Page 19 of So Dark

That got a reaction from both men. The heavyset man’s eyes widened. The wiry man’s eyes narrowed.

“I’m Garrett Pines,” the wiry man said. “Why do you need to talk to me?”

“Would you like to have this conversation in front of your friend?” Faith asked.

After a brief pause, Garret said. “Go on ahead, Quint. I’ll see you later.”

Quint stood slowly, raising himself to his full height and resting his hand on his gun. Faith kept his eyes on Garrett as Quint walked slowly toward her. He stopped in front of her and waited for her to step aside. She kept her eyes on Garrett anddidn’t move. After a moment, Turk growled. Quint chuckled and walked slowly around Faith on his way to the door.

When the door closed behind him, Garrett said. “If you wouldn’t mind flipping that open sign around to closed, I’d be happy to talk to you in my office.”

Faith obliged, then followed Garrett to the small back room of the shop. The “office” consisted of a small desk and a single chair, which Garrett took. Faith and Michael stood in front of him, Turk ahead of them.

“Do I need a lawyer?” Garrett asked.

“Did you kill Valerie North and Ethan Holloway?” Faith replied.

“No.”

“Then I don’t see why you would.”

Garrett scoffed. “In my experience, law enforcement is more interested in completing a case than they are in solving it.”

“In my experience, murderers are more likely to withhold information than innocent people.”

Garrett smiled thinly. “That’s because most people aren’t aware of their rights.”

“Such as the right to not be murdered in one’s own cabin?”

Garrett sighed. “You obviously think it’s me. Why?”

“You were forced to pay money to the two victims after losing a lawsuit, correct?”

“No.”

When he didn't offer any more than that, Michael said, "The strong silent act is cute, Garrett, but you can drop it now. You were an eight-year veteran of the Marine Corps, and rather than renew your enlistment, you decided to go to prison for three years for aggravated assault with great bodily harm. What did you do to the guy?"

“I broke his jaw and both of his arms.”

“Ooh,” Faith said mockingly. “You’re so tough.”

“I stand up for myself,” Garrett corrected. “And I don’t particularly care what you think of me.”

“Fair enough. Let’s focus on what Ethan Holloway and Valerie North thought of you. You were sued for refusing to honor your product guarantee, is that correct?”

Garrett looked irritated. He shifted his feet and said, “That’s what they claimed, yes.”

“What’s your version?”

“The two of them didn’t know what they were doing. For the record, Valerie North never sued me. Ethan Holloway did. Miss North was called as a witness to the complainant. Ethan claimed that I sold him a defective ice pick. The handle snapped when he was using it to climb Denali. Valerie was on the climb with him, and she witnessed the handle fail. Here’s the thing: I sold him an icepick designed to chip pieces of ice off of a block.”

“That a common item out here?”

"It's not uncommon," Garrett confirmed. "The winters are long and cold, as I'm sure you know, and a lot of people don't have electric refrigerators. So for the summer, they use iceboxes. They're usually kept in the basement, where the temperatures don't rise as much. They'll chip off huge blocks of ice and place them in the bottom of the icebox. The pick I sold is for that purpose. It's very sharp, and the pick is very strong, but the handle's not designed to hold a person's body weight. You're supposed to place the pick at a weak point in the ice, then use a hammer on the flat side to drive the wedge deeper and separate the ice. It's a very different use case."

“And this never came up when you sold him the product?”

“It’s written very clearly in the item’s user manual.”

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