“I will if I’m allowed on the property.”
“Why wouldn’t you be allowed back on the property?” Whitt asked.
“Petro Panda terminated me about an hour ago. They basically accused me of putting our customers at risk by locking down the travel plaza yesterday. They said I was overstepping my authority.”
“Was this a local thing or did it come down from the corporate office?”
“It was corporate. I got a call from some asshole...excuse me... guy named Butch Flynn who said he was the head of Human Resources.”
“I’m very sorry about that, Tyler. Are you going to appeal it? Is there anything you can do?”
Ty watched a young woman struggling to extricate a jogging stroller from the trunk of a tiny car. “Mr. Flynn gave me the impression that I should go quietly. He said if I made a big deal out of this they would portray me as being unstable, saying I made my manager uncomfortable with my aggressive behavior and that’s why they had to let me go.”
It was Whitt’s turn to be disgusted now. “That’s bullshit.”
“No kidding.”
“So when do you think you can run that by?”
Ty held his phone so that he could see the clock on the face. “1300 hours?”
“1300 hours it is. See you then.”
Ty got up off the bench and headed toward his truck. The woman with the jogging stroller had finally got the complicated contraption unfolded and settled a baby into it. The kid was wearing a fancy tracksuit with tiny, nearly round running shoes. Ty was smiling at the goofy outfit until he caught the woman frowning at him. He averted his eyes.
Jesus Christ, he thought, why do you dress the little guy so goofy if you don’t want people laughing at him?
11
Ty headed home for a quick shower. He fixed lunch, resisting the temptation to pour himself another trough of cereal. Instead, he fixed toast with peanut butter and honey, something he thought was damn near akin to a delicacy. He chased it with another bottle of water and a tall energy drink.
With a clean body, a full belly, and a caffeine buzz, he headed to the Petro Panda to meet with Whitt. The scene was no less crowded than it had been the day before. It was a Sunday so the parking lot was crowded with travelers. The Virginia State Police command center RV was parked in the side lot, surrounded by folding tables and pop-up awnings. There was an assortment of law enforcement officers, both in uniform and in variations of off-duty cop-wear. Two TV news vans indicated that the missing girl story was fresh enough to get airtime.
Ty gave the command center a wide berth and parked at the far corner of the parking lot, the same place he usually parked when he was working. He locked his truck, confirmed the USB drive was in his pocket, and started across the hot parking lot. He’d nearly reached the command center when he was intercepted by Brock, a former coworker who was apparently the security guard on duty today.
“Hey, Ty!” Brock yelled, loping across the parking lot in Ty’s direction.
Ty gave a reserved nod. “How’s it going, Brock?”
The tall, lanky man shrugged. “Oh, you know. Just working. Living the dream. What are you doing here?”
Ty pointed toward the command center. “I’m meeting up with one of the investigators.”
Brock looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. “Yeah, about that… I was notified I’m not supposed to allow you on the property.”
Ty rolled his eyes. “You’re fucking kidding me, dude. Seriously?”
Brock nodded sheepishly. “Just doing my job, man. I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing.”
It was only then, as Brock started to piss him off, that Ty noticed how relaxed he’d been between his home and the Petro Panda. There was none of the normal anxiety he experienced on a drive. He hadn’t been paranoid or hyperaware of his surroundings. Now that relaxed state left him with the abruptness of being shoved under freezing water. He was suddenly anxious, angry, and felt under attack again.
He took note of Brock’s posture. The man was totally off guard. Ty was certain he could take him. He was ready to fight back against these people attacking him. Brock was open and Ty could probably drop him with a single punch. Two at the most.
“Mr. Stone, there you are,” Lieutenant Whitt said, breaking Ty’s train of thought.
Ty was not so far gone that he didn’t realize Whitt’s arrival was a good thing. With all those cops there, he’d end up in jail for sure if he attacked Brock. The Petro Panda would probably press charges if he created a disturbance on their property. He needed to chill.
Tighten up, Ty.
“Hey, Lieutenant, Brock here was just telling me I’m banned from the property. I have a feeling he was getting ready to escort me back to my vehicle. I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to stick around and meet with you.”
Brock looked at Whitt uncomfortably. “Yeah, it’s not me. I got a call from corporate. From the head of security. The order came straight from him.”
“I just got off the phone with your corporate office,” Whitt said tearing into Brock. “I think there’s a Mr. Butch Flynn who’s in his office right now trying to duct tape his ass back together after I got through with him. I don’t appreciate the way Mr. Stone here is being treated. He served this nation in the military and was the first person on the scene yesterday to understand the importance of locking it down. You get your head of security on the phone and you tell him Mr. Stone is critical to our investigation right now. If you try to remove him, I’ll arrest you for interfering and I’ll close this station as a crime scene. Do you get me?”
Brock flushed red. Lieutenant Whitt’s drill instructor background had just reared its head. Ty could tell this was a woman who had elevated the act of dressing someone down to a fine art form and that she enjoyed every single second of it.
“Yes, ma’am,” Brock said.
“Ma’am? Do I look like your mother or grandmother, son? It’s Lieutenant or Lieutenant Whitt to you. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Lieutenant Whitt.”
“Good. Now you hustle your ass back inside that store and relay my message to your boss. You do it now and then you stay out of my way.”
Brock did as he was told, spinning on a heel and sprinting back toward the store.
Ty couldn’t help but grin. “I can tell you’ve done that a time or two.”
“I held back. If I dialed it up a notch, I could have cussed him for ten minutes and not repeated myself. The state police have less tolerance for that kind of behavior than the military did, though. I could also tell you were looking for an opening. I was afraid I wouldn’t get over here before you laid his ass out in the parking lot.”
“I was considering it,” Ty admitted. He reached into his pocket, found the USB drive, and held it out to Lieutenant Whitt. “These are the pictures I was telling you about. I’ll get out of your hair. I know you’re busy.” Ty started to back away to return to his truck, but the lieutenant beckoned him with a wave.
“Wait a minute. Not so fast. Why don’t we take a quick look at these in the command center? I need to document your process for finding these images. It also might be helpful if you could put them in perspective for me. You might recognize the location where they were taken quicker than I can.”
“Sure,” Ty said. “It’s not like I have to go to work or anything.”
The two fell into step heading across the hot pavement to the command center.
“I guess you heard me say that I just got off the phone with your HR guy?” the lieutenant asked.
“Yeah, I was going ask you about that.”
“I can’t make them hire you back, Tyler, but I made it clear that firing you was a pretty shitty thing to do. I told him that you didn’t know about my call and that he certainly couldn’t stop me from leaking news of your firing to the media. I told him they should reconsider their decision because I could make them look pretty damn bad if I wanted to. I’m old, grouchy, and don’t give a shit an
ymore.”
Ty shrugged. “Working here was a lousy job anyway. I’m not sure I want it back, to be honest.”
“So what are you going to do with yourself? You don’t seem like the type to just lay around and do nothing.”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“There’s always the State Police Academy. If you don’t want to be a trooper, there’s always the conservation police or local law enforcement. It’s good work.”
They reached the command center before Ty felt pressured to respond to her suggestions. The muffled sound of a generator emerged from behind the RV. Lieutenant Whitt led Ty through the other officers, beneath the shade of an awning, and into the air-conditioned comfort of the command center. There were flat screen monitors tuned to the news and displaying information from several computers. An array of radio equipment allowed the command center to communicate with anyone they might need to reach. A metal locker bolted to the wall held several rifles and shotguns.
Whitt led Ty to a countertop mounted along a wall and gestured for him to take a seat on a stool. She grabbed a metal folding chair and sat beside him, opened a laptop in front of her, and plugged in Ty’s USB stick. The antivirus utility scanned the drive, then opened the folder containing the images. Deciding the laptop screen was too small, the lieutenant plugged a cord into one of the laptop ports so the image was displayed on a larger monitor mounted to the wall.
She had Ty walk her through how he’d come to the conclusion that social media might help him find pictures of the scene. She took thorough notes, writing down hashtags he explored on the various social media sites. Ty knew that law enforcement undoubtedly had the know-how to use this means of investigation but their efforts were probably focused in more traditional directions at the moment.
“Have there been any clues at all?” Ty asked. “Any progress?”
“Off the record, the parents just went through a nasty divorce. Of course, that’s pretty common now and doesn’t particularly mean anything significant, but we haven’t been able to locate the dad.”
Ty’s eyebrows went up at that.
Whitt waved it off with her hand. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” she said. “The dad’s friends said he’s supposed to be on some off-roading trip in the backcountry of Utah. There’s no cell reception and it’s pretty remote. We’ve got local law enforcement looking for him but there’s been no leads yet. He’s currently the main focus of our investigation.”
“It’s usually somebody that knows the victim, isn’t it?” Ty asked. “That’s what they say in the crime shows.”
“Unfortunately yes.”
12
Ty spent nearly two hours in the command center going over the pictures with Lieutenant Whitt. Later, at her request, he repeated much of the same information to an investigator from the local sheriff’s department. When he finally stepped from the air-conditioned RV into the sweltering heat of the afternoon, Whitt tried again to encourage him to consider law enforcement as a possible career.
“I’ll admit that part of it is I’d like to help a fellow veteran,” Whitt said. “That’s not all though. You have an enthusiasm for investigation. You can’t teach that. You either have it or you don’t.”
“I’ll think about it,” Ty said. “Thank you.” He appreciated her effort but didn’t feel capable of making any life-changing decisions at the moment. He didn’t know where he wanted to go from there. Part of him wasn’t certain if he even wanted to keep going at all.
As he headed back across the parking lot, he saw Brock taking a break on a picnic table, smoking a cigarette. He gave Ty a tentative wave. While Ty suspected it was meant to indicate there were no hard feelings, Ty had hard feelings. He gave Brock the finger. It was a childish gesture, but he hadn’t had a lot of satisfying moments over the last few days. He’d take his gratification were he could find it, even if it was immature.
He left the Petro Panda, got on the interstate, and headed back into town. He punched a button to dial Deena and the sound of the ringing phone emerged from the speakers in the truck. It took her four rings to answer, long enough that Ty had to wonder if she was dodging his call. When she finally did answer, the tone of her voice indicated he may have been correct.
“Hey, Ty.”
She sounded tired, though he couldn’t tell if it was physical or mental exhaustion. He was afraid to ask because he was pretty sure, whichever it was, he was responsible for it.
“Hey, Sis. How’s it going today?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” Her response sounded sincere, with none of the edge he’d braced himself for.
Apparently he wasn’t the only one having a rough day. “I was wondering if I could take you and Aiden out to dinner,” he offered. He didn’t really feel like it but he wanted to reconnect with them. It was something he needed to do.
“I don’t know, Ty,” she replied. “I’m not so sure it’s a good time. I wouldn’t be very good company.”
“Neither of us is good company. Aiden makes up for that, though. She’s got enough personality for the three of us.”
“That’s true.”
“Listen, I’m sorry, Deena. I watched the video last night. I know it looks bad and I read some of the comments. I saw that people were giving you a hard time. I wish I knew what to do.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Ty figured she was referring to the phone calls she said she’d been getting from “well meaning” friends. “Deena, I probably wouldn’t have gotten so angry yesterday if not for what happened at work. I kept thinking about what I would do if it were Aiden missing. I couldn’t push it out of my head. I still can’t.”
“I know. It probably wasn’t the best time to spring that whole mess on you, but I was a little overwhelmed. Your actions impact me, Ty, and they impact Aiden.”
Although Ty understood that was true, this was new territory for him. He wasn’t used to having to tiptoe around people’s feelings. In the military, he had a responsibility to his team but they weren’t sensitive. If you stepped on someone’s feelings, they got over it. He liked that life better.
The only reason he’d ended up living in the same small town as his sister was out of a sense of duty. With their parents dead, neither of them had anyone else to depend on. He thought they might be able to help each other out. Deena was recently divorced and they didn’t have any other family around. Since she was always needing help getting Aiden somewhere or picking her up, being able to assist with those little things helped give him purpose, giving him a mission, and helped pull him out of the murky waters of his own head. Despite this rough patch, he wasn’t ready to give up on that mission.
“How about I pick up a couple of pizzas and bring them over? Would that be okay?”
“Sure,” she relented.
“Beer?”
“Make it Dos Equis.”
“It’s a deal.”
They hung up and he placed a call to their favorite pizza place.
13
The parking lot at Bella’s Pizza was a little over half full. Ty backed into a space at the farthest corner of the lot and sat there for a moment to get a feel for the place. He slid out the door of his truck and headed across the parking lot, instinctively scanning the parked cars. He saw no one sitting inside and watching him, no one crouched between cars waiting to jump him.
Inside, there was no line. He was able to quickly pay for his order and get out the door. He made a quick stop at a drugstore with a good beer selection and picked up Deena’s beer. Fortunately, on a Sunday afternoon, the drugstore was dead as disco. He was the only car in the parking lot and the only customer in the store. Still, he was glad he was armed. Drugstores were sketchy these days. Too many lowlifes who would beat down a cancer patient to steal their medication.
On Deena’s street, he parked in front of her house and did a quick assessment of the scene around him. It was small-town Sunday stuff. People were washing cars, kids were playing
in yards, and men were mowing lawns. When he got out, he could smell grilling steaks and hear music playing from down the block. He started to unholster his Glock and leave it in the truck but couldn’t bring himself to do so. He grabbed the pizzas and the six-pack of beer, then headed for the house.
With his hands full he used his toe to tap on the storm door. Aiden came running to let him inside. She pushed the door open and stood outside holding it while he eased in with the wide boxes.
“I didn’t tell her, Uncle Ty,” she whispered. “I swear I didn’t.”
Ty looked at his niece and caught the serious look on her face. She was worried he’d be mad at her. “It’s okay, sweetie. I know you didn’t. We’re good. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Her face brightened and she grinned at him. He regretted causing her to worry about it. None of this was her fault. It was just one more reminder of the pain he caused the people around him.
Ty made his way to the kitchen. He handed the beer off to Deena and set the pizza boxes on the island. “One supreme, one pepperoni, and a six-pack of beer.”
Deena busied herself with napkins, paper plates, and silverware. “Aiden, get yourself a bottle of water from the fridge.”
“What if I wanted a beer?” she asked, a challenging inflection in her voice.
Deena gave her a sharp look. “Would you prefer a spanking?”
“I’ll take the water,” Aiden replied, though she knew as well as Ty did that the odds of her getting a spanking were pretty low.
Deena slid two slices of pepperoni off onto a paper plate. She handed it to Aiden, then tore loose a paper towel and extended it to her daughter.
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