Page 43 of Secret Stalker

Colby frowned, obviously unimpressed with Blake’s challenging posture. “Don’t you have something to do? Like issue parking tickets down Main Street?”

“Leave him alone,” Max said.

Colby’s mouth twitched, and Max knew he was trying to hold back a smile. Picking on the new guy was more of a habit than anything else at this point. But Blake was a serious kind of guy and was getting more and more wound up. For both Blake’s and Colby’s sakes, it was time to move on and let the new guy start contributing.

“What’s your theory?” Colby asked.

The relief on Blake’s face was palpable. He sat at attention in his chair, eagerly waiting to hear what Max had to say.

“Okay, the Pig isn’t far from the station, so as soon as a nine-one-one call went out, it was only a matter of minutes before some uniformed cops would show up, a few minutes more for the SWAT team since they had to gear up. And it’s right in the middle of the main business area where most of our restaurants and shops are.”

“Right,” Colby said. “Which doesn’t make sense, as you already said.”

“It doesn’t make sense if your goal is to get Bex to confess. But what if that isn’t the goal?”

Colby frowned. “We already know that was the goal. That’s the only useful information Lenny gave us.”

“No. Lenny said the goal was to scare Bex. Reggie’s the one who said they were going to kidnap her to tape a confession. We don’t have corroboration on that yet. But Lenny isn’t exactly a genius. He didn’t ask questions and didn’t really care why he did what he did. He was in it for the money, doing whatever Chucky told him to do. Maybe he thought the goal was to scare Bex. But he wasn’t told the real reason for the Piggly Wiggly assault.”

Colby nodded. “Okay. I’m with you. But you’re thinking the real reason wasn’t to kidnap Bex either?”

“Look at who was hired for the job. Budding criminals, gang members who want to prove to other gang members that they’re tough, who think they’re way more badass than they really are. Too stupid to think through the odds and realize they probably wouldn’t make it out of that store without being caught. They saw easy money, something fun and illegal to add to their résumés to make them look even cooler to the rest of the gang. Heck, maybe the three without gang tats were doing it to earn full gang membership.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Then you’ve got Lenny. Younger than the rest, a new gang member. Not hardened yet. He’s a weak link, a really weak link. As soon as we started questioning him and threatening him with the usual cop lies, he started singing, told us everything he knew—which wasn’t much, but the end result could very well be exactly what whoever planned this whole thing wanted.”

Blake leaned forward, resting his arms on the edge of Colby’s desk. “The guy behind it wanted the gunmen to be caught?”

Colby frowned at him, then looked at Max. “Is that your theory?”

“Yes, but follow it through to its logical conclusion. The guy behind this wanted the whole incident to be public so everyone in town would hear about it. And he was counting on Lenny to squeal. His goal wasn’t to capture Miss Kane. His goal was to force the police to look into the Bobby Caldwell case again.”

Colby blinked in surprise. “Makes sense in a weird kind of way. We always investigate the victim’s past to see if there’s a connection. That means looking at the old Caldwell case, too. You may be right. Pretty brilliant, in a sick kind of way. Which points the finger right back at Bobby Caldwell’s father again. Robert Caldwell is bitter enough and rich enough to pull it off. And we already said he has nothing left to lose since he’s terminally ill.”

“What about the brother?” Blake asked.

“Deacon,” Max said. “You think he might be behind this?”

“I think we should look into him, too, before jumping to any conclusions.”

Colby narrowed his eyes. “Now look here, I’m not jumping to—”

“Stop,” Max ordered. “You’re both right. We need to focus on looking for a tangible link between any of the Caldwells and the gunmen. They had M16s. Those are military-issue. Deacon is ex-military. Maybe he’s in on this and managed to get his hands on those guns. Has anyone traced the serial numbers yet?”

“Randy did that the first day,” Colby said. “They’re part of a shipment that was labeled as destroyed because they failed inspection. We’re still following that angle to see how they ended up in those gangbangers’ hands instead of being melted down for parts. Caldwell senior is ex-military, too, and a gun collector. Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s got some contacts who helped him get his hands on those rifles—assuming he’s involved.”

“It’s all speculation for now but we need to follow the trail,” Max said. “We’re still right back to where we were. But having talked it all through, I feel like we’re on the right track. We just have to hit them hard, help Donna dig up any information we can to piece together what the Caldwells and their hired hands were doing since Bex came to town. We need timelines, dates, places, witnesses. Let’s get some pictures together of everyone who works for the Caldwells and circulate those around, see if anyone can help us build those timelines. We can show those pictures to some of the rental car companies in Knoxville to see whether they recognize any of them, since I highly doubt the Caldwells or their men would use their own car when they hired those gangbangers. It’s highly likely they rented one.”

“That’s good,” Colby said. “I can follow up on the alibis and rental angles.”

“I can help,” Blake offered. “I can get the car companies in Knoxville to give us information without making us try to get a warrant, which we probably can’t get right now.”

“You’re right,” Colby agreed. “We probably couldn’t get a warrant. Do it. That sounds good.”

Blake jumped up and rolled his chair back to his desk. The sound of the keyboard clicking quickly followed.

“What about Marcia Knolls?” Colby said. “Are we not looking at her anymore?”

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