“It’s going to take some time to sort all this out. I don’t even know where to start. Probably there,” she said, shining the beam of her flashlight on the body in the trench. She half circled the body from above. Two eyes, unaffected by the glare, stared up at her.

It was almost light again when Ray caught up with Hannah Jeffers in green scrubs and a dark blue surgical skullcap.

“You were amazing,” he said, putting his arms around her. He felt her puddle against his body. They clung to each other for several moments, and then she pulled away.

“How’s my boat?” she asked.

“On your car. In my garage. How are…?”

“The woman, gunshot wound to the chest, broken rib from the bullet, tissue damage to the breast. But lucky as hell. The bullet was on a non-lethal trajectory. I can’t say about her eye yet. We’ll know a lot more when we wake her up. What do you know about her?”

“Very little at this point. How about the man?”

“Four wounds, two in the left shoulder, one to the gut, one to the groin.”

“Will he live?”

“Probably. The gut shot is the most problematic. He’s been in surgery for hours.” She hugged him again. “We’re both in desperate need of a shower.”

48

The noon rush was long over and the room was near empty when Ray and Sue sat down at a table far in a corner of the hospital cafeteria with Ken Lee Park.

“Thank you for believing me,” he said, half standing to shake their hands. “That was my first fear.”

“As soon as our dispatcher put you through to me, you sounded credible. And then when I checked the address you provided, the car with the broken window, blood all over the interior….”

“Did you have to force your way into the house?” asked Ken Lee.

“No, the garage door was standing open. Her assailant was in too much of a hurry or just careless.”

“How did you know she was in trouble?” asked Ray.

“She was wearing a satellite communicator on a lavaliere. It allowed me to keep track of her. It also had an emergency communicator on it. The device suddenly went dead. First I called, then I viewed her security cameras.”

“How did you know about the Hollingsford estate?” asked Sue.

“The people she had been watching; it’s a complicated story.”

“So start at the beginning,” said Ray. “Tell us about your friend. Why was she here?”

Over the next 50 minutes Ken Lee Park talked. He provided a carefully crafted tale of why Mackenzie Mason, née Caitlyn Hallen, had returned to Cedar County. He left out actions on his part or Mackenzie’s that probably violated state or federal law.

“So what did she intend to do to these men?” asked Ray, after Ken Lee had finished.

“That was probably the weakness in the plan. She didn’t know what to do. She wanted justice rather than revenge. She wanted them to go to jail, but didn’t think there was anyway they would ever be prosecuted. By yesterday she was ready to give up on the whole idea and fly back to California.”

“The cell phone, the one she left at Jim Moarse’s place….”

“The original intent of that device was to make sure that she could get the attention of local law enforcement if she was in trouble. As it turns out, it worked perfectly when she wanted you to find that crime scene.”

“How do you know about this stuff?” asked Ray.

“Corporate security and intelligence. This is what I do.”

“And Ms. Mason?” asked Sue.

“She works as a project manager for tech companies.”

“What’s the nature of your relationship with her?” Sue pursued.

“Good friends. She often employed my company in recent years. But our involvement was more than casual.”

“Why now?” asked Sue. “It’s been decades.”

Ken Lee ran his hands over the stubble on his face and head. “The death of her brother…I don’t how to explain it…the festering wound…which sounds too clichéd. But it was always there. She told me about his death soon after I got to know her. Every so often she would search for Sabotny. Finally finding him was the key to…well, the key to something. One day his name popped up. There he is back in Cedar County, living very openly. She needed to come back here. Try to figure out how to get some kind of retribution. I tried to talk her out of it. But that was what she needed to do, so I did my best to support her.” He looked from Ray to Sue and back to Ray. “What happens now?” he asked.

Ray shook his head. “I don’t know what the prosecutor will do with all of this,” he said. “In the end, circumstances suggest that Mason was acting in self-defense. As for Sabotny, if he lives, he’ll be charged with two murders, kidnapping, and a host of other things.”

“How about the death of Terry Hallen?”

Ray looked at Sue and back at Ken Lee.

“I guess I know that’s impossible,” he said, shrugging. “Sabotny managed to take out all the guys involved. The truth will probably never be known.” He paused briefly. “Having him in jail; I think that will be enough. She will be able to get some kind of closure.”

“Sabotny—did you do any background work on him?”

“You hear things along the way. On the plane last night I was thinking about that, thinking someone might be interested in him. I put a few things together. It’s just the surface, public info, gathered legally. But I think some of it might be of interest to all sorts of folks.” He reached into his shirt pocket and held out a thumb drive. “Is there anything else, Sheriff?”

“I’m sure there will be.”

“I’m not going anywhere. It’s pretty up here. I hope to get to know the place while Mackenzie is recovering. Now if you will excuse me, I’ll go up and see if she’s awake yet.”

They watched him walk away.

“Interesting man,” observed Sue. “A rather exotic couple. They would turn heads up here.”

“Doesn’t take much,” said Ray, passing her the thumb drive.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“Need to know. He told us just what we needed to know, and nothing more. There will nothing on that drive that came through illegal channels or would compromise any of their sources, but I bet they know a lot about Richard Sabotny and his associates.

“You know the dance at this point. We need to get everything on paper and really tight. Sabotny will have sufficient funds to put together a good defense. Let’s make sure we don’t give his lawyers any openings.”

49

Simone arrived in Ray’s lap before Sue had cleared the door.

“We do better at co-parenting than most,” she said, setting a bright purple milk crate on the conference table.

“She’s very special, and neither of us is poisoning the water. She picked mature parents. How are you today?” asked Ray.

“It’s amazing what a couple good nights of sleep will do. That and the weather, the wonderful sunshine and warm temperatures. How quickly we forget about the months of gray skies and barren landscapes. And the ever enthusiastic Simone seems even more so. I took her for a run on the beach last evening, and she was beside herself playing in the surf and chasing gulls.”

Sue paused for a long moment and looked at Ray. “Getting some closure on the Fox murder, that was a special gift. I was absolutely frustrated by all the wheel spinning. You are more patient than me,” she observed.

“Does anything tie Richard Sabotny to the Vincent Fox murder?”

“No. That said, I need to work the Moarse home again, same with the Jeep. At this point nothing suggests Sabotny was part of that crime. My guess is that Moarse was solo on the Fox abduction, a desperate man going after some low hanging fruit.”