Down the Broken Road Read online

  Grant seemed to recognize the resolve in her voice. He gave her a nod and said, “Very well then. I appreciate your time, Miss Carver.”

  “That’s it?”

  He smiled. “We’ll be in touch.”

  THREE

  Rachel left the interview feeling spent, and the three-block trek back to her car didn’t help. The sidewalk on Salisbury offered no shade, and the late-morning sun was relentless. The only respite came from a cloud of concrete dust that billowed from a construction site across the street, but the gray mass made the humid air all the more stifling.

  When she hit the public parking lot, the freshly coated asphalt seemed to soak up the little bit of life she had left in her. Her feet dragged across its black surface as Grant’s questions played in her mind.

  So where did it all go wrong?

  He had cut right through Rachel’s pitiful defenses, forcing her to relive the worst day of her life.

  The screaming child. The nervous deputy. Lauren Bailey waving her dead boyfriend’s pistol.

  It had been one of several from Larson’s collection. A .40-caliber semiauto, similar to the one deputies had found in the car next to his body. It was too large for Bailey’s tiny hand. It likely would have launched free from her grip had she pulled the trigger, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous. Rachel begged her to lower it, to put it on the floor. But she was defiant, intoxicated, and proclaiming her innocence.

  The deputy had heard enough. He stepped forward and yelled at her to drop her weapon. She pointed it at him instead.

  So Rachel shot her. Eight rounds to the center mass, and Bailey went down, dying in the living room of her mother’s house. Rachel scooped up the child and carried him outside as the deputy secured the gun and called for backup and an ambulance. It was all over in less than a minute.

  Nine months had passed, but it took only an instant to put Rachel back in that moment.

  She dropped into the driver seat of her Camry and started the engine, turned up the air conditioner but left it in park. She stared blankly at the world outside the windshield. After a few minutes, she realized she was sitting there with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Nowhere but an empty apartment on the north end of town.

  The days had been passing quickly, as Rachel had moved from one freelance job to the next. The Lowry County murders, as the media had called them, had been her biggest case. She had solved it on her own, receiving a lot of news coverage in the aftermath. Free advertising, as it turned out, which had provided her numerous opportunities. But the buzz was dying down, and so was the workload.

  It bothered Rachel to admit how much she wanted the job with Robertson Burke & Porter. In some ways, it made her feel like a failure. Of course, she was always welcome to rejoin the SBI. Penter had said as much during their last encounter. But she hated the thought of going back, tail tucked between her legs, and she couldn’t see herself ever working for Penter again.

  She opened her briefcase and took out her phone. It was almost a reflex, or an instinct. As if the little device would hold some answer for her.

  She thought about calling her best friend, Danny Braddock.

  Is that what he is?

  They had been partners in the Raleigh Police Department’s homicide unit before she left to join the SBI. Soon after, Braddock had moved away to the mountains, where he’d become the chief deputy of a tiny sheriff’s office. It was at his insistence that Rachel had been asked to consult on the Lowry County case. That job … that crisis had brought them closer together. Perhaps too close.

  She wanted to be near him now. Wanted to hear his voice, though she didn’t know just what she hoped to hear him say. She stared at the phone for a moment, then turned the ringer on, and checked the screen for any notifications. There was a missed call and a voicemail.

  She played the message: “Uh … hi … I’m trying to reach a Ms. Rachel Carver? My name is Chad Hughes. I’m a detective with the Siler City Police Department. If you could give me a call back at your earliest convenience, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

  He had left a number and a time; the message was less than ten minutes old.

  It wasn’t unusual for Rachel to get calls from detectives, especially ones she had worked with in the past. Sometimes they needed help remembering details from old cases. Sometimes they wanted advice on solving a new one. And she had worked in Siler City, just one county to the west, on several occasions. But it had been a while. Perhaps a few years. She didn’t know Chad Hughes, and he sounded like he didn’t know who she was either. He had even called her “Ms.” instead of “Agent.”

  She hit redial, and he answered immediately.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he said, “but, by any chance, do you happen to know a Bryce Parker?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, a little alarmed. “Is he okay?”

  “Mind if I ask how you two know each other? Are you family or…?”

  Rachel adopted an official-sounding tone as she said, “Up until January, I was a special agent with the SBI. In that capacity, he interviewed me on several occasions.”

  “Interviewed?”

  “Bryce is a reporter.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” she said, growing annoyed. “He works for the Raleigh Herald.”

  “Huh. I wouldn’t have guessed—”

  “Can you please tell me what’s going on? Is he okay?”

  “Actually, no,” he said. “I’m afraid not. Mr. Parker was brought in to the ER a few hours ago. It appears he overdosed on heroin.”

  * * *

  Rachel took off for Siler City right away. An hour later, she was standing by a nurse’s station in the emergency department of Chatham Hospital, waiting for Hughes to finish a call.

  “Right … mm-hmm…” he said, rocking from his heels to the balls of his feet. The rubber soles of his slip-on dress shoes squeaked against the vinyl floor. He glanced at Rachel and mouthed an exaggerated sorry, which bunched the chins beneath his puffy face.

  She offered him a smile and tamped down the urge to snatch the phone from his hand and drop it into the nearest biohazard receptacle. One of the red ones with the safety lid meant for disposing of hypodermic needles.

  “Mm-hmm … okay…”

  She thought about how much fun it would be to watch him try to dig it out.

  “Well, listen, I’d better run,” he said, as if he’d read her mind. “I got someone here waiting on me.” He ended the call and put his phone away. “I’m sorry about that, Ms. Carver. What was it you were saying?”

  She smiled again. “I was just explaining that I haven’t seen Bryce in a few months. If I remember correctly, it was around the end of March.”

  “Right.” He thought for a second. “And he hasn’t been in contact with you at all in that time?”

  “No,” she said.

  “No emails? No text messages?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s kinda strange, don’t you think? That he would ask us to call you before anyone else?”

  “A little.”

  “Yet you rushed straight over here to see him,” he said, eyeing her suspiciously.

  “We may not have seen each other in a while, but I consider Bryce a friend. And he’s helped me out in the past. I owe him.”

  “Helped you out with what, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “A case I was consulting on for the Lowry County Sheriff’s Office.”

  Hughes rocked back on his heels, scratched his chin, and said, “Hmph.”

  Rachel didn’t like being on the defensive. She asked, “Is this normal for you, Detective? Do you always get called in when someone ODs?”

  “Me? Oh no, of course not. No, I’m just here ’cause the old man who reported it said he saw your friend being dragged into a ditch, like someone was dumping a body. Given how he was dressed, the responding officer didn’t think he looked like an addict. She thought she might have stumbled onto some kind of a kidnap
ping or something. Like someone had drugged him against his will.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “Hard to tell when he won’t talk to me. But if I had to guess? I’ve seen addicts that look plenty enough like normal folks. At least in the beginning. I think Mr. Parker just had one hit too many and it turned out to be more than he could handle. Whoever he did it with probably thought he was dying, so they panicked and took him for a ride.”

  “I guess that’s one theory,” she said, glancing over his shoulder toward the room at the end of the hall. “Are you planning to charge him?”

  He shook his head. “He didn’t have anything on him. Not really worth our time. Besides, he’s got a tough enough road ahead of him.”

  “You mind if I go in to see him?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  As she started down the hall, he said, “You will, of course, let me know if he wakes up and says anything interesting?”

  “Of course,” she said without looking back.

  When she reached the room, she knocked on the door, then cracked it to peer inside. It was dark and quiet. She didn’t want the light and noise from the hall to intrude, so she opened it just enough to slide in. As she stepped through the doorway, she glanced back and saw Hughes watching her. He was on his phone again.

  Inside, Parker lay on his back, inclined in the tilted bed, sweat-soaked and shaky. He had an IV taped to his arm. An oxygen tube was slung over his ears and hooked beneath his nose. His lips quivered, and there was a line of drool descending his cheek. The bed rails were up, as if the hospital staff was afraid he might roll over the side and crash to the floor.

  “Damn, Bryce,” she whispered. “What the hell have you done to yourself?”

  “Rachel?” His voice was weak and hoarse. “That you?”

  She stepped around the foot of the bed and stood at his side. “It’s me.”

  He lifted his head and opened his eyes, gazed at her for a moment before dropping back to the pillow. “They took me.”

  “Took you? Someone kidnapped you?”

  He didn’t answer. He seemed to be drifting off to sleep.

  “Bryce? Should I go?”

  His eyes opened again. “No … don’t.”

  “Okay.” She tried to sound reassuring. “I’m here.”

  “I found—” He cleared his throat, looked like he was struggling for the right words. “—something.”

  “Okay. What did you find?”

  “You were right. I knew all along … you were right.” His strength was fading.

  “Right about what?” she asked.

  “Bailey and Larson.”

  “What…?” The word stuck in her throat. She swallowed hard and said, “What are you talking about?”

  He didn’t answer. Rachel shook his arm and said, “Bryce?”

  His only response was a soft snore.

  * * *

  Rachel had been sitting in the dark, waiting, for nearly thirty minutes when a nurse came in and told her that Parker would likely sleep for several more hours.

  “Even if he does wake up while you’re here,” she said, “I doubt you’ll be able to get much out of him. He probably won’t be making any sense for a while.”

  Rachel thanked her and decided to leave.

  Out in the hall, there was no sign of Hughes. He wasn’t in the lobby either. He had apparently made up his mind about Parker. Another addict working his way toward an early grave. It was an epidemic. Even in this tiny town, fifty miles outside Raleigh.

  Rachel wondered what Parker had been doing here. She hadn’t spoken to him since their last interview when she had come clean about the Larson murder case. When she had told Parker she’d had her doubts about Lauren Bailey’s guilt from the beginning—inadvertently blaming the special agent in charge, Ross Penter, for ordering an arrest that led to a standoff.

  A standoff that ended with Rachel shooting Bailey dead.

  Parker had been fascinated by the story, by the tragedy and the injustice of it all.

  “If she wasn’t the one who killed Larson, who did?”

  Rachel hadn’t been able to answer him. The SBI, at Penter’s insistence, had closed the case for good. As far as he was concerned, justice had been served. When the time had come for Rachel to make her official statement about the shooting and the decisions that had led to it, Penter had pressured her into agreeing with his version. Soon after, the SBI’s internal review found that Rachel had acted appropriately, and she and Penter both received praise for their handling of the case.

  “I found … something.”

  Had Parker really discovered a new lead?

  Rachel feared she could drive herself insane with a question like that. It would turn in her mind, forcing endless speculation. And Parker wouldn’t be answering it anytime soon. There was also the matter of how he had overdosed on heroin in the first place. Had he really been kidnapped and drugged?

  While waiting for him to wake, Rachel had inspected his arms. There were no tracks, the little sores common to habitual heroin users, though it was possible he had been injecting himself in a more discreet location. Intravenous drug abusers could be quite adept at hiding the signs of addiction.

  Rachel had known Parker for a few years. She was a good source for him, and she’d given him at least half a dozen interviews in that time. He didn’t strike her as an addict, but she’d been surprised by people on more than one occasion. It was, in fact, an occupational hazard in her line of work.

  As she stepped into the midday heat and crossed the parking lot, she wished she could force the questions away. That she could bury them, at least until Parker was well enough to talk to her again. But the investigator in her couldn’t let them go.

  She hopped in her car and headed for the highway, resolving to try the one place she might find some answers.

  FOUR

  The Raleigh Herald was on Salisbury, two blocks south of where Rachel had parked for her morning interview. She turned into the same public lot, got a new ticket from the attendant, and lucked out with a better spot under a shade tree. She took out a steno pad and a pen, then stuffed her briefcase behind the passenger seat to keep it out of sight.

  The buildings were casting longer shadows across the pavement, and there was a light breeze that made the walk almost pleasant. Rachel quickened her pace as she approached the two-story office complex and checked the time on her phone as she reached the entrance. It was getting close to three. Hopefully, whoever she needed to talk to hadn’t decided to leave early for the day.

  At the reception desk, she spoke to a young man who suggested she try the newsroom director. Or maybe the senior editor for investigations, if she wasn’t in a meeting. Then he hit a speed-dial button and waited several seconds as it rang on speaker. It went to voicemail, so he ended the call and said, “Let’s see if Cara’s around.”

  He hit another button and a woman answered. He picked up the handset to keep Rachel from hearing too much and spoke in a hushed voice. Then he hung up and said, “Cara will see you. Just take the elevators to the second floor. She’ll be there to meet you.”

  When Rachel got off the elevator, there was no one there to meet her. She followed the hall to a large bullpen filled with cubicles. Surrounding it were offices, a pair of conference rooms, a break room, and what looked like a tiny library. Rachel walked the perimeter and read the names inscribed on the glass walls.

  “Can I help you?” asked a man’s voice from the bullpen.

  She turned to see him watching her from his desk. His hands were on his keyboard, and he looked annoyed by the distraction. She suddenly felt like she had made a mistake walking around unescorted.

  “Who are you looking for?” he asked impatiently.

  “Cara,” she said. “She was supposed to meet me by—”

  The man threw a thumb over his shoulder and went back to work. Rachel followed his direction until she found the office. The name next to the door read CARA MARSH, SENIOR
EDITOR. She stuck her head inside and said, “Ms. Marsh?”

  “What…?” Marsh looked startled. She pulled her glasses off and stood, pushing her chair into a bookcase behind her. “Shit. I’m sorry. Are you the one they called up about?”

  “Yes. Am I catching you at a bad time?”

  Marsh rubbed her eyes, which turned her pale lids pink. She squinted at Rachel and said, “No, no. Just got a little sidetracked.” She had wild strawberry hair and freckled skin. She waved Rachel toward an empty chair with a bony hand. “What can I do for you?”

  “I think we’ve spoken on the phone before,” Rachel said. “Back in March. You called me to fact-check one of your reporter’s stories. Bryce Parker? My name’s Rachel Carver.”

  “Oh…” Marsh dropped into her chair and scooted it back to her desk. “Right. It’s nice to finally meet you in person. What brings you here? Is it about that article?”

  “I’m not sure. Have you heard from Bryce lately?”

  “Not today.” She glanced at the ceiling. “Come to think of it, he didn’t check in yesterday either.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  She closed her eyes and said, “What’s today? Thursday…? Let me think.” Then she looked back at Rachel. “Not since before Tuesday morning’s budget meeting, actually.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “For Bryce? It can be. It all depends on what he’s working on.”

  “Would you happen to know what that is? I mean, did it have anything to do with the story he wrote about me?”

  Marsh smiled, then gave Rachel a wary look as she tapped a pen on her desk. “It must be a habit for you.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Walking into someone’s office and thinking it’s okay to interrogate them. But you’re not an agent anymore, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Maybe I’m trying to see if I have what it takes to be a reporter.”

  Marsh chuckled. “That’s right. You were a journalism major, weren’t you?”