Page 4 of Outlaw Ridge: Reed (Hard Justice: Outlaw Ridge #6)

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Reed sat at his desk in the bullpen and watched the dashcam feeds that’d come from the three cruisers that had been at the Garner house. Or rather he rewatched it.

Frame by frame.

Images of what had started as a routine callout for a domestic check and ended with, well, a shitstorm.

The dashcams had captured all their movements in and out of the house. And they’d recorded the final blast that had torn the place to smithereens. Soon, Reed would know just what kind of explosive device it’d taken for that to happen, but for now, the focus was on putting the pieces together.

Literally in some cases.

The bomb squad would be looking for any parts of the explosive so they could try to work out a signature to help ID and find who’d done this.

And the CSIs and ME’s teams were trying to get out the two bodies to confirm Walt’s remains and figure out who the female victim was.

Along with that, they’d perhaps find some other critical info to help with the investigation.

Good thing, too, because the crime scene had been blown up with the house. That was possibly why the killer had set the explosives in the first place, but Reed suspected it’d had more to do with attempting to murder Hallie.

And that shot raw anger through him.

Hallie had been through enough, and she’d done nothing to deserve this. Hell, the dead couple in the house likely hadn’t either. That made him want to find the asshole killer who had done this and make them pay and pay hard.

Of course, the first step was finding the asshole.

And that’s why he was reviewing the dashcam feeds.

He winced when he shifted in the chair and got a jab of pain. It felt as if his body had been beat to hell and back. And in a way it had been. He had too many bruises and nicks to count, but thankfully he’d need no stitches, and the EMTs had cleared him for duty.

It was the same for Hallie. No stitches and a green light to return to work.

And since he could see her—bruised and battered—in her office talking on the phone, he knew she was functioning and focusing on unraveling the shitstorm.

So was Owen. He was in there with her and making some calls of his own.

Declan, Shaw, and Marcie hadn’t been seriously injured either.

That was something at least. But Aaron was a whole different story.

His chest had been crushed by that damn beam that’d fallen on him, and he had broken ribs and other internal injuries.

He had come out of surgery to fix those injuries, but he was in critical condition and might not make it.

Yeah, Reed wanted the asshole responsible for this to pay for what had been done.

However, the answers that he needed weren’t on any of the cruiser dashcam feeds so he got up to head into the sheriff’s office to let Hallie and Owen know that. Hallie had just finished her phone call and the look on his face must have told her what he’d found.

Which was precisely zilch.

Owen was in the seating area to the side of the desk and continued his call, but he looked up, obviously also noting Reed’s expression because his frown deepened even more than it already was.

“That movement that we saw in the trees right before the explosion doesn’t show up on any of the cam feeds,” Reed spelled out. “Wrong angles. But I think we agree that it was a person wearing dark clothes and not some smear of smoke or dust coming from the house.”

Hallie nodded and looked as if she wanted to curse in frustration. Reed was right there with her. “A person is about all I can be sure of,” she admitted. “I didn’t see anything to help ID who it was.”

“Neither did I.” It’d only been a blink, less than a glimpse, and then all hell had broken loose with the second explosion. “What about you? Have you gotten anything?”

“No further update on Aaron. He’s still critical,” she said. And, hell, her voice sounded bruised up like the rest of her. “The bodies, or what’s left of them, have been recovered from the house and are on the way to the ME’s office. The bomb squad is doing their thing now.”

Both of the last two were good and necessary steps though it could be a slow process for both the bomb squad and the ME team. He refused to believe they might come up with zilch as well.

“The ME believes the body of the male victim is Walt,” Hallie added. “He’s met him a couple of times and says he’s pretty sure it is anyway.”

Not much of a surprise since it was Walt’s house, but considering this killer was playing some kind of game, it was also possible that he’d brought in two strangers to set up the scene.

Owen finished his call, put away his phone and got to his feet.

“I won’t ask again how you’re doing,” he grumbled and turned his attention to Hallie.

“Or you. I just wanted to come in and check on you and line up some resources from Strike Force in case they’re needed.

Hallie, I’ve added you as an authorized user to any and all resources, including extra personnel. ”

“Thanks,” Hallie muttered.

“No thanks needed. And you don’t need me here either,” Owen was quick to add. “I know you can handle whatever the heck this is. And you’ve got a damn good team. My suggestion is to use them. Call if you want my help or input.”

With that, Owen walked out.

The quick exit didn’t surprise Reed. Owen honored the chain of command, and with Hallie at the helm, it wouldn’t do for the old boss to be hanging around. Owen wanted that damn good team to look to Hallie and not him.

Hallie dragged in a long breath, then another. “You want to know who would do something like this.”

Yeah, he did, and he used the remote on the desk to turn on the digital evidence board. “While I was reviewing the cam feed, I went ahead and loaded in everything we have.”

Which wasn’t a lot. But Reed had included the info about the anonymous call, including the facts that it had come from a burner and wasn’t traceable.

There was also a picture of Walt Garner and his brief bio along with some photos of the crime scene.

Some Marcie had snapped, and there were others of the pile of house rubble after the explosion that Declan had taken.

Hallie studied what was on the board and then looked at her notes.

“I’ve contacted Walt’s next of kin, a distant cousin who lives in Houston, to let her know that Walt’s house was destroyed.

I didn’t tell her he was dead. I’ll wait on an ID confirmation on that.

But I did ask if she knew anything about his recent business or personal relationships.

She didn’t. In fact, she hasn’t seen him in years. ”

So, a dead end. “Declan struck out with Walt’s former business associates, too. No one has spoken to him in months. Shaw’s going through Walt’s phone records now, but so far, he’s not seeing any red flags.”

She sighed. And he knew why. If Walt wasn’t the target, then she was. Then again, they’d suspected that right from the moment they’d walked into the breakfast area and had seen the staged crime scene.

“So, I’m the next step,” she said, “and we go back through…everything to figure out who would want to punish or kill me.” Hallie groaned softly. “And the answer to that is any family or friends of my parents’ victims.”

“Have any of them specifically threatened you?” Reed came out and asked.

“Not recently.” She groaned again, and he could see this was tearing her to pieces.

Reed wanted to go to her, to pull her into his arms and try to comfort her.

The way he’d done after they’d learned that her parents were serial killers.

But back then, Hallie and he had been alone.

And on an equal footing. She hadn’t been his boss or the new sheriff who needed to look strong and tough.

Someone who could stand on her own, fight this shitstorm.

And win.

He had no doubts that Hallie could and would win, but the getting to a victory meant taking a trip into, well, hell.

So, instead of hugging her or attempting a you can do this pep talk, Reed went with a different kind of comfort attempt—he would get her focused on the investigation. He’d draw her into the cop mode, figuring that was the best medicine for her right now.

For him, too.

“Give me a name,” he threw out there. “Don’t overthink it. Just blurt out a name of someone who could have done this.”

“Jay Warrington,” Hallie said without hesitation.

Reed knew that name. Knew the dickhead it belonged to, and he used his phone app to add it to the board. Within a couple of seconds, there was a photo and a brief background of the dickhead.

“Jay Warrington, forty-six,” he read aloud, noting the man’s address was still in San Antonio, about a half hour away from Outlaw Ridge. “Former detective at SAPD. Dismissed from duty ten years ago.” He stopped. “Is that asshole still blaming you for his being fired?”

“He is,” Hallie verified. “Jay hates me and thinks I basically screwed him over so he’d get fired and I could step into his job.”

Reed huffed. “I was there, remember. Jay screwed himself over by botching a surveillance operation of the serial killers where he tried to go in and make an arrest to get the glory.”

Instead, Jay’s unauthorized interruption had allowed Tami and Kip the chance to escape, and that had given the murdering duo a chance to try to kill Hallie and him as they’d tracked them down.

“Jay’s threatened you?” Reed asked.

“Not in a way I can prove. He’s run into me on the street a couple of times.” She put run into me in quotes. “And he does frequent posts on social media. He’s let me know that he thinks I’m a lying, scheming bitch who tipped off my parents so they could evade him when he went in to arrest them.”

“That’s a convenient delusional spin on things,” Reed said. “Guess he doesn’t mention that he was running a rogue investigation that disrupted the authorized one we already had in place.”