Down the Broken Road Read online

  “Once upon a time.”

  “Well, since you’ve been out of school for a while, let me give you a bit of advice. Being a reporter doesn’t carry the same weight as being a cop. We don’t get much out of people just because we work for a paper. It’s always a good idea to let the source know what kind of story you’re working on before you hit them with a bunch of questions.”

  “I see.” In many ways, Rachel was used to doing the opposite. As a homicide investigator, it was a good tactic to get as much from an interview as she could before she provided information that might make the subject clam up. Tell some people that a friend or a coworker had died and they might become distraught, overcome by grief. Or guarded with their answers, fearful that they might be suspects. But Marsh was right. Rachel had lost a crucial part of what made that work. She was no longer an agent. “I got a call this morning from a detective with the Siler City Police Department.”

  Marsh sat forward, concern on her face. “What happened? Is it about Bryce? Is he all right?”

  Rachel relayed everything she knew about Parker’s overdose, which wasn’t much.

  “Oh my God.” Marsh looked dumbstruck. She was quiet for nearly a minute, then said, “I can’t believe it. I mean, I really can’t … Bryce Parker? Heroin?”

  “I’m guessing he didn’t strike you as an addict.”

  “Never.”

  “Me either.” She gave Marsh a little more time to process the news before she asked, “So, by any chance, do you know what he was working on?”

  “Uh … yeah. He pitched me a story idea about the State Employees Association. He has a source who says the director’s been misusing funds. Maybe even stealing.”

  “That’s it? Nothing about the Larson murder case or Lauren Bailey?”

  Marsh shook her head quickly. “No. He hasn’t mentioned anything about that in a while.”

  “How long is a while?”

  “I’m not sure.” Her eyes drifted away as she searched her memory. “It’s been a month or more, at least.”

  “Do you remember what he said to you about it?”

  “He was asking for some time to go out of town, if I remember. Something had happened to one of his sources, and he wanted to look into it.”

  “Did anything come of it?”

  “Not that I know of. I had another assignment for him, so I couldn’t let him go. I don’t know if he did it on his own time, but he never brought it up to me again.”

  “Do you think that might be why he’s in Siler City?”

  “Could be. He didn’t even tell me he was going. Maybe he was afraid I’d tell him not to … Wait, why did the police call you?”

  Rachel shrugged. “Apparently, Bryce asked them to.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I only spoke to him for a minute or two before he passed out. He said he’d found something, but he didn’t say what. He also said he knew I was right about Bailey and Larson.”

  “Wow.” Marsh’s eyes went wide. “Does that make any sense to you, or do you think it was the drugs talking?”

  “I wish I knew.” It suddenly occurred to Rachel that she might have put Parker’s job in jeopardy. “Listen, I know this doesn’t look good, but before anyone jumps to any conclusions, I think you should know something.”

  “Okay?”

  “There’s a chance that Bryce didn’t do this to himself. The investigator said there was a report that he had been dragged into the ditch where they found him. And when I talked to him, he said someone had taken him. It’s possible he was drugged against his will.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah. I thought you should know that before anyone starts talking about firing him.”

  “I don’t think they’d do that,” Marsh said. “Not without giving him a chance to get clean first. But, like you said, it doesn’t look good. Are the police treating this as a kidnapping?”

  “They’re looking into it.” Rachel decided not to mention that Hughes had probably discounted that possibility already. “But a lot will depend on what Bryce tells them. And how much he remembers.”

  “What about you? I mean, can you help him?”

  Rachel wanted to say yes, but there was too much she didn’t know.

  “I’m going to try.”

  FIVE

  The meeting with Marsh had not been very enlightening. Frustrated, Rachel walked back to her car repeating one thought to herself: Parker was working on a story about corruption.

  A powerful government official, fearful that he might be caught stealing state funds, would have a lot of incentive to get rid of a nosy reporter. Abducting him and dosing him with heroin would’ve been one way to solve that problem. If that was the case, Parker had been lucky to survive. Or perhaps his survival had been part of the plan. A way to discredit him and ruin his reputation. After all, who would trust the word of an addict?

  As convenient as that scenario was, it didn’t explain why Parker had asked the police to call her. Nor did it explain his words to her at the hospital.

  You were right.

  His ashen face, sunken and flecked with droplets of sweat, hovered in her vision.

  I knew all along … you were right.

  There was a part of her that didn’t want to be. As Grant had pointed out during their interview, Rachel could be obsessive. It was a trait that made her relentless as an investigator, but it also took a toll.

  During her time with the SBI, Rachel had developed a tendency of letting her work take over to the exclusion of everything else in her life. Her family, her friends, her personal finances, her health … all pushed aside in favor of whatever case she’d been desperate to solve. Her supervisor, Ross Penter, had warned her about it after she’d resigned. Warned her about her habit of diving in too deeply.

  “Sooner or later,” he had said, “you’re going to disappear down a dark hole again. And if you’re not careful, no one will be there to pull you out. Not even me.”

  Rachel caught her reflection in the black window of her car door. It held her there for a moment, key in hand, eyes fixed, as she realized what had been holding her back. Why she wasn’t, as Grant had put it, out there right now trying to solve Tyler Larson’s murder. It was that fear of losing herself. If Parker had found a new lead in the Larson investigation, it was sure to happen again.

  Rachel left downtown and headed home. The drive took fifteen minutes, which gave her too much time to think. When she got to her apartment, she heated up a microwave dinner and tried to lose herself in a sitcom as she ate on the sofa.

  Chicken parmesan over spaghetti. Reruns of Modern Family. But the questions kept barging in.

  She needed a better distraction. Two options came to mind: she could leave an hour and a half early for her Brazilian jiu-jitsu class, or she could start drinking.

  There was a bottle of pinot grigio in the fridge, along with a six-pack of raspberry-flavored wheat beer from some microbrewery in Colorado. A third of a bottle of Maker’s Mark sat in the cabinet beneath the sink. If she started now, she could work her way through all of it before bedtime.

  Rachel went to her room, hung her blazer up in the closet, and changed into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Then she grabbed her gi, the uniform she used in jiu-jitsu training, and her brown belt and stuffed them into her gym bag. Getting drunk would have to wait.

  * * *

  Jiu-jitsu class turned out to be the perfect diversion. The instructor taught lapel chokes, which included numerous ways to use an opponent’s own collar against him and make him lose consciousness if he wasn’t willing to admit defeat. The right grip from a good position, the right motion of the arms, and Rachel’s partners had to choose between tapping out or going to sleep.

  Tap or nap, as the saying went, and it was no fun waking up disoriented and drooling on the mats.

  After the lesson, there was a half hour of free sparring. By the time it was over, Rachel was exhausted. She
had a sore neck and aching fingers but felt elated as she changed out of her gi.

  She said bye to her classmates and walked back to her car, admiring the distant view of downtown along the way. The evening sun cast an orange glow on the cityscape, a mass of stark geometry jutting above the rolling hills of the Carolina Piedmont. The soft landscape in the forefront faded to black as the buildings above it held on to the last bit of daylight.

  Rachel put the view in her mirrors as she made a U-turn and headed home. Along the way, she realized there was no more food in her apartment. She felt like stopping for a cheeseburger and a large order of fries, but that would negate too much of her workout. She settled on a healthier option—a chicken sandwich, grilled, with a small order of fries and a diet soda. She was sitting in line at the drive-through when her phone rang.

  “Good evening, Miss Carver.” It was Calvin Grant. “I’m sorry to bother you so late, but I thought you’d like to know I have a job for you, if you’re interested.”

  “I am,” she said, though it didn’t sound like he was offering her a full-time position.

  “Excellent. There’s a lot to discuss. How soon can we meet?”

  “I can be at your office first thing in the morning.”

  “How about tonight at my house?”

  “Um … well…”

  “I know it’s a little unusual for me to ask that of you,” he said, “but this case is somewhat sensitive.”

  The driver behind Rachel honked his horn. The line had moved, leaving a gap between her car and the menu board. She let off the brake and lowered her window, heard a distorted voice offering to take her order.

  “Okay,” she said quickly. “Text me your address, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  SIX

  Grant’s house was in an affluent suburb in the northeast section of town. Rachel pulled up in front and looked it over as she ate her sandwich. A two-story colonial, clad in red brick and adorned with stucco accents. It was on the lower end of the spectrum for this neighborhood. An entry-level home for a young professional with high aspirations, no doubt hoping to trade up one day for a grander model. Like one of the petite mansions further up the street.

  Rachel finished eating and left the Camry parked at the curb. She got out, climbed the steps to the front door, and rang the bell. Grant answered a minute later.

  “I appreciate you agreeing to meet me here,” he said, beckoning her inside. He had loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves, but he still looked like he could slip into a jacket and walk straight into a courtroom, ready to deliver some flawless opening argument. It was a talent, appearing that pristine after so many hours in the same suit. Long days usually turned Rachel into a disheveled wreck.

  “You have a nice home,” she said.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry I can’t introduce you to my wife. She’s upstairs getting our son ready for bed. She doesn’t really like being around for this sort of thing anyway.”

  He led her to a dining room and a long oval table with ornately carved legs. He pointed to a spot and said, “Please, have a seat.”

  As she drew the chair out and lowered herself into it, she saw a thin three-ringed binder sitting on the place mat in front of her.

  Grant took the next chair over and sat facing her, one arm bolstered by the top of the seat back. “I hope you can forgive me, Miss Carver, but I’m afraid I’ve lured you here under false pretenses. I don’t actually have a job for you. Not exactly.”

  “Okay.” She gave him a look that showed a little irritation and a lot of confusion.

  “It could be an opportunity for you, though, should you decide to take it.”

  “What kind of opportunity?”

  “The kind that would get you off the bench, so to speak.”

  Realization hit her, and she felt a sting of disappointment. “The interview this morning … that was just an excuse to question me about the Larson case?”

  “To gauge how you felt about it, actually. To see if there was any chance of persuading you to take it up again.”

  “Why not just ask?”

  Grant shifted in his seat, cleared his throat, and said, “The person we represent wishes to protect the information he’s given us. Especially where it came from. If it was clear to me that you had no desire to continue the investigation, we wouldn’t be offering it to you.”

  “And I suppose you’re not allowed to tell me who this person is?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  She studied him for a moment. “Does this have anything to do with what happened to Bryce Parker?”

  The name appeared to surprise him. “The reporter who wrote the story about you? What’s happened to him?”

  “Never mind. It’s not important.” She turned to look at the binder. “So what sort of information does this client of yours have for me?”

  “During your original investigation,” Grant said, “do you remember speaking to a man named Adam Hubbard?”

  “Yeah.” A face popped into Rachel’s mind. A young face, filled with anxiety and sadness. “Once by phone and twice in person.”

  “What was your interest in him?”

  “Hubbard was a member of Larson’s squad for about a year. Right up until he was medically discharged. Phone records showed several calls between them in the days leading up to the murder.”

  “And what were those about?”

  “Hubbard supposedly hurt his back in a training exercise, so his doctors put him on prescription painkillers. After he got out of the Army, he became addicted to them. He said Larson was trying to help him get clean.”

  “So he wasn’t a suspect?”

  “He had an alibi.” Though that didn’t tell the whole story. Rachel remembered the feeling she’d had when questioning Hubbard face-to-face. The suspicion he’d been holding something back, reluctant to tell her the whole truth. Unfortunately, she’d never had the opportunity to find out what he might be hiding. Once she discovered Larson’s affair, the focus shifted entirely to Lauren Bailey.

  Grant reached over and opened the binder. The pages within were divided by tabs. The first was labeled INITIAL REPORT. He turned it over, exposing a document from the Union County Sheriff’s Office.

  “Mr. Hubbard was killed a little more than a month ago.”

  Rachel recalled what Marsh had told her earlier. About Parker wanting permission to go out of town. Something had happened to one of his sources, and he wanted to look into it. She pulled the binder closer and started reading.

  Grant said, “You’ll find witness statements, some crime scene photos, and the medical examiner’s report in there. Along with an arrest report.”

  “Arrest report,” Rachel said. “Who did they get?”

  “It’s in the back.”

  Rachel turned to the last tab. The page behind it was a printout of a mug shot. A young man, probably in his late twenties, though his face looked weatherworn. He had leathery skin and purple bags beneath his eyes. A few days’ worth of stubble surrounded his razor-thin lips.

  “Meet Kyle Strickland,” Grant said. “The sheriff’s office believes he and Hubbard got into a fight over drugs. In the heat of it, Strickland allegedly picked up a brick and used it to bludgeon Hubbard to death. I should warn you, it’s not a pretty picture.”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Grant. I’ve developed a strong stomach over the years.” She turned to the medical examiner’s report and found the autopsy photos. “I’d say bludgeon is a bit of an understatement.”

  The left side of Hubbard’s face was a disfigured mass of tissue. The cheek and brow were crushed. The eye was either hidden beneath the swollen flesh or destroyed altogether. There was a massive tear to the scalp near the hairline that revealed a strip of white skull. The other side of the face, still intact, was mottled in shades of brown and purple.

  “They really think this was over drugs?”

  “Oxycodone, to be exact. They found a few varieties stashed away in his house. OxyContin, Perco
cet, Percodan … Apparently, his doctors refused to renew his prescriptions, so he had to start buying them illegally.”

  “And Strickland?” she asked. “He’s an addict too?”

  “Allegedly.”

  She went back to the arrest report and read through it for a minute. “So far, I’m not seeing how this has anything to do with Tyler Larson’s murder.”

  “Our client,” Grant said slowly, as if choosing his words carefully, “has a compelling reason to believe that the sheriff’s office has the wrong man. And that the cases are, in fact, directly linked to one another.”

  “A compelling reason,” she said. “Any chance you can tell me what that is?”

  He offered an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

  “Okay.” She flipped through the other tabs, scanning the pages within them. “That doesn’t give me a lot to go on.”

  “No, but it’s more than you had before you walked in here.”

  “I guess that’s true.” She turned to face Grant. “Is that everything?”

  “That’s everything.”

  “Well then,” she said, standing, “I guess I’d better get to work.”

  “So you’re back on the case, then?”

  Rachel didn’t like the feeling of being manipulated by Grant and his mystery client, but she couldn’t ignore a new development in the most important case of her career. Add that to Parker’s abduction and the pull was too much to resist. She closed the binder, cradled it in her forearm, and started for the door. “Was there ever any doubt?”

  SEVEN

  Rachel went home and spent the rest of the night studying the material in the binder. By the time she went to bed, it was after 2 AM, but she woke as soon as the first slivers of morning light cut through the blinds of her bedroom window. She made coffee and spread the crime scene photos across her kitchen table. Then she brought up Google Maps on her laptop and zoomed in to get a look at the location from overhead.

  Hubbard had been found lying in the yard of an abandoned textile mill, a massive, three-story structure with a collapsed section near its southeast corner. That broken portion of wall had provided the implement used to rob him of his life. There were photos of the bloody brick in the binder. A weapon of opportunity, seized in the fury of a desperate fight.