Page 71 of Operation: Reckless Angel

“Yeah, our Digital Team has the best toys,” he laughed softly. “So, we’ve made some headway, but we need you here. I think we found a few people who were close to Amanda, but they’re not talking to us. We think they’ll talk to you if you tell them who you are and what you saw. And I think at least one of these people we identified may have enough on the Sheriff to help us put him away, but again, we need your help to get her to talk. Can you head back up here?”

“Now, yeah, no problem,” she said, elated he wanted her help. “Have you actually met with the Sheriff yet?”

“Yeah, we just had the pleasure. He’s a lying, conceited asshole,” Roth said. “We’ll tell you all about it when you get here. We’re parked a block over from the Sheriff’s office in Augusta, watching him. Give me a call back when you get off the interstate and I’ll direct you to where we are.”

“I’ll see you in about an hour,” she said, already moving off the bed to get ready to go.

She hit the engine start button on her keys while glancing out the window at her van in the lot. It wouldn’t have time to warm up completely, but it would have a few minutes to start. She stuffed her laptop into her backpack and then slipped her boots back onto her feet. Sebastian had left her a room key. She slid that into the back pocket of her jeans and then donned her jacket. With her backpack slung over one shoulder, she left the room, excited and relieved to be asked to be heading back to Augusta.

X-Ray

As Jackson and Roth waited for Briana to arrive and for BT to get back to them, they watched both the front and back parking lots of the Sheriff’s office from their location. Two different Sheriff’s Deputy cars arrived and then departed. Through a long-range camera lens, they clearly saw neither man was the Sheriff.

“Do you think he suspects we’re watching him?” Roth asked Jackson.

“He’d be a fool if he doesn’t,” Jackson said. “And he strikes me as a lot of things. A fool isn’t one of them.”

“No, he’s not a fool. He strikes me as intelligent and calculating. I’d say he ticks a lot of boxes of a sociopath, which makes him dangerous.”

“His cockiness and arrogance will trip him up. It always does,” Jackson added. “He thinks he’s untouchable, is sure we have nothing on him. That’s if he’s not buying that we’re looking for Amanda as she’s a witness to something DEA related, which I doubt.”

“Yes, with the timing of her death and our appearance, he has to be connecting the dots.”

“So that begs the question of why he killed her when he did,” Jackson said.

“My guess is he caught her trying to leave him and he snapped.”

“Amanda had a very small circle of friends,” Jackson said. “I’d be surprised if more than one person knew she was meeting Briana and fleeing. What if one or that one person gave her up to Elsworth?”

A sick feeling settled in the pit of Roth’s stomach. That would explain why none of Amanda Elsworth’s friends admitted to knowing her secret, beside the butcher, or to being the one who was supposed to lure the Sheriff away from her so she could leave with Briana. “The timing of her death supports that theory,” Roth conceded. “If that’s the case though, Elsworth didn’t seem to target Briana, didn’t seem to suspect she was the person who would help his wife.”

“Yes, that’s been bothering me too,” Jackson said. “Why didn’t he suspect her when she was driving around his house as he was dumping his wife in the lake?”

Before Roth could think of a theory, his phone rang an incoming call from Briana. “Speak of the devil, Briana.” He hit answer. “Hello.”

“Hi, I’m just getting off the interstate in Augusta.”

“You made good time,” Roth said. It was eighteen hundred hours and night had crept in, casting long shadows over the entire area. The heavy cloud cover that had dumped several feet of snow the previous day and he had flown through earlier had broken up some, allowing the celestial light brief moments to shine down and reflect off the snow.

He gave her directions to where they were parked. A few minutes later, she pulled up behind them and then joined them inside their vehicle, sliding into the backseat. She noticed that the dome light didn’t come on when she opened the door. It served to remind her that these guys were pros.

“Where do we start?” Briana asked.

“I’m going to sit tight on the Sheriff,” Jackson said. “The two of you are going to go talk with the person who we’ve identified as Amanda Elsworth’s closest friend, Penny Weston. We know she lied to us, but hope she’ll be more forthcoming with you.”

“What do we need to know from her?” Briana asked.

“We need her to corroborate Amanda Elsworth’s story and we suspect she’s seen the abuse or, at the very least, was told about it by Amanda. We believe she was the friend who was supposed to make a call to lure the Sheriff away from her so you could get her out. We need to know why she didn’t follow through on that,” Roth said. “And we also need to know if she tipped the Sheriff off that Amanda was getting ready to leave him.”

“And if not her, then who else possibly did?” Jackson said.

“You think he was tipped off?” Briana asked. “Why?”

“The timing,” Roth said. “Why was she killed the morning you were about to help her leave?”

“Something triggered that,” Jackson said.

Briana hadn’t considered that. She assumed that Amanda Elsworth’s nervous behavior could have made her husband suspicious. Or maybe he’d found whatever she’d prepared to take. All women gathered a few items together to take with them, no matter how much Briana told them not to. “He wouldn’t be the first husband to find a packed bag or a stash of money, just as his wife was getting ready to go. And Amanda was really nervous when I talked with her in the bathroom at the diner. I guess I just assumed it was either scenario that allowed him to discover her plan. I never considered that someone else could have tipped him off. God, that just sucks if it was the case.”

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