Replacing the formed foam inside the box hadn’t been as easy as removing it. Once that was done, apologizing for their mistrust and for wasting more than half an hour of the doctor’s valuable time, they had insisted on seeing him out of the deserted office building and safely on his way.
Rawlins waited until Lambert’s taillights were no longer in sight, then remarked to his partner, “This may go down as being the worst Thanksgiving ever.”
“You’d rather be at home with a wife on the warpath and puking kids?”
“Maybe. Because this sucks.”
Wilson snorted a mirthless laugh. “Not often do I have this much egg on my face. I would have sworn we’d find some kind of contraband.”
“Me, too. And you know what? I think our friend Dr. Lambert thought we would, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It looked to me like he was as shocked as we were to come up empty.”
“I know he wasn’t glad to see us on his doorstep,” Wilson said. “But was he afraid of being caught red-handed at something illicit? Or was he just being an asshole?”
“He’s definitely an asshole. But when I produced that search warrant, he looked exactly like my nephew did right before yakking the crab dip.”
Wilson thought on it. “It was the same expression Brynn O’Neal had when we made her unlock the box.”
“That’s another thing. What’s up with her? Why did she lie to Lambert about her car?”
“To make a clean getaway.”
“Yes, but why?” Rawlins persisted. “This morning she was itching to get back here to him and their patient.”
“That’s what she said, but that’s not what she did. She ran off with Mallett. I’m telling you, this whole thing—” Wilson broke off, walked a few feet forward, then knelt on one knee in the parking space next to Lambert’s and looked more closely at the spots on the concrete floor that had drawn his attention. “Blood.”
Rawlins joined him to take a look. “Relatively fresh.”
Wilson called attention to the name on the wall. “In Dr. O’Neal’s parking space.”
It wasn’t a copious amount of blood, but the quantity didn’t signify as much as its being there at all. The two deputies tracked the intermittent drops as far as the exit, but once beyond the cover of the building, the trail had been washed away by rain.
“Whoever was bleeding walked out of here,” Wilson said.
“Then what?”
“Hell if I know. Maybe somebody just got a nosebleed.”
Rawlins turned to Wilson, looking skeptical. “Is that what you really think?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Based on everything else that has happened, I think we ought to bring in Atlanta PD.” He glanced around, spotting the security cameras mounted at strategic points in the ceiling. “We should have a video of what went down here. I’ll call it in. You get a home address for Brynn O’Neal. We’ll start looking for her there.”
They were walking quickly toward the SUV when Rawlins’s cell phone rang. “Probably the wife demanding a divorce.”
But it was Myra. Rawlins put her on speaker. She cut to the chase. “Two things. Thatcher went off duty, so Braxton took over for him at the hospital. He just called. Brady’s bum heart—”
“He has a bum heart?”
“Everybody knows that,” she said with exasperation. “It’s giving them some concern. Vitals-wise, he’s lost a lot of ground. His cardiologist is on his way to the hospital as we speak. Marlene’s fit to be tied.”
“Hell,” Rawlins said, exchanging a worried frown with Wilson. “What’s the second thing?”
“The license plate number on that black Mercedes.”
“The café’s camera angle was wrong. We didn’t get it.”
“That camera didn’t, but the one at the hardware store did.”
“Across from our department?”
“Slow day, so I drummed up a project. I had all the cameras downtown checked for pictures of a black Mercedes. It was parked around back of the hardware store for over an hour just before dawn.”
“While we were questioning Dr. O’Neal and Mallett.”
“Um-huh. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.” She paused, then, “Is Brynn in trouble?”
“We’re trying to ascertain—”
“Don’t feed me that cop crap, Rawlins. Talk to me like a person. I’ve known that girl since before her mama died. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her, now she’s made something of herself.”
“Neither do I, Myra. But did you ever know her to follow her daddy’s example?”
“You mean steal?”
“That’s what I mean.” When she hesitated to answer, Rawlins said, “Tell us straight.”
“She was a scrawny thing. All knees and elbows. Twelve, thirteen. Thereabouts. She took a coat from the girls’ locker room. Claimed it had been hanging there for several days, nobody missing it. It was cold wintertime.”
“And she needed a coat,” Rawlins said.
“She didn’t take it for herself. She gave it to a country kid who came in on the school bus every morning near frozen.”
Rawlins looked over at Wilson, who rubbed his fingers across his forehead as though it had begun to ache.
“Okay, Myra. We get your point,” Rawlins said. “Text me that tag number, please.”
“Will do. But I already got who the car is registered to.”
“Listening.”
“Delores Parker.”
“Doesn’t ring any bells.”
“I’m not finished yet,” she snapped. “That was her maiden name. Married name is Hunt. Delores Parker Hunt.”
“Holy shit.”
Myra snorted. “That’s what I said.”
6:44 p.m.
Brynn stared at the vial in her hand with stupefaction, then looked into Rye’s face. “How did you get this? When?”
“When I was in the cabin bathroom showering.”
“You’ve had it all this time?”
He shrugged.
“How did you get the lock open?”
“I knew I had those four numbers correct and in sequence, or you wouldn’t have looked sunk when I read them out to you. It occurred to me that I’d missed the first number, not the last. I tried that, and, on the numeral three, the lock opened. Then I found the vial under the lining. It was in my jeans pocket when I came out of the bathroom.”
“All the time we were asleep and you were clutching the box?”
“I didn’t make the transfer till I saw Goliad’s car coming up the drive toward our cabin. I ripped open the seam in my jacket and slipped the vial inside before waking you up.”
During this exchange, he had pulled on his jacket and was herding her toward the hotel room door. She was resistant. “Hold on. I’m trying to think this through,” she said. “You knew it was a drug even before I told you.”
“No I didn’t. I had the vial, but it’s all wrapped up. I didn’t know what was in it, or what you planned to do with it. It actually could have been poison for the hot dog meat.”
“Okay, but then after I explained what it was, why didn’t you tell me you had it? That whole long ride to Atlanta, I was miserable.”
“And I couldn’t figure out why. Why were you unhappy about handing it over to Lambert? For all I knew, you and your daddy had intended to blackmail him with it, or you had a higher bidder. Something. If whatever you were up to was illegal, you’d made me culpable. I couldn’t leave with that hanging over my head.”
“So you texted me in the hope of beating a confession out of me.”
“Which I did. Now I know you’re only a little crooked.”
“And that’s okay with you?”
“The difference being motive.” He looked at his watch. “You know it’s going to hit the fan when Lambert discovers his wonder drug has been heisted. He might have already. We shouldn’t have trouble getting a taxi or Uber outside the hotel.”
“You’re coming with me?”
“Assuming Lambert realizes by now that he’s been had, Goliad will be only a phone call away. I’ll see you safely to Violet, then there won’t be anything Lambert or the senator can do without blowing the whistle on themselves.”
He pulled her coat off the hanger in the closet and held it for her. She zipped the vial into an inside pocket.
“Where is Violet?” he asked.
“While she’s been undergoing radiation, she and her mother have been staying in an outpatient facility on the hospital campus.”
“Does Lambert know where she is?”
“Of course. He examines her routinely.”
“That’ll be the first place he looks for you. We’ve got to beat him there.”
He opened the door and pushed her through.
7:15 p.m.