Chapter 7: What Reaper Knew
I met them in the parking garage at nine that night.
Three levels down, away from the cameras.
Four men standing beside a gray rental SUV, hands in jacket pockets, watching the ramp.
They looked like retired contractors.
Unremarkable.
The kind of men who blend into any background because they spent decades training themselves to do exactly that.
The one leaning against the driver's door straightened when he saw me.
"Reaper."
His name was Garrett.
He'd been my second-in-command for eleven years.
He had a bad knee, a good memory, and the kind of patience that made dangerous men nervous.
I shook his hand.
"You look old," he said.
"So do you."
"I feel it." He glanced at the others.
"You know everyone here."
I did.
Torres.
Mack.
A man we'd always called Bishop who had never offered another name.
"Thank you for coming," I said.
"Don't thank us," Torres said.
"Just tell us what we're doing."
"Right now, we're waiting," I said.
"Federal case.
FBI has the video.
U.S.
Attorney is moving.
We don't touch anything official."
Garrett nodded slowly.
"But."
"But Dale Vance came into my son's room today and made a direct threat in front of my wife.
His deputy tried to pressure a sixteen-year-old witness last night.
And I found out this afternoon that the two witnesses who recanted by midnight—" I paused.
"One of them is a thirty-two-year-old man named Curtis Webb.
He works at the grain elevator on Route 9.
He recanted at eleven-fifteen.
At eleven forty-five, his truck was run off the road on the way home.
He wasn't hurt.
But the message was clear."
The garage was quiet.
"Dale Vance is cleaning up," Garrett said.
"Yes."
"How much time does the FBI need?"
"Holloway says days.
Maybe less.
The video is strong.
The threat today adds obstruction.
The judge who signed the gag order is already under a separate investigation."
"So we're a perimeter," Bishop said.
"You're a perimeter," I said.
"Curtis Webb needs eyes on him tonight.
Jade and her mother need someone outside this building they can't see.
And I need someone watching Travis Vance."
"The deputy."
"He's the weak point.
He's young.
He did what his father told him to do, and now he's starting to understand what that means." I looked at Garrett.
"I don't want him pressured.
I want him watched.
If he moves toward Jade or toward Webb, I want to know before he gets there."
Garrett looked at me for a moment.
"You've changed," he said.
"How."
"You used to give us the target and let us work."
"I have a son in a hospital bed," I said.
"And I want to be there when he wakes up tomorrow.
That means this has to be done right."
Garrett nodded.
"Done right," he said.
"Copy that."
He turned to the others and they moved without another word — Torres toward the exit ramp, Mack toward the elevator, Bishop already on his phone.
The quiet efficiency of men who had spent their careers solving problems in the dark.
Garrett stayed.
"Caleb." He kept his voice low.
"There's something you should know.
I ran Dale Vance before I drove out here.
Old habit."
"And?"
"Nineteen years as sheriff.
Before that, twelve years as a deputy under a man named Roy Casper, who retired in 2004 under a cloud that never quite became a formal investigation." He paused.
"Dale Vance has done this before.
Not this exactly.
But the pattern.
Witness pressure.
Friendly judges.
Evidence that disappears." He looked at me steadily.
"Curtis Webb isn't the first person whose truck ended up in a ditch."
"Who else?"
"2019.
A high school teacher named Darnell Price filed a complaint after Vance's deputies roughed him up during a traffic stop.
Three weeks later, Price withdrew the complaint and moved his family to New Mexico." Garrett paused.
"2021.
A woman named Rosa Fuentes tried to sue the department.
Her attorney got a brick through his office window.
Case was dropped."
I stood with that for a moment.
"He's been running this county like a private kingdom," I said.
"For a long time." Garrett put his hands in his pockets.
"The FBI file you mentioned — I'd bet it goes back further than four years.
I'd bet someone's been building it carefully, waiting for a case strong enough to crack the whole thing open."
He looked at me.
"I think your son's case is that case."
I looked up at the hospital above us.
Somewhere on the third floor, Ethan was asleep with Laura in the chair beside him.
"Then we make sure nothing goes wrong between now and when Holloway pulls the trigger," I said.
Garrett started toward the ramp.
"One more thing," he said without turning around.
"Travis Vance called his father twice in the last hour.
Second call lasted eleven minutes." He paused.
"After that call, Travis drove to the county records building and was inside for twenty-two minutes."
My chest tightened.
"What's in county records?"
Garrett looked back at me.
"Property records," he said.
"Old case files.
May you like
And the original incident report from last night." He held my gaze.
"The one that hasn't been filed with the state yet."
