Page 45 of Outsider

“Aw, man. Come on.”

“Deer season ended two weeks ago.”

“I got my dates mixed up is all. Give me a break, will you?”

“He was shoving that carcass into the truck when I caught him.” Gina comes up beside me, looks at the dead deer, and lowers her voice. “For a fat guy, he runs pretty damn good.”

I don’t succumb to the smile tugging at my mouth. Instead, I tilt my head and speak into my radio. “Mona, I need a wildlife officer.”

“Ten-four,” comes her reply.

I give her my approximate location as well as the man’s name and license number. “Expedite.”

I’m standing next to the truck when Glock emerges from the trees. Unlike the rest of us, he’s barely out of breath and moves through the snow with the ease of an athlete out for a morning jog. I see him taking in the scene, eyeing the man sitting on the ground. His eyes widen slightly at the sight of Gina. He sends a questioning look my way.

I address Winslow. “Stay put.” Then I look at Gina. “Keep an eye on him, will you?”

She gives me a mock salute.

I cross to Glock, who’s looking around the truck a short distance away. “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I tell him.

“I get that a lot.” He punctuates the statement with a grin.

I tell him as much as I can about Gina. “She’s a cop. Columbus Division of Police. Tomasetti is involved. I can’t get into the details.”

“Okay.” His eyes narrow, but he nods. “Everything going to be okay, Chief?”

I think about the question a moment before answering. “I have no idea.”

CHAPTER 13

It wasn’t yet eight A.M. and for the first time in months Damon Bertrand sat down for breakfast with his wife and their two adult children. By all rights, the “kids” should have started their careers and been living on their own by now. His son graduated from Ohio State a year ago, but had yet to land a job with which he could support himself. His daughter would graduate in the fall and spent more time partying on High Street than studying. When he was his son’s age, Damon had been working patrol on the graveyard shift, was married, and had a kid on the way. Not for the first time he wondered where he and Doreen had gone wrong.

Usually by this time of day, he’d already swung by the diner for coffee and landed at his desk at the Division of Police building downtown. This morning, due to the inclement weather, he’d decided to wait until the plows cleared the streets.

In spite of his children’s lack of ambition, he generally enjoyed spending time with his family. This morning, he was distracted. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t relax. The situation with Colorosa had eaten at him through the night and he’d spent most of the last eight hours either tossing and turning or in the guestroom channel surfing and trying to come up with a plan.

He was two years away from retirement. He’d reached a point in his life where he had a lot to lose. The last thing he needed was some turncoat cop destroying everything he’d ever worked for. Things like the pension that would see him and Doreen through their golden years. The love and respect of his family. That nice little condo they’d just bought down in Florida. His future. Maybe even his freedom. He would not let Colorosa or anyone else screw things up for him.

Damon had done what he could. He’d planted the seeds, gotten his hands as dirty as he dared. Still, he didn’t know how this was going to play out. If he’d been smarter, he would have cut ties with Colorosa a long time ago. He would have cut her off. Gotten her fired. Now, all he wanted was for her to be gone.

The one thing life had taught him was that while you couldn’t undo mistakes that had already been made, if you had the right tools, you could change history—and that was exactly what he’d done. Would it be enough?

At nine A.M. he left his wife in the kitchen and went to his small office off the foyer. He logged in to the Division of Police computer system and checked email. He brooded. He stewed. Most of all, he worried. He was in the process of finishing up a report for an upcoming court appearance when the call he’d been waiting for came in on his cell.

“You find her?” he asked without preamble.

“No, but I got a lead,” Ken Mercer said.

Rising from his desk chair, Bertrand crossed to the French doors that separated his office from the foyer and closed them. “For God’s sake, it had better be good,” he said, settling back behind his desk.

“There was a cop she used to be tight with, back when she was a rookie. They lived together for a while. You remember a young cop by the name of Kate Burkholder?”

“Vaguely. She was religious or something.”

“Yeah, the original odd couple, right? Burkholder left the department ten years ago. I started digging around and found out she took a job as chief in a small town about an hour and a half east of here.”

Bertrand thought of the last ping from Colorosa’s phone. At the time they hadn’t been able to figure out where she’d been headed. He sat up straighter. “A fucking chief of police?”