Chapter 3 - The Evidence Rex Buried
Nobody opened the door.
Vane knocked once.
"Ben?"
I looked at Briggs.
He shook his head.
Dana whispered, "Thomas doesn't carry a weapon."
"You don't know that," I said.
Vane spoke again.
"I came alone."
Briggs whispered, "Everybody says that."
I pointed toward the rear utility exit.
Mercer checked it.
Locked from inside.
Good.
"Thomas," I called, "step away from the door."
Silence.
"Do it."
Footsteps moved backward.
I opened the door.
Vane stood ten feet away.
Hands visible.
Sixty-three.
Gray suit.
Expensive shoes.
A man who normally looked more comfortable behind a conference table than outside a custodial closet.
Today he looked terrified.
"You're making a mistake," Briggs said.
Vane stared at him.
"So the dead really are coming back."
"Apparently."
Then Vane looked at Rex.
His expression softened.
"Hello, old boy."
Rex growled.
That answered one question.
They had met.
"When?" I asked.
Vane understood immediately.
"Six years ago."
Briggs raised the pistol.
"Explain."
Vane swallowed.
"I was at the warehouse."
Dana stepped backward.
I felt something colder than anger.
"Doing what?"
"Trying to stop what happened."
He claimed he had been a civilian accountant contracted by the county.
He discovered missing evidence inventories and traced them to officers using municipal warehouses as transfer points.
He contacted Briggs secretly.
Briggs stared at him.
"I never met you."
"No. You met my source."
"Who?"
Vane looked at me.
"Your wife."
My heart stopped.
"Careful."
"I'm telling you the truth."
My wife, Sarah, had died nine years earlier from cancer.
Three years before the warehouse fire.
Vane couldn't possibly—
"Sarah worked county procurement before she got sick," he continued. "She discovered discrepancies. She gave me copies."
I remembered Sarah bringing files home.
I remembered her saying work was messy.
I had never asked enough questions.
"She knew?"
"Part of it."
"Why didn't she tell me?"
"Because one of the names she found belonged to someone close to you."
Briggs lowered his weapon slightly.
"Who?"
Vane shook his head.
"The evidence Rex hid will answer that."
"Then tell us where it is."
"I don't know exactly."
"You said you did."
"I know the location."
The training cabin.
Of course.
Vane said Sarah had once followed me there during a surprise birthday picnic years earlier.
She later told him about it when searching for a secure place to duplicate records.
That meant Sarah had known more about my work than I realized.
We left the school through the rear service exit.
Dana stayed behind after I made her promise to lock down the building and call nobody except the superintendent's emergency office.
I rode with Mercer.
Rex refused to enter until I climbed in.
Then he sat beside me.
Mercer watched through the mirror.
"He's never done that."
"What?"
"I've been his handler four years. Today he acts like I'm the substitute teacher."
I almost smiled.
"Don't take it personally."
"I am absolutely taking it personally."
For the first time that morning, the tension broke.
I rubbed Rex's head.
"You took care of him."
Mercer nodded.
"I tried."
"Then we're good."
That mattered.
Rex could love two handlers.
There was room.
The cabin stood deep inside county-owned forest.
It hadn't been used in years.
We parked a quarter mile away.
Rex immediately became different.
His nose dropped.
His body sharpened.
He remembered.
I unclipped the leash.
"Search."
He looked at me.
That word hadn't come from my mouth to him in six years.
For a second he seemed young again.
Then he ran.
We followed.
Rex bypassed the cabin entirely.
He went behind it to an old obstacle course swallowed by weeds.
There had once been six concrete drainage pipes used for training.
Rex stopped at number four.
He scratched.
My heart hammered.
My badge number.
Four-one-seven.
Pipe four.
One meter.
Seven inches?
"Bring me a shovel."
We dug.
Twenty minutes later, my shovel struck metal.
A rusted ammunition box emerged.
Inside was a waterproof pouch.
Briggs whispered, "Jesus."
There was a memory card.
And an envelope.
My name was written across it.
In Sarah's handwriting.
BEN.
I couldn't breathe.
I opened it.
Inside was one sheet.
Ben,
If you're reading this, then Rex remembered what I hoped he would.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
Sarah had known Rex's hiding routine.
She had used it.
The letter explained that she had discovered officers stealing confiscated weapons.
She couldn't prove who controlled them.
She copied everything.
Then she became sick.
She entrusted the files to Vane.
Years later, Vane transferred the card to Briggs's investigation.
The warehouse attack happened before Briggs could secure it.
But there was one line that changed everything.
The person running the network knows you.
He has known you since you were young.
Don't trust the badge simply because you once trusted the man wearing it.
I looked at Briggs.
He looked equally stunned.
Mercer inserted the card into an encrypted field laptop.
Folders appeared.
Transactions.
Photographs.
Names.
Then one video.
Sarah.
Alive.
Healthy.
Years younger.
My hand trembled as I pressed play.
"Ben," she said on-screen, "if this reaches you, something has gone terribly wrong."
I sat down.
Rex leaned against me.
Sarah explained the financial trail.
Then she said the name.
"Deputy Chief Warren Hale."
My former mentor.
The man who recruited me.
The man who introduced me to Sarah.
The man who stood beside me at her funeral.
Briggs whispered a curse.
Hale had retired eight years ago.
He lived twenty miles away.
Mercer's laptop beeped.
An access warning appeared.
Someone had remotely detected the card.
"Disconnect it," Briggs ordered.
Too late.
A message filled the screen.
HELLO, BEN.
Then another.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT YOUR DEAD BURIED.
Rex suddenly barked.
Outside, tires crushed gravel.
One vehicle.
Then another.
Then a third.
Briggs looked through the window.
Armed men stepped from black SUVs.
At their center was an elderly man with silver hair.
Warren Hale.
He looked directly toward the cabin.
Then he raised a phone.
Mine rang.
I answered.
Hale's voice was calm.
"Bring me the card, son."
I looked through the glass.
May you like
He smiled.
"Or this time, I'll make sure the dog really dies."
