Page 11 of Their Wicked Games

Anger still simmering, Jenna headed back to the Beast. Determined to find more suspects, she scrolled through her phone looking for other archery ranges. “I’ve found another crossbow range. Would you believe it’s out back of our regular shooting range?”

“Yeah, I was heading that way.” Kane fell into step beside her. “I figure that kid will be needing some fresh underwear after the grilling you gave him. You need to ease up some, Jenna. Most people will cooperate if you give them the right reason.”

Jenna climbed into the Beast and waited for him to slide behind the wheel. “I haven’t got time to be nice to people right now. Before we know it, this group of killers will strike again. You know the deal as well as I do. Once they start doing something like this, they don’t give up until we stop them.”

Ten minutes later, they arrived at the shooting club and followed the road until they came to the crossbow range. It was the same setup as the other place, with a small store that sold supplies and took the fees for the use of the range. An old man sat behind the counter, with receding gray hair and deep lines around his eyes from years of smiling. He greeted them both as if they were old friends. Jenna explained the situation. “Do you know three people who hunt together? As it’s an unusual combination, they would surely be noticed. Can you think of anyone at all?”

“Three men who hunt together and are marksmen?” The old man thought for a beat. “We have many marksmen who frequent this club and many hunters. A good deal of them go out in groups. The only three people I can recall who come here together and use the range are two men and one woman.” He opened a large book on the counter. “I’m old-school. I keep all the bookings in this ledger. When the other shift takes over from me, they upload them into the computer, but I insist they include a copy in here.”

“Can you give us names?” Kane opened his notebook. “Any other information you might have would be very useful: ages, where they live, occupations, and the like.”

“Okay, let me see now.” The salesman ran his finger down the pages one at a time. “Here we go. Alicia Palmer, she works for my dentist. She’s young, maybe twenty. She comes here with Bill Ripley. He’s a freshman at college. The other one is older maybe mid-twenties. Jesse Davis took over Mustang Creek Ranch when his father died. I recall these three won their divisions in the last championship round we held. It was a tough field, so they’re all excellent marksmen.” He swung his gaze to Jenna. “I’ve seen Jesse talking with your deputy, Jake Rowley. Seems they go way back to grade school.”

Relieved, Jenna smiled at him and handed him her card. “That’s very helpful, thank you. If anyone else comes to mind, call me. Do you know of any other crossbow ranges in town?”

“There were three, but one closed after the floods last year and never reopened. There’s just me and Bullseye open now.”

Jenna smiled. “Okay, thanks for your time.” She led the way back to the truck, and while Duke ran around sniffing, she stopped in the parking lot to stare at the forest and mountains. Under a clear blue sky, the view was spectacular and she took a few deep breaths of pine-scented air. It was as if the beauty around her corrected her equilibrium and calmness flooded over her. She turned to Kane and slid one arm around his waist. “Six suspects in less than half an hour. I figure that has to be a record.”

“It is. What next? If you want to start hunting these people down, I’d prefer to check them out first so we know what we’re walking in to.” Kane pulled her against his shoulder and winced.

“Sure.” Jenna lifted his shirt and gasped at the blackening bruise across his upper chest. “That looks painful. You need meds.”

“I’ve got something back at the office that will help.” Kane shrugged. “It’s swollen, is all. I’ve had worse.”

Jenna sighed. Living with a tough man was difficult at times. “Okay, we’ll head back to the office and see what’s cooking.”

ELEVEN

Deputy Zac Rio believed that leaving LA and coming to Black Rock Falls would make life easier, but it seemed the crime rate in town was increasing by the week. He had spent the entire day rushing from one place to another juggling two cases. He’d updated the DA on the meth lab case, as Jake Williams, the person they’d discovered guarding it, was still in custody at county. With the second suspect, Deke Williams, waiting to be interviewed, he needed to know if the DA intended to bring the DEA in on the case.

“Interview the suspect and get back to me. His involvement in kidnapping a law enforcement officer will hold him for now. I figure this suspect will have details of distribution and contacts. I’ll run it past the local DEA agents and get back to you. I’m sure they’ll want to take this case off your hands, considering the amount of product being produced by these men, and we’re talking serious numbers. Send me the statement from the suspect you have in custody and the video. I’ll pass it on and I’ll get back to you as soon as the DEA has made their decision.”

Rio leaned back in his chair. “Okay thanks, I’m going to interview him now.” He disconnected.

He made his way down to interview room one and knocked on the door before entering. Inside, the room smelled of fear and stale sweat. He nodded to the attorney, Sam Cross. “Is your client ready to talk?”

“He’s willing to answer some questions.” Sam Cross was a typical cowboy, and definitely not a typical lawyer.

After turning on the recording device, Rio placed the statement pad beside the notebook on the desk and, stating his name, who was present, the time and date, he turned his attention to Deke Williams. “I regret to inform you that your brother, Dean, is dead. He, along with the group of men who kidnapped Sheriff Alton, died in a shootout about an hour ago.”

“The deputies and those FBI agents gunned them down, didn’t they?” Deke screwed up his face in rage and hammered his handcuffed fists on the table. “That wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. Dean only took the sheriff to trade for Jake, is all. No one was supposed to get hurt.”

Unconcerned by the man’s outburst, Rio flicked a glance at Sam Cross, to see if he had an objection to his line of questioning. “How it went down is that five men opened fire on one deputy, striking him in the chest. He returned fire. So now you understand if you decide to provide information on the running of the meth lab, distribution, and clients, you won’t be ratting on anyone. It’s over, Deke.” He leaned forward on the table and stared at him. “Right now, you’re looking at charges of accessory to the kidnapping of a law officer, obstructing a law officer in his duty, and being the member of a drug syndicate. I strongly suggest you speak to your lawyer and make a decision that could save you many years in prison.” He turned his attention to Sam Cross. “The DA will be taking into account the information supplied during this interview. He is considering bringing in the DEA on this case because of the significant amount of drugs this group manufactured. It would be in your client’s best interests to cooperate.”

“If you give Deputy Rio the basic rundown of what occurred, I’ll negotiate a deal with the DA.” Cross turned in his seat to look at his client. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Rio stared at Deke. “First, we’ll deal with the obstruction of an officer in his duty.” He glanced down at the statement Deke made on scene. “You may want to retract your original statement. We have many witnesses to dispute your claim of accidentally driving in front of Deputy Kane and blocking the road. All the witness statements say that he had lights flashing and sirens blaring. You’d have to been blind not to see him. Then you followed up by not getting out of his way. When Deputy Rowley came on scene, he said your engine wasn’t running and you were making no attempt to restart it.” He gave him a long look. “Did you deliberately block Main to prevent Deputy Kane from pursuing your brother?”

“Yeah, it was part of the plan.” Deke shook his head. It seemed that all the anger had drained away and only sorrow remained. “The deputy had been back and forth all day and we figured something was going on, so I parked the truck in an alleyway and waited. The sheriff always goes with the same deputy, so it was only a case of sitting and waiting until they came out. Dean figured the deputy’s truck was powerful, but he thought his was faster and would only need a few minutes delay to get away after kidnapping the sheriff. Like I said, no one was supposed to get hurt. Dean planned to keep her for a few hours then call the deputy and negotiate a swap.”

Surprised Deke had been so forthcoming, he nodded and moved right along. “How many states have you cooked in? It’s obvious you move around frequently to avoid detection.”

“All over.” Deke shrugged. “We all had a job to do and were able to dismantle the gear and leave within minutes of being detected. We were away delivering the merchandise when you came across our latest hideout. We knew you’d been there because Dean had a security app on his phone. We just waited for you all to leave and then went back and cleaned the place out.”

Rio gave Sam Cross a meaningful stare. It was very unusual for him not to object to questioning, but so far he’d said nothing. He made a few notes in his book and looked back at Deke. “So you must have information on bank accounts and clients. Where do we find that information?”

“It’s in the cloud.” Deke sighed. “Dean’s laptop is back at the cabin where we were staying. All the information you require is on there. Look, I’m not hiding anything and I wasn’t the mastermind. Dean organized everything and did the cooking. The rest of us were just gofers.”

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