“You shook that tail because you expected somebody to be waiting for you in that beer joint. Who?”
She was about to fire a comeback when her attorney gave the hem of her jacket a hard tug, pulling her back into her chair. Taking the advice being urgently whispered in her ear, she fell silent.
During her shouting match with Shaw, Wiley looked like a spectator at a tennis match, his head swiveling back and forth between them. Hickam kept up the infernal pecking on the screen of his iPad. She couldn’t help but wonder what he was taking down. The session was still being video recorded. Was Hickam adding color commentary, details they would later use against her?
She strived to mask the emotions roiling inside her.
Eventually, Shaw resumed, addressing her. “When I stopped to switch license plates, I used your phone to call myself, so I could show you later that I had tried that number.”
“You’re full of clever tricks.”
He raised a shoulder.
“And bullshit.”
“Effective bullshit.”
Her face burned when reminded of how effective his words, both sinister and provocative, had been. She wanted to kill him. “You called that phantom number several times, hinting that Josh might answer, knowing full well he wouldn’t.”
“Another tactic to try and break you.”
“Well you failed, Special Agent Kinnard. You’ve got nothing to show for all your testing and clever tricks. You got nothing helpful from me.”
“You’d be surprised what I found helpful.”
“My brother is still at large.”
“Which is why you’re still in custody.”
Chapter 27
A taut silence followed that fiery exchange, which Joe and Hick had tacitly agreed to let play out without interruption. Adrian Dover softly asked Jordie if she would like to take a breather. “Maybe some water?”
She declined with a brusque no.
“I’d like some,” Kinnard said. “I’m supposed to be getting fluids.”
Joe got up and walked over to a small table stocked with bottles of water. “You should be readmitted to a hospital,” he said as he uncapped one and passed it to Kinnard. “Under an assumed name, naturally.”
“Maybe later.”
When he finished drinking, Hick asked him where he’d had his burner phone hidden. “It wasn’t on you. The barn was searched. Wasn’t in the car.”
“I left it in the woods where I stopped to switch car tags. Sealed in a ziplock and stuffed in a hole in a tree trunk. I told Morrow where he could find it. He retrieved it and brought it when he came to the hospital.”
Joe thought, This son of a gun doesn’t miss a trick. He wanted to throttle him, but he couldn’t help but admire his craftiness. Of course, his life depended on outsmarting people. On deception.
Hick asked, “What about the barn?”
Shaw smiled wanly. “Belonged to my grandfather. He called it the garage. He had a couple of old Chryslers he restored and kept there. Before he died, he sold the cars, but the building came to me. I hadn’t been there in years and was surprised to find it still standing.”
“You grew up around here?”
“No. I only visited my grandparents from time to time.”
He didn’t volunteer where he hailed from, and Joe didn’t bother asking. Neither did Hick. He probably would have told them that it was classified.
“The bow-and-arrow set was mine,” Kinnard said, addressing Jordie. “It came with a canvas target stuffed with straw. I don’t know what became of that. I never knew my grandfather owned a boat. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know what that busted outboard was doing in there.”