Page 66 of Rage

The door swings open. I look up to see Tomasetti enter. He’s frowning; I frown back at him. As usual, I can’t read his frame of mind. “You doing okay, Chief?” he asks.

“I think the situation is looking up,” I tell him.

“Well, there’s some balm for a man’s soul.” The shadow of a smile whispers across his mouth as he pulls out the chair across from me.

“Did you get him?” I ask.

“No.” He sinks into the chair. “We put out a BOLO on the description of the vehicle.”

“The description I gave matches half the vehicles in Holmes County.”

“It’s a start. Sheriff’s office is out now, looking for CCTV. Game cams.”

“Might get lucky, I guess.” I sigh. “How’s Mona?”

“X-rayed, stitched, and CT scanned,” he says. “I think she got a tattoo removed while she was there. ER doc sent her home.”

“Good luck with that.” I can’t help it; I laugh. “No way is she going to sit this out.”

“Sounds like someone else I know.”

I resist the urge to defend myself.

“We also put out a BOLO for Borntrager,” he tells me.

“Did you search the house?”

His eyes flick to the clock on the wall. “Warrant is in the works. We have deputies on scene.”

“What happened to exigent circumstances?” I snap.

“It got lost in the if-this-goes-to-court mentality.”

He’s right. A warrant will not only protect us, but allow for a more thorough search. I sigh again anyway. “Who owns the house?”

“We’re digging into that,” he says easily.

“Why the hell is everything taking so long?”

He laughs. “That car chase jacked you up a little, didn’t it?”

“I don’t appreciate some crazy bastard running over one of my officers.”

He contemplates me a moment. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure the owner of the property wasn’t easy to find.”

The words give me pause and I look at him a little more closely. All of the disjointed details I hadn’t been able to pull together tighten a notch.

“Something there,” I say. “Because that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

“I agree,” he says. “We did find the lease.”

“Who’s the tenant?” I ask.

“Our friend, Cassidy Robinette.”

“Who’s paying the rent?”

“We’re looking at the money trail now.” Rising, he goes to the water station, fills two cups, and brings them back to the table.