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With a sigh, he closed the pizza box and pushed it away. “I woke up around seven. It’s my day off. Showered, shit, shaved. Put my clothes on. Drove to town. Had breakfast at the Denton Diner. Came home. Worked on the El Camino. Watched Netflix.”
“You have a receipt from your meal at the diner?”
“Do you get receipts when you go to a diner?” he asked.
“You paid cash.” She’d be able to verify his trip to the diner. The Denton Diner kept extensive surveillance inside and outside of their building.
Changing the subject, Josie asked, “Where do you work?”
He smiled. “Are you really going to act like you didn’t look me up? Come on, you know all about me, don’t you? Including what I got sent up for.”
One of the other things her extensive searches had turned up was that the crime for which he’d been in prison had been committed in Denton. Detective Finn Mettner had handled the case. She had known, of course, that there would be times on the job that they’d have to look back on cases that Mett had handled or that they’d handled with him but still, seeing his name was like a spear to her heart. She’d only been able to read the bare essentials of the file before her eyes blurred with tears. She had no time for tears. Not tonight.
“I know what the police databases say, but a few things entered into a computer don’t always tell the full story, wouldn’t you agree?”
He sat back in his chair again, legs spread wide. This time, he crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her with a look of interest. “Are you still talking about my job?”
“What do you think?” Josie asked. She waited a few beats, keeping her eyes locked on his, and then added, “You know how this works, Henry. I ask the questions. You answer them. Where do you work?”
He looked away. “I work for the park commission. City park. Sanitation. I clean up after the good citizens of Denton.”
“Henry, I’m not interested in wasting your time—or mine—so let’s get right to Kayleigh Patchett.”
“The girl you’re looking for.”
“Our K-9 unit alerted on your property.” Josie didn’t mention that Luke thought it was a false alert. Thomas didn’t need to know that. She went on, “She was in your cabin. This will all go a lot faster and a lot smoother if you just tell me what happened.”
“What happened is I came inside from working on the car, put in a toaster pizza, turned on Netflix, and the next thing I know a damn helicopter is hovering over my cabin. I look outside and you’re there. That’s what happened.”
“How do you know Kayleigh?” Josie pressed.
He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands loosely together. “I don’t know anyone named Kayleigh.”
Josie tapped against her phone and brought Kayleigh’s photo back up. “How about this girl? How do you know her?”
“I don’t. I’ve never seen her before.”
Now it was Josie’s turn to sigh. “Henry, she was inside your house.”
There was a beat of silence. He stared at Kayleigh’s smiling face. Then he turned his gaze back to Josie. “I don’t lock my doors, Officer.”
“Detective,” Josie said.
“I don’t lock my doors, Detective. Maybe she did come to my house. Maybe she went inside. Didn’t find what she was looking for and left.”
“You said you were out front working on your car most of the day,” Josie pointed out.
“If she really was in my cabin like you say, she came and went before I got home from the diner.”
Josie tapped the phone screen again before it went black. “Kayleigh Patchett was abducted.”
“If you’re looking for a kidnapper,” Henry said, “it’s not me.”
“You sure about that?” asked Josie. “Your conviction for unlawful restraint suggests otherwise.”
He laughed, the sound low and quiet. “You cops love to twist things. Do they teach you that at the police academy, or what?”
“The nineteen-year-old woman you forced into a basement at gunpoint seven years ago—do you think she would agree with you? Would she say that I was twisting things?”
