Murdering an employee.
Killing a so-called hiker and hunting down his wife.
No wonder Rogers looks as if he’s missed a few nights’ sleep.
As I think that, I realize it’s the first time I’ve seen his eyes. He always wears sunglasses, no matter how overcast the day.
Now, as if he’s reading my thoughts, he flips out his shades and snaps them on.
“Yes?” he says, with impatience, as if I’m keeping him from leaving.
“Mr. Rutherford had to come and speak to us because no one could find you.”
“I said I was going for a walk. I checked in with the duty guard as I left.” He pauses. “You were looking for me?”
“Yes.” I meet his eyes—or the lenses of his sunglasses, at least. “It’s recently come to our attention that your town employs somevery unique workers, and that concerns us. As you know, we have civilians—including vulnerable ones—in our settlement, and now we discover that our neighbors are running a prison work camp.”
“A what?”
“Your miners are convicts. American convicts.”
He leans back. “You do realize we are in Canada, yes?”
“I do.”
“I know people in your country can have a very distorted view of mine. Yes, we have private prisons. No, we cannot open a work camp in a foreign country. There are laws against that.” His tone is dry, even sardonic. Mocking us.
“I know,” I say. “Which means it would be illegal, and that’s an even bigger concern.” I lift my hands. “We don’t care about the particulars. We just care about ensuring the safety of our residents. We already had a serious incident, resulting in a traumatized young boy, because your operation employed a convicted pedophile.”
“That situation was resolved before anything happened, yes?”
I give him a hard look. “He waskidnapped.”
I brace for him to argue that no assault took place, but he glances to the side, as if he realizes that’s not the point.
“Yes, of course,” he says. “I apologize. However, I did warn you.”
“Afterthe fact, you warned that you didn’t screen for things like pedophilia because you’re in an environment without children. You didn’t warn me that you had actual pedophiles.Incarceratedpedophiles, as well as rapists, murderers—”
“Now you are letting your imagination run wild. As I said, we are not—”
“Owen Day,” Dalton says.
Rogers jumps at his voice, telling me he’s not nearly as calm as he seems. He looks over. “Excuse me.”
“Owen Day. That’s the name of the pedophile who kidnapped our boy. Neil Hansen. That’s the name of a rapist and murderer you also employed. Both were currently incarcerated, with Hansen serving a life sentence.”
Rogers goes quiet. He’s thinking, and when his gaze slides to one of us, it’s to Dalton.
“I believe we had a man by that name, though I don’t know his particulars,” Rogers says. “Like Mr. Day, he is no longer with us.”
Dalton snorts at that.
“Mr. Hansen is not part of our current team,” Rogers says, mistaking Dalton’s snort for disbelief.
“As I said,” I continue, “our interest is in securing our town and residents. The reason we wanted to speak to you alone is that you personally broke our agreement.” I look up at him again. “You’ve been spying on our town. Trespassing on our territory, to the point of being close enough to see our settlement.”
His brow furrows. Then it smooths. “If you are telling me that one of our men has been on your land, then I can categorically say that is untrue.”
