“I’m sure most miners go home,” I continue. “It’d be too suspicious otherwise. That allows this to operate as a seemingly legitimate operation. Well, notlegitimate. But most go home. Yet, every now and then, they bring someone who won’t be missed. Someone who can disappear quietly. Someone that people with very deep pockets will pay to see disappear.”
“As I said, I know nothing of specifics.”
“Generalizations, then?”
His lips compress. “Not about murder.”
“But the operation in general? Executions for hire can’t be the sole purpose of your camp. Nor is gold. Oh, I’m sure you’re digging up actual gold and probably other minerals. That’swhat makes it seem legit to the convicts, keeps them believing they’re mining up north.”
“I do not know the specif—” He stops himself before I can ask for generalizations. “I know there are multiple levels of investment in the project. It’s very complicated.”
“I’m sure it is. Probably kickbacks for employing convicts. Investors who think there’s gold-rush-level profits to be had. Plus the executions for hire. What you’re taking from the ground is just gravy, enough to cover supplies, maybe pay your convicts a very small salary to keep them happy. The real money comes from everything else.”
“I am not at liberty—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dalton cuts in. “We don’t need you to confirm it. But if you care aboutyourliberty, you might want to cooperate. You have your investors. We have ours. Ours can get your ass out of this mess. Yours…” He shrugs. “Well, I think we all know howyourswould get your ass out of it.”
“Remember those hikers?” I say.
He blinks at the change of subject. “Yes, of course.”
“One’s dead,” I say. “Strangled. The other has been on the run from someone who seems to consider her a loose end.”
He frowns. “That would have nothing to do with us. We were concerned, of course. But whatever you might think of our operation, we are not murdering hikers.”
“You’renot,” I say.
“Were they more than hikers?” he asks.
“Actually, no. But our dead man happened to be looking in this direction from up on that mountainside.” I point. “Someone spotted him. Someone who was likely burying Hansen’s body at the time. Did they think he saw too much? Or did they think he was a spy?” I shrug. “He’s dead. That’s all I know.”
“Leave this with me—”
“Back to your colleague. What did Rutherford say when you first told him about us?”
“Nothing. He already knew there was a settlement in the area. I had reported that to our employer.”
“And how didtheyreact when you first told them about us?”
“It did not come as a surprise. Clearly their initial visits—when they were surveying the future site—told them you were here.”
“So they weren’t surprised. Were they concerned?”
“No.” The word comes clipped with annoyance. “They completely failed to understand the significance and the danger of being so close to another settlement.”
“Oh?”
He straightens. “I told them I thought it was a serious concern, and they told me it was not.”
“Did they ask you to find out what we were doing out here?”
“No. They said they already knew.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
A theory is forming, one so far-fetched that I don’t even dare voice it to Dalton… until he says the same thing as we walk back. I don’t want to imagine what Yolanda would say. It’s outrageous enough that she wouldn’t even scoff or tease us about our paranoia. She’d probably gently suggest that it’s time for us to start seeing Isabel professionally, to work through our past trauma. And she might not be wrong.
I pick up Rory while Dalton gets my interview subject. I’m in the town hall playing with my daughter when Dalton arrives with Muriel. He takes the baby to play with her across the room. Muriel seems to relax at that, which means she didn’t learn a damn thing from her first interview, when Kendra was in the background.
