“Because you’re tracking them with GPS chips?”
His mouth opens. Shuts. And he decides to say nothing.
“There’s a loophole, though,” I say. “One person that I presume isn’t being tracked. You.”
That brow furrows again, more, and he says, carefully, “I don’t understand.”
“You have been personally spying on our town. You persuaded one of our residents to break into our town manager’s office for information. Or maybe for blackmail fodder.”
“I did what?”
“You had an affair with one of our women. An ongoing affair, it seems.”
He laughs. The sound is so unexpected, I startle before finding my glare.
“If you’re going to pretend you’d never sneak around the forest to gain information—” I begin.
“Of course I would, if that were part of my mandate. What I wouldnotdo is seduce a woman for it. A man maybe, but a woman?” He tips the glasses up, letting me look into his eyes. “Even I have limits.”
“The woman described you to atee.” I take out my notepad and read Muriel’s words aloud. Then I look at him. “Are you telling me you have someone else in town who matches that description? Someone else whose movements aren’t tracked?”
“No, which means I am being framed, and I believe I know by whom.”
The answer hits before he speaks. Whoelsewouldn’t be chipped? Rutherford. The same man who just grumbled to us about Rogers disappearing all the time, especially in the early mornings… when someone was meeting with Muriel.
There’s just one problem with that scenario.
“We heard the spy talking,” I say. “We didn’t get to him on time, but that voice didn’t have an English accent.”
His brows lift, as if he’s shocked that I figured out he was referring to Rutherford.
“IsRutherford English?” I press. “And when did he arrive at your camp? He talked as if he’d just gotten in.”
“He has been here for several weeks. As for the accent, it seems legitimate. However, shortly after he arrived, we caught a couple of the guards imitating him. Goofing around. He didthe same back, imitatingtheiraccent, and said that if they were going to mock his, they’d best get better at it. His American accent was perfect.”
“And the English one would be a dead giveaway to our resident.”
“Yes.” Rogers straightens. “I do appreciate you bringing this to my attention. I apologize for the trespass, and I assure you, it will be dealt with. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“You really think that’s going to work?” Dalton says. “We don’t trust you to do shit.”
“I can assure you—”
“Fuck your assurances. We’ve had enough of them. You know you have us over a barrel here. We can’t just pick up and leave. So you keep giving ‘assurances’ and when you break them, it was all a terrible mistake, and you will do better.”
“Wehavedone better. We instituted boundaries. We improved employee tracking. Yes, I will admit to the implants, as it proves we are doing our due diligence. Our guards know their movements are being monitored.”
“And the employees don’t, but that doesn’t matter because they gave up those rights when they were incarcerated.”
His lips press into a thin line. “I do not know the specifics of our employees’ backgrounds.”
“Yeah, you’re just the middleman. You have no idea what’s happening here. You just do your job, and if that includes murdering your own employees…” Dalton shrugs. “They were criminals, right? Who cares.”
“If you are referring to Mr. Day, we did not kill him. That was his partner-in-crime, the guard—”
“Yeah, yeah. We actually don’t believe that story, but we don’t care. We’re talking about Mr. Hansen.”
“Mr. Hansen is gone.”
