Page 92 of Beckett
Travis had called us all in twenty minutes ago, said he’d found something huge. We’d converged from different corners of Garnet Bend—Beckett and me from Pawsitive where we’d been trying to sleep, the others from their homes or patrol routes.
“He was right about collateral damage.” The keyboard percussion through the speakers reached a crescendo. “Beckett said we were looking at this wrong. Searching for someone Audra had wronged, someone she’d angered.” A pause stretched like a held breath. “But what if she hadn’t made an enemy at all? What ifshewas the collateral damage?”
My stomach dropped through the floor. For fourteen months, I’d tortured myself trying to understand what I’d done. Which person I’d accidentally offended. Which line I’d unknowingly crossed. I’d picked apart every interaction, every relationship, every possible moment where I might have created an enemy this vicious.
“And we found him.” Triumph blazed through the monitors. “Files incoming to your tablets now.”
The screens around the table illuminated simultaneously, casting blue light across our faces. A mug shot materialized—a thin white man with hair buzzed so close to his scalp that pink skin showed through. Hollow cheeks. Eyes that looked throughthe camera rather than at it. Absolutely nothing remarkable about him except the flatness in his expression, like someone had erased whatever made him human.
“Meet Reggie Garrison.” Travis’s announcement fell like a stone into still water. “Age thirty-five. Released from Oregon State Penitentiary fourteen months ago after serving twenty-eight months for drug distribution targeting minors.”
I studied that face until my eyes burned, searching for something,anything,familiar. A customer from a coffee shop. Someone I’d passed on the street. A face in a crowd that had registered in my subconscious.
Nothing.
He was a complete stranger.
“I don’t know him.” The words emerged raw, confused. “I’ve never seen this man in my life. I don’t understand?—”
“You wouldn’t have.” Travis cut through my growing panic. “Garrison was a computer hacker and low-rent criminal operating out of Portland’s east side. Started with identity theft, moved up to crypto scams, then sideways into drug distribution when the money got tight. Much better at the digital crimes than the street-level stuff—that’s what got him caught.”
“Then what’s his connection to Audra?” Hunter’s scarred fingers performed a single, impatient tap against the table—his equivalent of pacing.
“He doesn’t have one.” The next words hit like a sledgehammer to my chest. “Reggie’s connection was to Officer Todd Cartland. Audra’s brother.”
The sudden silence in the room was deafening.
Everything suddenly made terrible sense. All those months of searching my memory, dissecting every interaction, every relationship. The sleepless nights wondering which customer I’d offended, which coworker I’d wronged, what horrible thing I’d done to deserve this hell.
It wasn’t me. It had never been me.
Beckett’s hand found my shoulder, his grip firm enough to keep me anchored when everything inside me wanted to scatter.
“Three years ago, Todd led a drug bust on a house where Garrison was cooking methamphetamines.” Travis materialized police reports on-screen, official documents that reduced tragedy to typed words. “Should have been routine. Garrison was small-time, sloppy. But his younger brother Jeremy was visiting that day. Twenty-two years old. Community college student. No record.”
My chest constricted like someone had wrapped steel bands around my ribs and started tightening. I knew where this was heading with the terrible certainty of someone watching a car accident in slow motion.
“Jeremy Garrison was killed in the crossfire.” Each word dropped with mechanical accuracy. “Single gunshot wound to the neck. Severed the carotid artery. He bled out before paramedics could even get inside.”
The brand on my neck erupted in phantom fire. My fingers flew to it, tracing the raised scar tissue.
“Jesus Christ.” Lachlan’s professional composure cracked. “Eye for an eye. The neck—he branded her neck because?—”
“Because his brother was shot in the neck.” Coop’s usual humor had vanished entirely, replaced by something cold and dangerous.
“Todd wasn’t even the shooter.” Travis dragged ballistics reports onto the main screen. “Someone else fired when Jeremy made a sudden movement, reaching for what turned out to be his phone. But Todd was lead officer. Team commander. In Garrison’s mind, Todd was responsible.”
“So he planned revenge,” I whispered.
“Obsessively.” Email after email flooded the screen, a cascade of digital rage. “These are from Garrison’s prisonaccount. Hundreds of messages to a cousin about making Todd pay. About how Todd had taken the only family he had left—their parents died when Reggie was nineteen and Jeremy was fourteen. Reggie raised Jeremy.”
The words on-screen blurred as tears I refused to shed burned behind my eyes. All this time, I’d been hunted for my brother doing his job. For a split-second decision in a chaotic moment that wasn’t even his to make.
“But Todd…” Travis paused, and even through the monitor I could sense his discomfort with the personal nature of this. “Your brother passed while Garrison was still locked up. The car accident, eighteen months ago. When Garrison got out four months later and found out Todd was gone…”
“He turned his sights on me.” My voice came from somewhere outside my body, hollow and distant. “The only family Todd had left.”
“You became hiseye for an eye.” Beckett’s grip on my shoulder had shifted, his thumb moving in small, unconscious circles. “In Reggie’s mind, Todd took his brother, so he’d take Todd’s sister.”
