talk to you for a sec?”
And now, while the two deputies conferred in whispers, she and the pilot exchanged stares, and to her supreme consternation, it had been easier to withstand Wilson’s incisive gaze than it was Rye Mallett’s.
Seen in full light, he looked no more reputable than he had when he had her pinned to the forest floor. He had a rangy build, but, as she knew from experience, he was stronger than his leanness suggested.
His dark blond hair was thick and unruly and grazed the collar of his bomber jacket. No extra flesh softened his square and well-defined jaw, but it was dusted with a scruff only slightly darker than his hair. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes because the sockets were cast in shadow by the overhead light. But she felt the hostility they trained on her. Indeed, if looks could kill.
What bothered her most, he wore his ruggedness and hostility well.