If I Live

by Terri Blackstock

  “So what does that mean for Casey?”

  “She’s going to be charged with a few things, but I think they’re going to rescind the indictment for murder.”

  “She doesn’t deserve to serve even one day in jail,” I say. “She was only trying to survive.”

  “She fled prosecution. She stole identities, Dylan.”

  “She couldn’t let him find her. Surely you can see that.”

  “Her lawyers can bring all that up in court. A judge or jury might give her a pass because of her circumstances. Look, I’m just doing my job here. Because of the scrutiny and the suspicion against everyone who wears a badge here, I have to go by the book. Believe it or not, there are some of us who still want to do the right thing. Some of us who still think law enforcement is one of the most important things that keeps our country anchored.”

  “Yeah, there are some of us who think that.”

  “I’m sick that this happened on my watch, Dylan, and to be perfectly honest, I should probably resign. But I’m not leaving the police department in that kind of turmoil at a time like this. I’m going to stick with it at least until we get this mess cleaned up, and then I’ll reassess. But I need you being perfectly honest from this moment on about all of this. I need you going over everything you know with me. I don’t want to get my information from the news.”

  “Understood,” I say. “But before we get to work, I want assurances. I want to know that Casey is safe. I want the list of people who have access to her while she’s in custody to be limited. Only the people you absolutely trust.”

  “We’re putting her in lockdown,” he says. “Her attorney is hard-nosed. He’s negotiating every detail of her surrender, making sure we don’t make her a bull’s-eye for Keegan.”

  “The PD has handed her over to him before.”

  Gates sears me with a look. “If you’d told me the truth, Dylan. Not part of the truth . . .”

  “You wouldn’t have believed me. You said it yourself. You’ve fallen for his schemes before.”

  His voice breaks. “There’s enough blame to go around. Let’s not get sidetracked. Casey’s going to be safe. And hopefully she’ll be bailed out soon and get out of here. Believe me, the sooner we get rid of the media, the better.”

  “Her family isn’t safe either,” I say. “We need to move them to a safe house.”

  He sighs. “All right. The state police just acquired a new house. Keegan wouldn’t know about it because we haven’t used it yet. I’ll call them and get access. Let the family know to pack, that we’re coming.”

  “I want to take them,” I say. “I want to make sure they’re safe. I promised Casey.”

  Chief Gates folds his hands. “That’s another thing, Dylan. Your relationship with Casey is a huge concern of mine.”

  I stiffen. “My relationship with her is none of your business.”

  “Actually, it is. I hired you.”

  “I figured you tore up the paperwork when you called me off.”

  “I didn’t. You’re still on our payroll. Your relationship muddies the waters.”

  “Then I’ll quit. I’m not hiding anything anymore. Everything is on the table. We can tear up those papers. You don’t have to pay me a cent.”

  Gates groans as his phone buzzes. He picks up, listens, then says, “I’ll be right there.” He looks at me. “She’s a few minutes out.”

  My gut hitches. “You’re not going to make her walk through those people, are you?”

  “No. Barbero made sure. I have to go. You can go with the patrol officers to move Casey’s family. That’s fine. But we need to talk about one more thing.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “I’m obviously going to need to replace some of my detectives,” he says. “I think you’ve proven that you have what it takes. Besides, you could pass the detective exam hands down. I’ve got to give you the test as a formality, but I’m promoting you to detective. I need you working immediately to help me strategize how we’re going to clean house and how we’re going to round up every single person who’s involved in this cover-up and all these crimes.”

  I’m flabbergasted. I wish I could call Casey and tell her about this. She would be as stunned as I am. “Thought you didn’t trust me.”

  “Wrong, Dylan. You’re about the only one in this outfit I do trust. I need you.”

  “Okay, then,” I say. “I would be honored to come to work for the police department, as long as you don’t try to dictate my love life.”

  He studies me. “So you and Casey are serious? In all this mess, you’ve had time to build that kind of relationship?”

  “I don’t want to get into that with you. If it’s an issue, I don’t want the job.”

  He lets out another sigh. “You just have to understand that we’re not going to change the way we handle her based on your feelings for her. We have to go textbook on this.”

  “That’s fair,” I say. “She’s innocent, after all.”

  “So go take care of her family. Then get back here and help us with all this.”

  When he reaches out to shake my hand, I shake. “You got it, Chief.”

  I feel a little more buoyant as I walk back down the hall.

  49

  CASEY

  I have to hand it to Billy. He’s done a good job working out my surrender. He arranges for us to have a police escort as we head for the department to turn myself in. As six police cars encircle us with their sirens blaring and their lights flashing, I feel a little sick.

  I watch the sides of the road, looking for someone with a grenade launcher, and scan the windows for gun barrels. Keegan could ram his car into us and explode a bomb. He could simply have a dirty cop in one of the cars guarding us, or a guard at the jail who would let him get to me.

  Even if I’m safe from Keegan, I’m scared. The whole time I’ve been running, I’ve told myself it was because I didn’t want to be murdered if Keegan caught me, but now that it’s just jail that I face, I’m still scared.

  “You okay, Casey?” Barbero asks as he follows the police cars toward the department.

  “I guess.”

  “You look pale,” Marge says, glancing back. “Did you eat this morning?”

  “No. My stomach wasn’t very steady.”

  “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I say.

  We round the corner a block from the police department. I see all the vans and the news media from more than the local outlets. It’s press from all over the place. How did they get here so fast?

  The police cars escort us around back and pull into a driveway that leads to the jail. It’s blocked off so the press can’t get there.

  “Where are they taking us?” I ask.

  “Into the sally port. When you get out, the doors will be closed. They won’t be able to film you.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Listen, Casey,” Billy says. “I don’t want you to talk to them unless I’m with you. Understood? The minute you talk without me, it’s like waiving your right to have an attorney present. If you say you won’t talk without one, they can’t question you further unless you start it back up yourself. Clear?”

  “Yes, but I don’t have anything to hide. I want to tell them what I know.”

  “And you can. But I want to direct this conversation and make sure you don’t get yourself in more hot water. Until you get a criminal attorney, I’m going to look out for you.”

  “So you think I could still be charged with murder?”

  “Not if we can help it. For now, let’s get you booked, and you just be quiet until I tell you that you can talk. We’ve got to stay in control of this.”

  In spite of his assurances, when we reach the garage under the building, some of the cameramen run to get as close as they can. A scratched yellow garage door slides open. Barbero pulls his car in behind the police cars that are still flashing their lights. It goes dark as the door closes behind us
. Barbero unlocks his wheelchair and turns around, and his side doors come open. He rolls onto the hydraulic lift that lowers him to the ground. I get out of my seat and step down too.

  Immediately the officers in the car in front of us are out of theirs. As they approach me, I hold out my wrists for them to cuff. But they don’t.

  They walk me inside. Things get rougher as they put me through the paces of booking, as if I’m as much a criminal as a gang thug with two dozen murders under his belt. I send up a quiet, tearful plea to God to help me not to care about this. It won’t hurt me to be humbled. I think about Jesus when he was in the custody of the authorities, being paraded before the religious leaders. But it was worse for him. He was beaten and spat at until he didn’t even look like himself. Compared to that, this is nothing.

  They lead me to the camera, and I stare straight ahead, knowing this will be the picture that defines me for the next years of my life if I have to stay. They fingerprint me, roughly rolling my fingers across the ink pad. Instead of putting me in a holding cell, they take me to an interview room with a lock on the door.

  They park me there at a table with Billy by my side and leave me there alone with him. A few minutes later four detectives come in. They look like they’ve been up all night.

  They introduce themselves, then two step out, and I know the others are watching through the window. The other two slide their chairs up to the table.

  They ask me what I’d like to drink, and I tell them a Diet Coke. Within a few seconds someone has brought me one.

  I can do this, I tell myself. They don’t seem hostile. It may be they’re inclined to believe me after all that has happened. But I’m talking about their friend here, their coworker, and some of them could be among Keegan’s men. I wonder how Chief Gates has filtered them out to make sure they’re not in on Keegan’s crimes.

  I look around for the camera that is inevitably there, and I see it across the room from me up in a corner, filming everything we do. That actually might be my safety net.

  50

  DYLAN

  Once I know Casey is safe and that she’s spending the afternoon in the interview room—and after I’ve gotten her family settled in the safe house—I join the police at Jim Pace’s elegant cabin and walk them out into the woods where Casey saw them taking Jim’s body. Jim isn’t there.

  They bring the dogs out of the canine van, give them a whiff of Jim’s clothing from the house. The dogs roam around picking up his scent, but never finding him.

  “Keegan came back to get him,” I tell them.

  They go through the house, checking out my story about where I was held, the blood on the door, the carpet strip I pulled up, the switch plate I loosened before Casey arrived.

  The CSIs take over the scene as the rest of us go back to the police station. I watch through the window as they interview Casey, as if it’s a movie unfolding. I want so badly to go in there and help her with the story, but she’s doing a great job laying it out. They have all the information we gave the press on a thumb drive, and they’ve been investigating it all morning.

  Keegan’s house is a crime scene.

  His wife is sitting in another interview room, and his son Kurt is on suspension until he is debriefed.

  But Keegan is nowhere to be found.

  51

  DYLAN

  There’s a sense of urgency as we strategize about finding Keegan. Two more detectives—Robinson and Parker— and a crime scene investigator have been suspended from the force as we zero in on those involved in his schemes. It turns out that Keegan doesn’t have that many friends in the department. Those who are left are glad he’s gone, or they’re putting on a good face. The truth is that they’re all under scrutiny, and if they even display an attitude, they’re likely to come under investigation.

  They probably don’t appreciate me coming in here with authority, but I don’t have time to worry about that. I have a job to do, and lives depend on it.

  I stand in front of the whiteboards in the Major Crimes room, where I’ve copied the one I originally did on my paper roll. I’ve added what has happened in the last few days and hours. All eyes are focused on it. Though I’m not yet a detective, they all treat me like I’m one.

  “We’ve put out a BOLO for Keegan’s vehicle,” Stamps tells me. “I figure he’s going to ditch it as soon as he can. I’ve got patrol officers checking out every rental car company to see if he’s come by there. He’s got a distinctive look, so I think his picture will alert people.”

  Though the media is all over him, plastering his face to kingdom come, I don’t doubt that he can escape. “Are we still watching the airport?”

  “Yes,” he says. “They’ve been watching it since this morning. The TSA is alerted to watch for him on commercial flights too.”

  I try to think like Keegan would think. When he realized he couldn’t find us and that things were about to go south, he would have tried to get to his plane and leave the country. But if he feared being caught there . . .

  He could get out of town, but if he even suspected he’d be all over the news by morning, he would try to find a way out of the country. It’s his only hope.

  Then it hits me.

  “I need to see the classified ads in every aviation magazine in a three-hundred-mile radius.”

  “For what?”

  “Maybe he drove to another town and bought a plane.”

  “But this came out first thing this morning. I don’t think he could have bought one in the middle of the night. If he’d bought one this morning, the seller would have surely called it in when he saw him on the news.”

  I still get on my computer and pull up the website for Trade-A-Plane, which lists aircraft for sale all across North America. Keegan owns a Cessna 180. He would have wanted what he was familiar with. I type in ‘single engine Cessna 180,’ and up come five planes. One is in Canada, another in Las Vegas, so I rule those out. The other three are here, in the South—one in Mississippi, one in Arkansas, and one in Texas. I print out the phone numbers for those sellers, and I call the closest one. The seller in Texas tells me no one has called about his plane.

  I try the one in Arkansas. Again, the seller hasn’t been contacted.

  I call the one in Raymond, Mississippi. There’s no answer, so I look at the listing and find a secondary number. I dial it, and a woman answers the phone.

  “This is Dylan Roberts from the Shreveport, Louisiana, police department. I’m calling about the plane you have listed.”

  “Yes. Really, it’s my husband you need to talk to, Jake Gibbons, but he isn’t here. You could call his cell.”

  She gives me the number I called first, and I tell her he didn’t answer. “Could you just tell me if he’s shown his plane to anyone today?”

  “Yes, early this morning. He was meeting some guy at seven o’clock. Guy called at six and said he had cash, but he needed Jake to show the plane to him right then. Jake hasn’t come home.”

  I look at my watch. It’s three o’clock. “Did you expect him home afterward?”

  “Yes. I knew he was probably taking the guy for a test flight, but he would have called me after to tell me how it went. He’s been trying to sell it for the longest time, so I was anxious to hear. Why are you calling?”

  “We’re looking for someone we think may have been in the market in that area. Would you take my number and have your husband call me when he gets home? It’s very important.”

  She hesitates. “This person . . . do you think he’s dangerous?”

  I don’t want to alarm her, so I don’t tell her he’s the one she’s probably seen on the news all day. “Do you happen to have the number the buyer called from?”

  “No, he called Jake’s cell phone.”

  I was afraid of that. “Just have him call me, ma’am. Thanks for your help.”

  I hang up and yell, “Pretty sure he was in Raymond, Mississippi!” As the others come to my desk to hear more, I dial the Raymond, Missis
sippi, police department and ask them to go check on that plane at the tiny Raymond airport to see if it’s still there.

  I’m still filling the other detectives in and writing that bit of news on the whiteboard when my phone rings. It’s the Raymond police. “We thought you should know what we found.”

  “Is the plane still there?”

  “No. But we did find Jake Gibbons.”

  “You did? Where?”

  “Dead in his car. Strangled.”

  I jump out of my chair. “Do you have security footage?”

  “We’re getting it now.”

  “I’m e-mailing you a picture of the guy we’re looking for. I need to know if it’s him. And while we’re on the phone, I need to know the number of the person who called Gibbons at six this morning.”

  I hold while he goes to look. He finds the cell phone and checks the dead man’s recent calls. He reads the number off to me. I give him my e-mail and ask him to send the video so I can see it for myself.

  When I hang up, I go to the whiteboard and write the number the buyer called from. Maybe this will lead us to Keegan.

  52

  KEEGAN

  This plane isn’t fit to be flown. It’s burning fuel twice as fast as my plane, which cuts my range in half.

  Flying from Mississippi, I couldn’t be sure that I’d make it south across the Gulf to the Yucatan peninsula for fuel. Even in my plane, that would have been iffy. So I’ve had to navigate west, hoping to stop to fuel up just inside of Mexico. Now I’m thinking my best bet is to land somewhere around Corpus Christi.

  But I wasn’t prepared for this. I balance the chart on my knee and try to find a small private airport where I can self-announce. Since I’m not contacting Houston Center and I’ve turned off my transponder, I’m trying hard to stay under the radar. I have to find a small airport that doesn’t have a tower, one that’s self-fueling, so I won’t have to come in contact with anyone who will recognize me, like I did this morning.

  That Jake Gibbons guy, he had it coming. I was waiting for him in the parking lot of his airport, fully willing to pay cash for his plane. But when I walked toward him in the parking lot, I could see on his face that he had already seen me on the news. His expression changed, and he muttered some excuse to get back in his car. As he reached for his phone, I opened the car door and took it out of his hand, and before he could react, I had my hands around his throat. When he stopped fighting back and I let him go, I checked for a pulse. He was dead. I reclined his seat so it looked like he was taking a nap and wasn’t immediately visible to others who might come and go. Bought me a few hours.