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He glanced back toward the building, his back stiffening. “Who was it?”
“It could have been anyone,” I said with a sigh. “I’m paranoid.”
He kept his gaze on the building, then turned back to me. “Let’s go.” He handed me the bag and headed to the driver’s side and started the car.
I opened the sack as he pulled away from the pump. It contained two bottles of water and an energy drink.
“None of this is going to sober me up,” I said, shame tingeing my words. How the hell had I gotten here?
“Maybe not, but I’m hoping you’ll at least be an alert drunk.” He shot me a glance, then turned back to the road. “And depending on how long you’ve been an alcoholic, you might be more than semi-functional as a drunk.”
“I’m not an alcoholic,” I protested, but without the anger that had fueled me at the prison.
He didn’t respond.
I popped the top on the energy drink and started to guzzle it. The faster the caffeine hit my system, the better. “We need a plan.”
“I’m presuming there’s two of them,” he said, then glanced at me. “He’d need help with the vehicles.”
“Agreed.” I told him what I’d learned about all three Sylvester men.
“Hale found out the same shit,” he grunted. “If you’d stuck with me, you would have known sooner.”
“But then I wouldn’t have found out that Chief Larson knew Barry Sylvester warned Stevens. Other than firing him, he didn’t do a thing to punish him. In fact, he paved the way for Barry to leave town and get a job with the Little Rock police.”
“He has a clean record in Little Rock,” Malcolm said.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. My partner has a clean record and I suspect he’s covered in filth. And hell, Sylvester was dirty in Jackson Creek. You can’t get much dirtier than trying to help a child rapist and murderer.”
“You can,” he said quietly. “You can get a helluva a lot worse, but what he did was heinous and makes me wonder if he was covering for himself or someone else.”
“Question of the night.”
He cast a glance at me. “Gut reaction?”
“Even if he turned dirty in Little Rock, it started in Jackson Creek. He was covering for someone else with Stevens.”
“And who do you think that person is…?”
“His son Danny. I talked to Drew. He told me that Danny exhibited basic psychopath symptoms around the time of Andi’s kidnapping—abusing animals and bugs. Plus, they lived a block away from Stevens. Drew says either his father or brother could have known him.”
“So did Danny help Stevens or just watch?”
I scrunched my nose. “What?”
“That photo he left for you was taken from outside a window. A peeping Tom.”
I stared at him, momentarily speechless. I had to admit the angle had looked weird, but I hadn’t let myself stare at it for long enough to make the connection. “You think Danny was watching through a window?”
“Maybe it just started that way, and by the end he was participating. Or maybe Daddy Sylvester found the photos and was afraid there’d be blowback on his son, so he warned Stevens. Could be he didn’t know how involved his son actually was.”
“So Danny Sylvester kidnapped Ava,” I said, working the puzzle in my head, which was hampered by the alcohol in my bloodstream. “He was living with his father when the shooting occurred last October. He could have seen my name in the news and found out where I lived.”
“Maybe it was curiosity or maybe he was specifically looking for a photo of your sister,” Malcolm said. “I’m guessing the latter since the break-ins stopped as soon as he took it.”
“Or because he almost got caught.”
“He got off on that,” Malcolm said in disgust. “But once he had his memento, he moved back to Wolford.”
