“Do you think we can find out?” Justus asked. “I would like to know so I can thank him for being so kind to me during it all.”
“Justus, he was one of your captors,” Rafferty pointed out. “I don’t care if he was nice to you. I don’t think he deserves your gratitude.”
She pushed back from the table, bent down, scooping For All up into her arms before standing. “Well, I do, and that is all that matters. I cooked, so you clean up.”
She stormed off down the hall to her bedroom and slammed the door.
Damn. And things had been going so well between them sincehermeltdown. Why didhehave to go and ruin it?
CHAPTER 6
Rafferty hungup with Asher as he finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes. He then called the Fool’s Gold Police Department to speak with Deputy Sheriff Sparrow Oakley. Asher had felt that if anyone knew what happened to Dan the night of the auction, it would be Sparrow.
He had to leave a message for her to call him back because she was on another call. To his surprise, he received a call back within fifteen minutes.
“Rafferty Grainger,” he said when the phone rang.
“Sparrow Oakley, returning your call. I understand you’re with the Brotherhood Protectors and have questions about the auction busted up in June.”
“That’s right. I’ve been assigned to protect Justus Killion, one of the captive girls until she can testify against some of the men,” Rafferty explained.
“Sure. Liberty’s sister,” Sparrow said.
“That’s right. Justus and I were discussing the case, and she’s curious as to what happened to one of the men. He wasn’t arrested because he isn’t standing trial, and after speaking to Asher, he felt you might be the best person to ask since you worked the scene at the end.”
“I’ll try to be of help,” Sparrow said. “Who was it?”
“His name is Dan. That’s all Justus knows. He was kind to her. Gave her a puppy while she was being held. Allowed her to make cell phone calls to try to reach her sister while she was captive. She said he was known as a screw-up with the other men butthat hewas supposed to have been best friends with the guy who pretended to be her boyfriend and lured her and Chaney away. Yet Dan seems to have just disappeared that night.”
A pregnant pause came on the line, but Rafferty knew that the call had not dropped because he could hear her breathing.
“Yeah. I saw Dan,” Sparrow finally said. “Liberty shot him.”
“Did she kill him?” he asked.
“No,” Sparrow said, and another pause followed. Listen. What I’m about to tell you is highly classified. I shouldn’t even tell you, but it’s obvious Dan made a connection with Justus for whatever reason only he could explain. If the Brotherhood hadn’t swarmed the place that night, he’d have gotten her out of there himself.”
“What?” Rafferty stroked his chin. Had he heard Sparrow correctly?
“Liberty didn’t kill him because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.”
“What are you telling me, Sparrow?” Rafferty tried to process what she’d shared. “That makes no sense. Dan was…?”
“He was a plant,” Sparrow said. “Undercover for the FBI. I received a call out of the blue from his supervisor before my team went to the house. We were tipped off because the auction was going down, and we needed to get out there ASAP. We had no idea that the Brotherhood was already there doing a sting operation. They kept me in the dark, damn them. My own husband was working against me on that one. Do you know how that made me feel?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t, but if I had to guess, you were royally pissed.” Rafferty could hear the anger and pain in her voice after all this time.
“Damn right. And I let Jake Cogburn know it, too.”
That must have been the Jake that Justus mentioned, who Sparrow chewed out. Rafferty grinned. He felt he’d like this woman if he ever got the chance to meet her.
He returned to the reason he called. “So, would it be out of line for me to let Justus know that Dan is alive and well?”
“Does she care that much?”
“It seems that she does. I told her she shouldn’t, but she said Dan helped her through things with his kindness.”
“Then just tell her he got away. I don’t want to jeopardize his cover if he should get reassigned to go after Leland Warshafsky again,” Sparrow explained. “That’s who he was after and why he was buddying up with Kurtis Nuchols in the first place. The conversation I had with him once I got him back to the police station was that it had taken him months to gain Nuchols' trust to get him to take him on one of his pickups to escort the girls to the actual house. And once he was there, he ensured that Warshafsky found a reason to have him stay.”
