Page 93 of Beckett
The screen filled with evidence of my haunted existence—credit card statements, gas receipts, motel registrations, a digital breadcrumb trail of terror. Travis had found it all, laid bare the architecture of my nightmare.
“Once I knew where to look, Garrison’s trail lit up like a Christmas tree.” Disgust colored every word through the speakers. “The arrogant bastard thinks he’s untouchable. Probably figured no one would ever believe you, so why bother hiding? He’s been using the same credit cards, the same license plate, even checking in to motels under his real name.”
Map after map popped up, red pins marking my failed attempts at escape. Every town I’d fled to. Every fresh start that had turned to ash. He’d been there, a shadow made real.
“Redmond, Oregon. August fifteenth.” A receipt materialized on-screen—Reggie’s credit card at a Chevron, gas and beef jerky.
“I was there in August.” The memory crashed over me—finding those photos under my windshield wiper, my hands shaking so hard I’d dropped my keys in the parking lot puddle. The woman who’d helped me pick them up, asked if I was okay. I’d smiled and lied. “Left after finding pictures of myself on my car.”
“Bend, Oregon. September third.” Travis highlighted a motel receipt—Reggie had paid cash but signed his real name.
“The red Sharpie note.” Those three words scrawled on my car windshield. I’d thrown everything I owned into garbage bags and run.
“Castle Rock, Washington. September twenty-fifth.” An ATM withdrawal flashed on-screen, time stamp showing 3:47 a.m.—Reggie pulling cash in the middle of the night.
“Right before Linda.” My voice cracked. “My coworker who was mugged and hurt so badly.”
She’d needed six stitches. I’d been gone before her shift the next day, nothing but a note of apology and my last twenty dollars tucked under her locker.
Each receipt was a violation, proof that my paranoia hadn’t been paranoia at all. Every time I’d felt watched, I had been. Every instinct that screamed danger had been right.
“This is from yesterday.” Travis highlighted the most recent transaction. “Gas station in Riverside. That’s about an hour from here. Time stamp shows 4:23 p.m.”
“Setting up for the bridge attack,” Coop bit out. “He was getting ready to ram them off that bridge, probably followed them from town.”
Lachlan moved with purpose, his sheriff’s authority expanding to fill the room. “This changes the entire game. We’re not dealing with stalking anymore. After yesterday’s sabotage,this is attempted murder—two counts. Federal jurisdiction if we need it.”
He pulled out his phone, fingers already flying. “I’ve got a direct line to Portland PD’s major crimes unit. They’ll want everything we have.” He pressed the phone to his ear, pacing toward the corner. “Mike? Lachlan Calloway. I need you to pull everything on a Reggie Garrison, DOB…” He rattled off information from Travis’s files.
“The arrogant prick is still using those credit cards like he’s on vacation,” Hunter said, studying the receipts with tactical awareness. “No attempt at concealment. No cash-only transactions except the motels.”
“That’s his weakness.” Aiden’s voice held the quiet certainty of someone who’d hunted men before. “Patterns become habits. Habits become vulnerabilities. A man that cocky doesn’t change his routines.”
“And the moment he swipes that card again,” Lachlan said, turning back with his phone still pressed to his ear, “every badge in a twenty-mile radius will converge on his location. I’m issuing the APB now—statewide alert, all channels.”
Travis’s typing reached machine-gun intensity. “I’m embedding tracking algorithms into every system I can access—credit monitoring, ATM networks, traffic cameras with facial recognition, even toll road transponders. The second he surfaces anywhere in the digital world, we’ll know.”
“Portland PD’s mobilizing,” Lachlan announced, lowering his phone momentarily. “They’re sending his full jacket—known associates, previous addresses, vehicle registration, employment history. Turns out they’ve been wanting Garrison on some old cybercrime charges anyway. The Jeremy Garrison shooting was…difficult for the department. They’d very much like to close this chapter.”
The room transformed into a war room, everyone shifting into operational mode. But I sat frozen, staring at Reggie Garrison’s flat eyes on the tablet screen, trying to reconcile this stranger’s face with fourteen months of terror.
This unremarkable man had dismantled my life because my brother had led a team that made a tragic mistake. Todd had died never knowing someone out there unjustly blamed him for a death, never knowing his little sister would pay the price for his absence. I was glad Todd hadn’t known.
“Hey.” Beckett’s voice cut through the white noise in my head. “You still with us?”
I nodded, though I felt disconnected from my body, floating somewhere near the ceiling, watching this all happen to someone else.
“This is all good news,” he said, low enough that only I could hear. “We know who he is now. We know what drives him. We know his patterns. We can stop him.”
Hunter stood, his presence immediately commanding the room without a word. The kind of natural authority that came from leading men through hell and bringing them home. “Security protocol changes immediately. Two-man teams, overlapping coverage zones. This bastard got close enough to weaponize a vehicle against you—that’s the last time he gets within a hundred yards.”
“I’ll coordinate with my deputies,” Lachlan added, back in full sheriff mode. “Increased patrols past Pawsitive Connections and around town. We’ll make Garnet Bend feel very small for Mr. Garrison.”
“We’ll get him,” Coop said with deadly certainty. “Men like Garrison always think they’re the smartest guy in the room. That arrogance is a vulnerability we’ll exploit.”
“All we need is one transaction,” Travis said through the speakers, a predator’s satisfaction in his tone. “One credit cardswipe. One ATM withdrawal. One gas station purchase. The instant his card talks to a point-of-sale system, we’ll have real-time coordinates.”
“And when we do—” Hunter’s scarred hands flexed with promise and threat “—we’ll be ready.”
