“No, ma’am. Never could stomach the stuff.” He made the call. “They’re going to search him for weapons then bring him back.”
“With the muscles he’s sporting, I doubt he needs a weapon. We’re going to stay on the opposite side of the table from him.” I moved my chair around and unclipped my holster. “If he decides to attack, let me handle it.”
Calvin gulped and nodded as he moved his chair to sit beside me. “Yes, ma’am.”
The door opened, and a uniformed officer escorted the man in. “You want me to stay, Miss Dale?”
“No, we’re fine.” A closer look showed he was older than I’d first estimated, more like mid to late thirties. “You know my name. What’s yours?”
He nodded at Calvin. “I said alone.”
“No, he stays, or you can leave.” We locked gazes until he looked away. “Your name?”
“Sal Merck.”
I waved him to the single chair across the table. “Have a seat, Mr. Merck.”
He turned the chair around and straddled it. “You got a lot of nerve, lady.”
“So I’ve been told. What did you want to talk about?” I took a sip of coffee and continued to stare at him.
“You said you killed Salyer. Now you’re out here riling him up against people. You think that’s some kind of joke? You messed with my life, bitch, but you ain’t gonna mess with nobody else’s.” In a fluid movement, he leapt to his feet and flung the chair at Calvin. “Because I’m gonna kill you.”
The room was large, but the sound of a Glock in any enclosed space was loud. “The next one, I’ll put between your eyes, Mr. Merck.”
Sal’s gaze was locked on my finger around the trigger.
“Calvin, would you call for backup, please? And if Mr. Merck moves again, we’ll also need the coroner.”
17
Gabriel hoped the Johnsons viewed his sick paleness and Max’s teary expression as grief for their daughter. “Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt Cindi?”
“No one,” Mr. Johnson replied, his arms wound tightly around his wife. “Everyone loved Cindi.”
His wife’s wails stopped for a moment as she leveled hate-filled eyes at Gabriel. “It’s the Dale woman. You brought her here, and now my baby is dead. I hope that monster finds her and she rots in hell.”
The wails started again, and Gabriel rose. His cell had been buzzing for the last five minutes, and Max had gone up front to answer his phone. He was getting a bad feeling in his gut. “Is there someone we can call for you?”
Mr. Johnson shook his head before lowering it to his wife’s. “My wife didn’t mean that. I hope you understand.”
“I do.”
“The station is trying to reach you, Gabriel.” Max turned eyes filled with pain and compassion on the Johnsons. “Do either of you know a Sal Merck?”
“He’s a former employee.” Mr. Johnson raised his head. “I fired him last week for drinking on the job.” His eyes widened. “Did he do this?”
“I’m afraid so. He just confessed.”
Sobs shook the older man’s shoulders. Gabriel felt his pain in the way only another person who’d lost someone they loved because of the job could feel. “We’ll let ourselves out.”
“Is the station really trying to reach me, or was that just your way of getting me out of there?” Gabriel asked as soon as the door closed behind them. He held out his hand. “I’ll drive, but you’ll need to fix the seat.”
Max switched things quickly. “We need to move fast. Calvin called me when he couldn’t reach you. This Merck guy showed up and wanted to talk to Dakota. She must have had some kind of premonition or something, because she set them up to where the guy had to cross a table to reach them. He went after her, and she shot him.”
“Is he dead?” Gabriel started the van, backed out, then sped away.
“No, but from the way Calvin’s talking, it may not be the Dakota we know he’s dealing with.”
“You think she’s switched personalities?”
“He was kind of excited. Said he’d never seen anyone draw a gun that fast, shoot that straight, and stay so dead calm. He kept chattering that she never blinked, and after she shot Merck, she just sat there sipping her coffee.”
“Is there a light or a siren for this thing?” Gabriel studied the dashboard.
“We’re not cops, remember. They don’t let us have lights and sirens.” Max ran a hand through his hair then over his face. “Damn it, I don’t know. I don’t understand this psychological stuff, but I know whatever happened in her mind saved her from Salyer, and that’s all that matters to me.”
“Blocking her memories saved her then, but she’s remembering whether we help her or not. The closer we get to Salyer, the more she’s going to remember. The more she remembers, the more dangerous she’s going to become.” Gabriel drove as fast as he could without killing someone. “If she’ll agree to work with Karen, we can control that in a safe environment.”
“And what if it pushes her to a place we can’t get her back from?” Max asked.
Gabriel whipped into the lane leading to the back of the police station. “That’s a chance we’re going to have to take. She doesn’t just plan on killing Salyer. If Emma really is dead, she plans on killing herself once she knows for sure he’s dead.”
“How do you know that?” Max unhooked his seat belt.
“Because it’s what I planned to do too. It’s the only way to end the nightmares.”
I handed my gun to the officer and placed my hands on the table. I’d been moved to an interrogation room, and Merck had been carted off for treatment after confessing to Cindi Johnson’s murder. His fear of Salyer was stronger than his fear of jail time. I wondered what it was like to fear something more than you feared yourself. The change had come on so quickly I’d barely had time to take control and nudge the gun so he was shot in the arm and not the heart. The shock in Calvin’s eyes when he’d looked at me had been alarming. My mind is damaged, and eventually, I won’t be able to control that. I need to get away from everyone.
The door opened, and Gabriel came in, followed by Chief Sampson. “Would you like something to drink?”
“No, I’m fine.”
The two pulled out chairs and sat staring at me. “Calvin told us what happened, and Merck is going to be fine. We’d like to hear your side of what went on in there.” Gabriel said.
“Not much to tell. He came in, took a seat, and went off about me riling up Salyer to kill people. The next thing we knew, he was throwing his chair at Calvin and diving over the table at me. I shot him.”
“Did he threaten you?” Chief Sampson asked.
“He said he was going to kill me. I believed him.”
Sampson rose. “That’s good enough for me. Gabe?”
“Give us a few minutes.”
“I’ll be in my office if you need anything.”
“Where’s Max?” I asked.
“He preferred not to be here at the moment.” Gabriel’s eyes focused on my face, questions reflected there. “So which part of you shot Merck?”
“Me.”
“You didn’t change personalities at all?”
“I didn’t say that. I answered your question. I shot Merck.”
“You can’t keep controlling this, Dakota. The memories are getting worse, and so are the nightmares. When was the last time you had a really good night’s sleep?”