Standing next to me, Hiram Davenport shook his head.
“You can’t hack it,” he said. “You can’t do the job. You’re fired.”
I jerked awake, my face shined with sweat.
Five months ago, before I’d killed the Six, I’d had a choice to make between playing it safe and risking everything. I’d decided then that my lieutenant was right—sometimes the ends justified the means. Sometimes you had to let the monster out and damn the consequences.
If Hiram fired me, I’d keep working to solve this case and find Lucy. Outside the law, if need be. This was no time to worry about right and wrong, to worry about moral injury or whether working on this case would make my PTS worse.
It was time to monster up.
DAY TWO
CHAPTER 17
The hardest thing about having something to lose is that—inevitably—you do.
—Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.
When I awoke again, Clyde and I were alone on the deck.
An early morning rain had washed through and cleared out, leaving the world hazy and languid. To the east, the sun smeared a pearl line along the horizon. Birdsong and the sweet scent of damp grass filled the air.
I checked my watch. It was 5:40 a.m. Lucy had been missing for more than twenty-four hours. I dialed the number for Betsy King, the mother of the dead man in Ohio. An electronic voice message invited me to leave my name and to have a blessed day. I identified myself, told her it was urgent, and left my number.
In the kitchen, I fed Clyde and poured a cup of the coffee Cohen had made before he left. I leaned against the counter and flipped on the TV to see what the news stations were saying about Lucy and the Davenport case.
On Channel Nine, a reporter interviewed Lancing Tate. Tate was in his early fifties, handsome in a way that suggested health spas and golfing vacations, and was perfectly at ease in front of the camera. He wore his dark hair severely parted on one side, a style that—with the three-piece suit and bow tie—made him look like a railroader from the Vanderbilt days. According to the ticker running at the bottom, the station was running a playback of a studio interview done the day before.
“It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy,” Tate was saying. “Hard to understand this level of vindictiveness.”
I set down my mug. Vindictiveness?
The reporter jumped on it. “That’s an interesting choice of words, Mr. Tate. Do you think the murders and Lucy’s kidnapping is about revenge against the Davenports?”
Tate fidgeted with his bow tie. Was he uneasy? Or did he just want people to think he was?
He forced his hand down, pressed his palm against his thigh. “Of course we have no idea what is in the mind of the person or persons who did this. I just know that in a business as competitive as the railroad industry, it’s inevitable that you step on a few toes. Hiram Davenport is a hard-driving businessman. I imagine he’s stepped on more toes than most. Some have called his business dealings . . . questionable.”
“You’re in direct competition with Hiram Davenport for the bullet train, is that right?”
Tate’s hand strayed back to his tie, tugged on it. “That’s true. Railroaders are notoriously competitive with each other.”
“I understand he proposes running the train through land that was once owned by your company, Tate Enterprises.”
“Many years ago, Hiram Davenport persuaded my father to sell him the short line that ran through that property, yes, along with the surrounding land.”
“Persuaded?”
“Convinced him.” Tate shifted in his chair. “That was a long time ago.”
“Did Hiram Davenport step on your father’s toes, Mr. Tate?”
I approached the television, inwardly applauding the reporter.
Tate’s neck flushed red above the collar of his button-down shirt. “That merger is water under the bridge, Julie. These days, Tate Enterprises shares track and resources with Davenport’s company. We are competitors, yes. But we are also allies. And we all want what’s best for Denver. At the moment, that means one thing—getting Lucy Davenport home safe and sound.”
The screen cut back to the morning show and the anchor moved on to other news.
I poured more coffee. I doubted Lancing Tate had created a trap for himself then stepped into it. I suspected he was too shrewd for that. He was opening up the possibility that Hiram’s business practices were unethical, and that the murders and Lucy’s abduction were in response to that. True or not, it was another shot fired in the ongoing battle between the titans.
After a quick shower, I forced down some toast while I checked in with dispatch. Outside of the Davenport case, there was nothing unusual going on at DPC. No jumpers. No train IDs painted on walls. The hazardous materials train had been indefinitely delayed. I called Fisher, who told me that even this early in the day, headquarters was swarming with every letter of the alphabet—JTTF, TSA, DHS, DPD, and probably anything else I could think of. He said he’d hold down the fort and be available for whatever I needed.
I tried Bull Zolner again—no answer—and my call to Margaret Ackerman confirmed only that she was still looking for any accidents related to our crossing.
I strapped Clyde’s vest on him, poured coffee into a travel mug, and made sure the alarm was set when I went out the front door. Tom O’Hara from the Denver Post called as Clyde and I were heading down the stairs.
“You have made me cross-eyed,” Tom said when I answered.
“You want violins?”
“Try a cello. You ready for a rundown of what I’ve learned?”
I threw my duffel in the back seat and gave Clyde permission to roam while I talked to Tom. “Give it to me.”
“I went to the public library’s western history department yesterday,” O’Hara said. “Then last night I took a look in the Denver Post’s archives.”
Clyde disappeared around the corner of the house. I headed after him to see what had caught his attention.
“Go ahead,” I said to Tom.
“The land now owned by Hiram Davenport and MoMA was originally Arapahoe territory. In 1867, a man named Ennis Parker spotted a bit of gold near the riverbed and staked a claim.”
Clyde was sniffing intently at something he’d found in a copse of trees on Cohen’s property. I walked toward him through the damp grass.
Tom went on. “According to what I can find, he never turned over so much as a single spade of dirt. He panned for gold on the river, then died in a gunfight in a Denver saloon.”
Whatever Clyde had found, he didn’t like. His hackles were up. I gestured him away and leaned over to see what he’d discovered. In the muddy ground beneath the pines was a single paw print. Canine. But huge. It was the biggest paw print I’d ever seen.
Tom’s voice boomed in my ear. “Sydney? You still there?”