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“I think you knocked him out,” I murmured in shock. This entire situation was surreal.
“Fuck,” he said in disgust. “I wasn’t done beating the shit out of him yet.”
Chapter 32
Malcolm pounded on the door we’d come through and the suited man opened it seconds later.
“All done?” he asked, casting a glance at the man passed out in his chair.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Malcolm said as he took a cloth out of his back pocket and started to wipe his bloody knuckles.
We walked in silence as the man led us back out to the visitors’ entrance. Once we were out of the prison and in the relative safety of the cold evening, I stopped next to my car, staring at him in disbelief. “What the hell was that?”
His eyes hardened. “That was me getting information.”
“You beat him. A man handcuffed to a table!”
He gave me a cold stare. “You have your way of getting information, and I have mine. Which one was more effective in this instance?”
“Fuck you,” I spat out. “That was…”
“Effective. Stevens had help from a Jackson Creek police officer. Recognize the name?”
I shook my head, then grimaced. “No, but yes. For some reason the name Sylvester is stuck in my head, but I can’t figure out why.”
He pulled out his phone and called Hale.
“I need you to look up a name. Barry Sylvester. He was a Jackson Creek police officer. See if he’s still on the force.” He paused. “Okay, then see what he’s doin’ now. He gave Stevens a heads-up that the police were coming to arrest him. See if you can find out anything on him to figure out why. Was he dirty? Did someone pay him to do it? We need answers.”
He hung up and stared down at me. “Did you get any closure?”
Did I? I was still overwhelmed by everything that had happened. “I don’t know. I mean, I got some answers, but other than finding out someone warned him…” I shook my head. “Seeing him again…” Seeing him again had ripped the scab open all over again, which pissed me off. “Why did you insist that I come? You obviously didn’t need me to get in.”
He gave me an unapologetic stare. “To see if he was telling the truth.”
“Like what she was wearing?”
“Yep.”
I wrapped my arms across my chest and stared toward the parking lot exit. “I can still see him coming through the woods. He looked happy, excited…” I shuddered. “He had a hard-on when he approached us.”
Malcolm watched me but didn’t make any sympathetic sounds. I preferred it that way.
“He told Andi to come with him. We both said no, of course, although my words were coarser than that.” I shot him a sideways look. “Even back then, I used what my mother called unladylike language, which I’m sure was part of the reason she liked Andi better than me.”
He watched without commentary, but I didn’t get the feeling he was annoyed. It didn’t matter if he was. Seeing Stevens had stirred a pot of simmering emotions, and I needed to get this out.
I rubbed my arms. “We were next to the creek, checking out a stupid bird’s nest. The baby birds were close to flying off and she wanted to see them before they left. So we walked there after school. Andi had just climbed down from the tree when he appeared. There was a path that led to the creek bank and dead ended there”—I drew the path in the air with my hand—“and we happened to be at the dead end, so it was either run through the brush in the woods or try to get past him. I knew we’d never make it through the brush. He’d catch us in no time, but if I incapacitated him, then we might have a chance. He approached us, and I bent down and grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it in his face. He couldn’t see and we got past him, but he quickly caught up. He wrapped an arm around Andi’s waist and pulled out a gun and told me to stay there or he’d kill her. So I stayed there, frozen like a statue. I can still see him running through the woods, my sister flung over his shoulder and screaming at the top of her lungs.”
“No one heard her?”
“No one ever said they did. We were in the woods, but her voice carried. Until it didn’t.” I swallowed hard. “I think he knocked her out.”
I stole a glance toward Malcolm, but he still had that expressionless face, the one I’d come to know so well over the past few days. I’d mostly found it aggravating, but right now, I was thankful for it.
“I ran home as fast as I could, and my mother called the police.”
“Did you know about the photos?” he asked gruffly.
