Page 36
“Had the rest.”
I wait. If both men are known and the product has been located, there would be no reason for me to be sitting here.
Mathias reads the question in my gaze and says, “Milo was handled first thing yesterday morning, then we set Wade up with who he believed was another buyer.”
“Who went?”
“Rossi.”
I know Rossi. He’s competent, maybe not exceptional, but he’s not a man who makes many mistakes.
“Did he recover the product?”
“Most of it. Wade had started cutting into four of the packages, sold one, and God knows what happened to the sixth. Quillan’s people are tracing that.”
“Then what needs fixing?”
“Wade brought somebody.”
I lean forward. “Partner?”
“Doesn’t look that way.”
“Buyer?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Mathias exhales slowly. “That took longer to answer than it should have.” He pushes the folder across the polished wood toward me.
“Rossi see him?” I ask, pulling the folder closer, my thumb brushing over its smooth surface.
“No.”
“Then how do we know?”
“The warehouse across from the meeting lot has exterior CCTV. The property owner installed it after people kept dumping stolen cars there.”
I open the folder. The first image is grainy—a still from an aging surveillance camera. A skinny figure walks across the lot next to Wade Garrett. He wears a black sweatshirt, faded jeans, his blond hair plastered to his forehead. Even through the distortion, I see the way he hugs himself, trying not to take up space, shoulders curled inward, arms locked at his sides.
I turn the page. The young man disappears behind crates and dumpsters as Wade leans against the side of his truck. “Wade hid him? Why?”
“No idea. Maybe he didn’t want the buyer seeing him. Maybe the kid asked. Rossi didn’t even know anybody else was there.”
The third image shows nothing but the lot.
The fourth is the kid running.
He tears across the edge of the frame, head down, body angled forward like he’s fighting a strong wind, one hand clamped over his mouth as if holding back a scream.
“So he saw it,” I say softly, my own voice sounding distant.
“That’s our assumption.”
“Rossi shot Wade?”
Mathias gives a single, slow nod.
