The young man swallowed.
“My name’s Jesse. Jesse Tarrant. I work for Clay. Ran deliveries for him.”
A pause.
“I was the one who tipped you off tonight on the road. I called ahead to the diner. Anonymous.”
Everything in the parking lot became extremely still.
Grim took one slow step forward.
“You were tracking us.”
“Not to hurt you. I swear to God. I tracked you to warn you. There’s a roadblock going up on 93 northbound. Clay called it in as a stolen vehicle report. Gives his deputy friend a reason to stop any bikes coming out of this area tonight.”
Grim studied the young man’s face.
He had learned over many years to read the specific texture of a lie versus the specific texture of fear.
And this was fear.
Pure and uncomplicated.
“Why are you telling me this?” Grim said.
Jesse’s jaw worked for a moment.
“Because I’ve been working for Clay for two years, and I’ve seen things I can’t…”
He stopped.
Breathed.
Started again.
“There’s a girl. She went missing eight months ago. Nineteen years old, from Bullhead City. Clay said she took off on her own. I know she didn’t.”
His voice cracked on the last word just slightly, and he pressed his lips together hard.
“I know because I was there the night she didn’t.”
Nobody in the parking lot moved.
“You were a witness,” Grim said.
“I was more than a witness.”
Jesse’s voice had gone hollow.
“And I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about that for eight months, and I can’t live with it anymore. I can’t.”
He reached into his jacket.
Marco’s hand moved.
“Easy,” Jesse said immediately, his hand coming out slow, fingers spread wide, holding a USB drive.
Small.
Black.
Completely ordinary looking.
“I’ve been collecting this for six months. Every file I could get my hands on. Wire transfer records. Recordings. I had a recording app on my phone. I recorded everything I could. Names, dates, badge numbers, bank account numbers, all of it.”
He held the drive out toward Grim.
“There are seven women. Not one. Seven going back four years.”
The drizzle fell.
Grim looked at the drive.
He had walked into that evening expecting to do one thing.
Get a woman out of a trailer.
Simple.
Contained.
Finite.
The kind of thing that begins and ends in the same night.
What he was looking at now was something that did not begin or end anywhere near tonight.
What he was looking at was a thread that, if you pulled it, would unravel something that went much deeper and much wider than one trailer and one violent man and one corrupt deputy.
He took the drive.
“How long before Clay knows you’re gone?”
“He’ll notice I’m not at my post in maybe an hour. Hour and a half.”
“Is there anywhere safe you can go?”
Jesse let out a sound that was half laugh, half something darker.
“I was kind of hoping you could help with that.”
Grim looked at Danny.
Danny looked back with the expression that meant, yes, I know, we’ll figure it out, keep moving.
“Get back inside,” Grim told Marco. “Get Sarah and the kids ready to move. Don’t tell them why yet.”
He turned to Jesse.
“You come with us. You don’t make calls. You don’t contact anyone. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir,” Grim said.
Then he went back inside.
The next twenty minutes operated on pure momentum.
Millie’s sister was called and said yes without hesitation, in the tone of a woman who had been waiting for her sister to need her for a long time and was not going to waste the moment on questions.
Marco pulled the car around.
They were not putting Sarah on a bike, not in her condition and not with two children.
The retired couple, whose names turned out to be Frank and Dolores, owned the sedan parked outside and offered it without being asked.
Frank said he had been a Marine.
Dolores said she had been married to a Marine for forty years, which amounted to the same thing.
Grim looked at both of them for a moment, then said, “Thank you,” in a voice that meant it.
It was while they were moving Sarah toward the back door that Clay Mercer called the diner.
Millie picked up.
She almost always picked up. It was a reflex. Thirty years of running a diner. The phone rings, and you answer it.
She had the receiver against her ear before her brain fully processed the possibility of who it might be.
The voice on the other end was smooth.
The voice of a man who has never had to shout because people have always understood very quickly that he does not need to.
“I’m looking for my girlfriend,” Clay said. “Sarah Cole. I think she might have come in there tonight.”
Millie’s hand tightened on the receiver.
Her face gave nothing away.
She was a woman who had been operating in complicated situations for most of her adult life, and her face was very good at its job.
“Lots of people coming through here,” she said. “Can’t say I recall the name.”
“Dark hair. Early thirties. She might have been hurt. She had an accident tonight. I’m worried about her.”
The concern in his voice was so perfectly calibrated it was almost convincing.
Almost.
Millie had heard real worry in a man’s voice before.
She knew the difference.
“Sorry, hon,” she said. “Haven’t seen her. You want me to keep an eye out?”
A pause.
Longer than a natural pause.