Fields.
If she was right, he was more than just a bad cop. He was a killer. He’d killed Chambers, and he would have gotten away with it, a seemingly perfect plan, until Kurt Schill’s one-in-a-million snag pulled up the wrong pot. That brought in another police agency, an agency that was going to dig into the matter. That’s why Fields had fought so hard to keep jurisdiction. He didn’t want anyone else poking around in his weeds. Once Schill found the pot, Fields needed to make Graham Strickland look like a cold-blooded killer, or at least direct the attention back to him. As the investigating detective into Andrea Strickland’s disappearance, Fields had been to the Pearl Street loft, even searched it. He would have known the details on the security at the building, including the keypad in the elevator and on the front door.
It also explained Penny Orr’s reluctance to provide her DNA. She didn’t want Tracy to find out it was not Andrea Strickland in the pot. It was easier for Orr and for Andrea if Andrea was presumed dead.
Tracy slowed at the turn for the dirt road. Fields had likely gone looking for Graham Strickland at his apartment and instead found Megan Chen asleep in Strickland’s bed. He’d killed her too. Tracy had no doubt he’d kill Andrea Strickland and Penny Orr, and she’d just given him that chance. Then he’d kill her. Except right now he didn’t know Tracy knew he’d been the one to hire the PI to find Devin Chambers. For the moment, at least, Tracy had the element of surprise.
She hoped that was all she needed.
She drove slowly back to the small parking area, killing the engine the final few feet. She checked her Glock, chambering a round, and quietly exited the car. Slowly, she made her way up the path, gun held low and at her side. She stopped behind a pine tree at the wooden bridge, watching the cabin, hearing the trickle of the creek and the buzz of insects but not seeing anyone. She crossed the bridge to the two wooden steps leading to the porch, eyes scanning the area. Glock in hand, she leaned to look in the leaded windows. Strickland and Orr remained seated on the couch. She did not see Fields.
“Don’t move.”
The voice came from behind her, slow and deliberate. She heard Fields step around the corner of the house and instantly calculated whether she was fast enough to spin and get off a shot.
“Let the gun drop from your hand, Crosswhite,” Fields said. “Let it drop, or I’ll drop you where you stand. I said, drop the gun.”
Tracy dropped the gun. It hit the wood porch with a dull thud. Inside the house, Orr and Andrea Strickland looked toward the window.
“Turn around.”
Tracy raised her hands—a subtle signal to the women inside the house—and turned to face Fields. Fields took another step from around the edge of the house, gun raised and pointed at her. Tracy knew she’d made the right decision. Fields would have shot her before she’d turned.
“You’re back awfully soon,” he said, kicking the gun away. “Much too quick to have located the local sheriff and made your phone calls. I’m guessing that when you got partway down the mountain you got cell reception about the same location I noticed that I’d lost it. And I’m betting you got an interesting piece of information concerning a certain guerilla e-mail account. Am I right?”
“Why, Fields?” Tracy asked, the words bitter in her mouth.
Fields smiled. “Why not?”
“When did you turn?”
“Turn? Interesting choice of words. Let’s just say I picked up a few bad habits working undercover. You see, I realized that with every bust there was all that money unaccounted for, untraceable, not to mention all that product. I’d spent all my time learning how they distributed it so as not to get caught. A fortune. I decided I was playing on the wrong side.”
“What about your wife? What about what she died for?”
Fields smiled but it was dark. “Well, let’s just say we didn’t see eye to eye on things when she found out.”
“You killed her.” Tracy nearly spat the words.
“Depends on your point of view. Drug bust gone wrong,” he said, still smiling. “It happens all the time. Agent gets in deep and someone blows her cover. Mine got blown right after they found out about her. No choice but to leave the area.”
Tracy had been so fixated on disliking Fields, she wondered whether she’d missed the signs—she could now vividly see all the evidence pointing directly at him. “So when you thought Andrea Strickland was dead, and that her husband had killed her, you saw a chance to get her money.”
“You met him. He certainly didn’t deserve it.”
“But you didn’t count on someone having the same thought, and beating you to it.”