Page 97 of Tough Justice

“Print that.” He pointed to the screen, and as soon as the page spewed from the printer on Shuren’s desk, Deck shoved it in the manila folder and was out the door. “I’m done,” he said to the guard.

After retrieving his weapon from the lock box, he ran to his SUV and unlocked the door. Thor stuck his head through the kennel window, watching Deck slide onto the seat then staring at the manila folder, as if he knew it contained something critical.

Deck’s phone had been on vibrate while he’d been inside the prison, so he would have felt any incoming messages, voice, text, or otherwise. Regardless, he checked the screen, still hoping for a message from Tori. Nothing. He cued up her number and hit the call button. It went right to voicemail. “Shit.”

The second he dropped his phone into the console, it rang.

Brett’s name lit the screen, and he hesitated before answering. What if Brett was calling with bad news? That he’d found Tori’s body. Taking an unsteady breath, he answered the call. “Brett, anything?”

“Nada. I found a way inside Tori’s house. It’s empty, and there’s no car in her driveway or garage. Neighbors haven’t seen her.”

Deck breathed a little easier. It wasn’t confirmation that she was alive, but for now, he’d take it. His phone vibrated with another incoming call from Evan. “Hold on,” he said. “I’m conferencing in Evan.” He tapped the screen to get the conference call going. “Go ahead, Evan. Brett’s here, too. She’s not at her house.”

“She’s not at Barnett’s, either,” Evan said. “No one is. The house is empty, and so is the garage.”

“Wherever he took her, they might have taken Tori’s car.” The key word being wherever. There’d been no response to any of his BOLOs.

“Find out anything at the prison?” Brett asked.

“Yeah. Barnett did some work here on the side filling in for prison doctors on vacation. I think he was using inmates as lab rats, experimenting on them to perfect his recipe. Last year, nine inmates OD’d and four died.”

Brett whistled. “I never heard about that in the news.”

“That’s because the prison kept it quiet. But here’s the interesting thing. T-Lo was incarcerated at FCI Sheridan while this was all happening. He came to see Barnett at least fifteen times in the med unit.”

“That can’t be a coincidence,” Evan said.

“Exactly. Being a doctor, Barnett might have the skills to whip up a super-potent opioid cocktail like the one we’re chasing, but he wouldn’t have the network to sell it. He’d need a distributor, someone who has contacts on the street.”

“Like T-Lo,” Brett stated the obvious.

“T-Lo went to prison for distribution of heroin and cocaine. He’s got the connections, the street smarts, and knows all the other dealers.”

“And being Barnett’s assassin,” Evan added, reminding them all of just how deadly this partnership really was.

“Probably not enough for a warrant,” Brett stated what Deck already knew.

“True that. Even if it was, we don’t know where the sonofabitch is.”

Deck’s phone buzzed again, this time with an email and a text from Sammie.

Finished the background checks you asked for. Emailed you the reports. Standing by if you need anything else.

“Stand by,” he said to his friends and opened up the email.

Attached were a series of files on Ethan Dexter, Neil Shibowsky, David Landry, and Barnett. With what he’d just learned at FCI Sheridan, Deck went right to Barnett’s supplemental database lookups. Barnett’s medical credentials confirmed that he did his undergrad and med school at U Penn.

The next two files contained personal and family history. William Barnett, age thirty-eight, born in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Denver. One older sister, Elizabeth, living in California. This was getting him nowhere and no closer to finding Tori. He was about to tap the file closed when the last paragraph of the printout caught his eye. Properties Owned. In addition to his condo in Lakewood, Barnett was co-owner with his sister of Barnett’s Ag & Mining Co-op, located on Poudre Canyon Road in Fort Collins. The place closed down over twenty years ago. Fort Collins was over an hour—

North.

He stared a moment longer at the screen. How many times had he heard the Big D aka “the doc” came from somewhere up north?

Deck didn’t have a search warrant and wasn’t about to wait for one. “Brett, Evan, meet me in Fort Collins.” He recited the address. “It’s an old co-op. Wait on the street and we’ll go in together.”

“Are you calling in for more backup?” Brett asked.

Deck fisted his hand on the wheel. Not even the mile-high stack of circumstantial evidence in his back pocket would get him a warrant.