Page 107

“Did you walk all the way from Bear Pass?” I asked. “That’s pretty damn far.”

“The old lady that lives in the apartment next to me was headed to a doctor’s appointment in Sawtooth.”

I looked at the clock on the dash.

It was barely eight in the morning.

“Most doctor’s offices don’t open up ’til eight, my man,” I said. “Especially ones in Sawtooth.”

The only fuckin’ doctor in that town was my best damn friend, and they didn’t open up until nine.

“I’m not sure what you want from me,” Leo said. “I just hitched a ride.”

I looked into my rearview mirror at him and said, “How’d you really get out here?”

He shrugged.

My phone rang, but instead of answering it on speaker like I normally would, I hit accept and placed it to my ear. “Gentry. How are you doing?”

During that car chase the other day, he’d been injured and assigned desk duty.

He did not like it, and I was glad that I’d been out of the office today to skip all the bitching he was likely doing.

“I looked into Leo’s whereabouts like you asked,” he said. “Leo asked the lady in the apartment below him to give him a ride last night to Sawtooth. She dropped him off at a hiking trail that was between Sawtooth and what I’m assuming is Jessamy’s place. She said she’d show me if I wanted her to.”

I looked into the rearview mirror again. “Is that right?”

“She also said that she was worried about leaving him there, because it was getting dark, but he insisted. So she dropped him off and started to leave, but she dropped her phone into the floorboard and had to put it in park to retrieve it. She got out, got the phone, then looked back at where she dropped off Leo, and found him heading not toward the trail, but toward Jessamy’s place.”

Jessamy’s…and Camp Grizzly.

Twenty-Six

Did I hit a nerve, bitch boy?

—Jessamy to Black

Black

I didn’t drop him off at his place.

Instead, I took him to the station.

“What’s going on, Sheriff?” Leo asked coolly as we pulled into the station.

Dempsey stepped out of her car at the same time that I stepped out of mine.

Her eyes went to the teen that I had in the back seat and surprise lifted her brows.

“You brought him in?”

“Found him walking along the side of the road off 4433. He said that he had a neighbor drop him off on her way to an appointment today, but Gentry followed up with that same neighbor and she said that she dropped him off last night.”

Dempsey practically vibrated. “I found some inconsistencies with the medical examiner’s report and went to have a chat with your friend Odin. He cleared some things up for me, and since you already have him, I would like to ask a few questions.”

I jerked my chin toward the cruiser. “Well, let’s get started.”

Fifty minutes later, we were in an interrogation room. Leo had waived his rights to a lawyer, as well as asked that we not ask any questions until his sister was here. He “trusted” her.