“In the meantime we’ve got a long list of missing persons.”
“We do. But something tells me they all went to the same place.”
“Lambert’s bunker?”
“The dying guy said Dolph was there. He didn’t mention any others. But for me it’s the most obvious place.”
“If that’s the case Lambert has to be in on it. And all the guards would have to be in on it too.”
“Agreed.”
“So what now?”
“I don’t see anything for us to do right now other than catch some sleep.”
Robie called out to Bender that they would be at the hotel.
As they walked out, Reel said, “Are you and Malloy…?”
“No, we’re not. But I still want to find her.”
“I want that too,” said Reel. “Very much.”
He glanced at her. “Why?”
“If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand.”
She walked ahead of him out into the night. Robie slowly followed.
CHAPTER
58
When Robie came downstairs the next morning Bender was waiting for him in the lobby.
“Any news?” Robie asked.
“The BOLO produced nothing. The state police team came and went over the crime scene. It’s human blood. But they didn’t find much else.”
Bender drew a step closer to Robie. “Now I have to ask you something.”
Reel came down the stairs at just that moment.
“Ask away,” said Robie.
“I checked her phone records. We saw the call you made to her after your run-in with Dolph’s guys. And we saw the call she made to you presumably about coming to meet her at the station. But you made an earlier call to her.”
“I did,” said Robie.
“What was it about?”
“It was about me going over to see her, which I did.”
“You went to her home?”
Reel joined them at this point.
“Yes, I went to her home.”
“Why?” demanded Bender.
“I wanted to see her. It was personal. Nothing to do with the investigation.”
“And you just forgot to mention that last night? In fact, you lied to me because you said you hadn’t seen her. That’s a crime right there.”
Robie shrugged. “Like I said, it had nothing to do with the investigation.”
“So you say,” shot back Bender.
“What, do you really think I had something to do with her disappearance?”
“Hell, now I know you were the last one to see her,” Bender snapped.
“Other than the people who took her. And if I did anything to her, why would I have called you in? I almost got killed last night by Dolph’s clowns. Why not go talk to the ones who are still alive?”
“I don’t have to. They already came to me.”
“Excuse me?” said Robie.
“They came to me and said that you attacked their guys and murdered them.”
“They attacked me and I defended myself. It’s not my fault they don’t know how to drive.”
“I examined the bodies. Like I told you last night, two of them had been shot.”
“I shot one of them.”
“Are you confessing to murdering the guy?”
“Self-defense. And the other guy was shot by his buddy.”
“Why would he do that?”
Robie shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t like him,”
“You never should have left the scene.”
“I had somewhere to go. The bunker. I already told you that.”
“And Valerie conveniently goes missing.”
Robie took a step forward. “You don’t want to go there, Bender. You really don’t.”
Bender put his hand on his sidearm.
Robie moved so quickly Bender had no time to react. His left hand had gripped Bender’s and his right hand held a knife an inch from Bender’s throat.
“Don’t be stupid, Bender, you’re out of your league.”
Reel stepped between them and pushed them away from each other.
“Don’t be idiots,” she barked. She looked at Robie. “Put the knife away and just shut up for a minute.”
She turned to Bender, who looked shaken by Robie’s actions. She said, “We need to go over to the station and we need to tell you something about Dolph.”
“Reel!” began Robie.
She shot him a scathing look. “What part of ‘shut up’ don’t you get? Now let’s go!”
She marched out.
Bender and Robie glared at each other and then followed her out.
At the sheriff’s station Reel faced off with both of them.
“Holly Malloy and her boyfriend, Luke, are dead. Dolph had Luke killed and he shot Holly in front of us.” She glanced at Robie. “And Valerie knew.”
Bender grabbed the side of the desk to steady himself. “Wh-what?”
“They’re dead. Murdered.”
“But you said you were there. With Dolph!”
“He kidnapped us. He was going to kill us. But we escaped. But before we did, he murdered Holly.”
Bender’s face flushed crimson. “Then why the hell didn’t you go back there and arrest his ass! You’re fucking Feds.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” said Reel. “Besides we had no proof other than our word. And we’re here on assignment. We can’t get mixed up in that.”
Now Bender turned his fury on her. “Mixed up? People were murdered!”
Reel said, “And they’re going to pay for what they did, Bender. I promise you that.”
“How? How the hell can I believe you?”
“We’re not walking away from this. He tried to kill us, too. If you knew what we really are, you’d understand that nobody does that to us and gets away with it.”
“Wait a minute, you said, what we are. What does that mean?”
“It means we go into a situation and we make it right. And if bad guys get in the way, it never ends well for them. We’ve already taken out a slew of Dolph’s guys. I mean taken out in a way that means they are no longer breathing. And I’m not just talking about the guys last night.”
Bender looked over at Robie, who nodded and said, “That was the reason he came after us. We were helping Holly and Luke to get out of here, and we killed a bunch of his men.”
Reel added, “So we’re going to finish the job, Bender. I promise. But what we told you about Holly and Luke you can’t tell anyone else.”
“I’m a cop! You just told me about two murders.”
“And if you tell anyone else it could very well mean that Dolph and his people will never be punished for what they did.”
Bender sat back on the desk and slowly took all this in. “There has to be another way. All my cop instincts are telling me to go get this asshole right now.”
“So are mine, but sometimes your instincts are wrong,” said Robie. “We’ve thought this through every way you can. And this is the only way, Bender. Otherwise, Dolph wins.”
Bender gave a resigned sigh. “Okay, okay,” he finally said. “So what do we do right now?”
Robie said, “I have to think that Valerie was taken by Dolph and others who are working with him. One of Dolph’s guys said that he was at the bunker. We think maybe these prisoners might be there too. And Parry, Lamarre, and Walton.”
“But why at the bunker?” asked Bender. “What does that have to do with prisoners and missing people?”
“I don’t know. But if you were going to stash people somewhere, that would be a good place to do it.”
“But didn’t Roark Lambert take you on a tour of the place?”
Reel said, “He just showed us a slice. That place is so big, there could be a lot of people in there and we’d never know it.”