It was the next morning and Robie and Reel were sitting across the desk from Malloy in her office.
Malloy continued, “And the note is sort of ambiguous anyway. Everyone in town knew that Walton had disappeared. And that you were here to check on him. She might just literally mean what her note said, that she was sorry.”
“If she wrote the note,” said Robie.
“What do you mean?”
Reel answered. “She was wearing basically nothing when she ran away. Robie didn’t have paper or a pen in his jacket. She obviously met up with someone to get it, and it had to be fast, because Robie went to check on her and found his jacket not that long after she ran off. That person might have written the note. It’s in block letters. You can’t confirm that that’s your sister’s handwriting.”
“No, I can’t. But who would she have hooked up with?”
Reel said tightly, “It’s your town and your sister, you tell us.”
“I don’t know what to tell you because I don’t have the answers you want.”
Robie shifted in his seat. “The trooper last night said he might not be able to hold the skinheads. ‘He said, she said’ issue. But really I think they’re intimidated by those guys.”
“Look, the state troopers are good cops and they’re as brave as anyone in uniform. But they’re vastly outnumbered and outgunned. And Luke Miller is already out. There was nothing to hold him on. They were trying to kill him, like you said. He was just defending himself.”
“And do we know why they were trying to kill one of their own?” asked Reel.
“I can’t say I know their inner workings, but sometimes the shit hits the fan with these guys and they want to do a purge. I guess Luke was on the outs.”
Reel said, “And why did he come into town to hook up with your sister? That must have been prearranged.”
Malloy shrugged. “Well, I can’t ask Holly. And Luke will say nothing.”
“Did they ever go to that place before?”
“Not to my knowledge, no.”
“Why is she with Luke?”
“They had a thing a while back.”
“Was Holly part of the skinheads?”
“No. She’s not like that. But she’s screwed up, and apparently Luke showed her some kindness. And they sort of fell in love, if a guy like Luke can do that. I don’t really know him.”
Robie said, “Someone knew he was coming into town last night to see her.”
“What were you even doing there? You never said.”
“I saw something suspicious and I went to investigate.”
Reel spoke up. “This is all very interesting and totally irrelevant to why we’re here. I don’t give a crap about your sister’s romantic entanglements. We’re here to find Walton. That note from your sister indicates she may know something about what happened to him. So that means we need to find Holly. Do you have any idea where she is?”
Malloy bristled. “If I did, I would have told you. I went looking for her last night and found exactly zip. I talked to the people she knew. I went to the places she’s stayed before. Nothing.”
“So she vanished, reappeared, and vanished again. All in the middle of nowhere,” said Robie.
“Seems so,” snapped Malloy. “And just so you know, I want to find her as much as you do!”
Reel stared at her. “I hope that’s the truth. Because if it isn’t, you’re in a shitload of trouble.”
“Don’t try to intimidate me, Agent Reel. I don’t break easily.”
“So I’ve heard so many say.”
Robie broke in. “You said you had gotten her help. Where was that?”
“There’s a rehab facility about an hour from here.”
“Give us the address.”
“Why? She’s not there anymore.”
“Just give us the address. And the names of the people in charge of her care.”
Ten minutes later Robie and Reel were on the road.
“What are you thinking?” asked Reel as Robie drove.
“I’m thinking we have to get traction on this case. You’re right, all the other crap we’ve stumbled on here has nothing to do with why we’re here.” He paused. “Until it does have something to do with it.”
“I don’t think I understand what you mean.”
“Someone put that note in my jacket pocket. Maybe it was Holly or maybe whoever she hooked up with put it there. But it seems to me that those words could be interpreted as her having known what happened to Blue Man, and that was why she was sorry. And that means it’s a lead we have to explore.”
“Do you think Blue Man is dead then?”
He glanced at her. “Like I told you before, no, but you knew that was always a possibility with this.”
“Yeah, I knew.”
“He told me it was never about luck.”
She shot him a look. “What?”
“My mission in London. He sent an e-mail. He told me he would have wished me good luck, but he wasn’t going to because it was never about luck.”
Reel did a quick intake of breath.
“What?” asked Robie.
“He wrote me the same e-mail before I deployed to Iraq.”
Robie nodded. “Two peas in a pod. Well, he was there for us in Mississippi.”
“There for you, Robie. And I was there because Blue Man ordered me down to clean up your mess.”
“I thought you came down on your own volition.”
“Well, you thought wrong. I was just following orders. Just like we’ve both been trained to do.”
“You haven’t always followed orders, Jess. Not that long ago you pulled the triggers on people you were never authorized to kill. And I had to come in and clean up that mess.”
“So I guess that makes us even.”
“I guess it does,” replied Robie.
CHAPTER
21
“She left here about a week ago,” said Brenda Fishbaugh. “Her sister came and picked her up. She’d completed her treatment here. That’s the last I saw of her.”
They were seated in the office of the director of the rehab facility where Holly Malloy had gone to address her addiction issues.
“When I asked her name, she said it was Sheila,” said Robie.
“She would occasionally tell people her name was Sheila,” admitted Fishbaugh. “Sort of like a defense mechanism. That was when she first came here and was pretty suspicious of everyone here. She was a bit paranoid, actually,” she added quickly. “She was here for about three months. As I said, she went through our program. And successfully completed it. Or so we thought.”
“She might have stayed clean. When I saw her she wasn’t strung out on drugs, but she was with a skinhead.”
Fishbaugh nodded sadly. “Luke Miller. He came to visit her here often.”
“We understand that they knew each other,” said Reel.
“Yes. Holly was here voluntarily, although rehab was part of her parole. We couldn’t stop her from talking to Miller. Her sister actually got her into our program.”
“But it seems that fraternizing with a skinhead would run afoul of her parole,” observed Robie.
“Miller didn’t have a criminal record.”
“We know that,” said Robie. “I took a picture of his license plate. We ran a check on him. He’s clean. Except for the fact that he’s running around with some pretty bad people.”
“To tell the truth, I don’t think he really was ever a neo-Nazi. He just liked tattoos and riding around on motorcycles and belonging to something.”
“Well, since they were coming to kill him last night you might be right about that,” said Reel.
“I do think he loves Holly,” said Fishbaugh slowly. “I mean, he showed her great tenderness, and he would inquire as to how her treatment was coming.”