Pescoli stared at the image impatiently at first, then leaned closer. It was a photo from one of the traffic cameras in the city. In the shot, a white van was streaking by, two people inside the cab. “Carnie Tibalt’s van?” she guessed, her pulse speeding up.
“Looks like it, though the plate is obscured.”
“The driver. Son of a bitch. That’s Verdago!” For the first time in days, she felt a surge of excitement. Finally, some of their hard work was paying off. “Where was this taken?” she demanded, noting the camera location.
“North of town, at the junction heading into the mountains.” Sage folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the door. “On the road that leads up into the hills, the main county line where all the spurs break off.”
“Toward Elk Basin,” Pescoli said, already ahead of her.
“That dead-end road where the judge’s cabin is.”
“Monarch,” Pescoli said, but her mind was scrambling ahead. If Vincent Samuels was at the cabin, maybe that’s where his old buddy Maurice Verdago was heading. “Take a look at this,” she told Zoller as she pushed aside her half-drunk coffee and soft drink, and flipped through several maps she’d printed off the Internet. After all of the dead ends with Grayson’s ex-wives and searching for a disgruntled boyfriend of the judge, she finally could see the path. “Here we go,” she said, a thrill of adrenaline tickling her blood.
Laying the map flat, she pointed to a red dot she’d inked on the map. “Monarch Drive. This is where the judge’s cabin is, where she was staying.” Moving her finger due north, she stopped at another red spot. “And here’s where the judge’s body was found.”
“Got it. But over here”—she moved her finger west a little bit—“here’s where Vincent Samuels’s more rustic cabin is.”
The three points created a perfect triangle.
“Accessed by this same road where Verdago was heading.”
“With his girlfriend.” Picking up the soda, she chewed thoughtfully on the protruding straw.
“So where’s Vincent Samuels?”
“With them? In the back of the van? Dead?” The possibilities were endless, but Pescoli was beginning to believe the answers to the entire case were hidden in that cabin, holed up with Verdago and his girlfriend.
“Let’s go find out.”
“With backup, right?” Sage said.
“You come with Watershed or Rule or whoever’s available. I’ll get Alvarez. The important thing is to not go in guns blazing. We don’t want to scare them off. They might already be spooked if they’ve realized they got caught by the traffic cam.”
“Right.”
“So we’ll go in softly, check the situation out, and if it pans out and we think we’ve got them, we’ll call for the team.” Kicking her chair back, Pescoli was on her feet and reaching for her sidearm and shoulder holster.
“Aren’t you going to run this by the sheriff?”
“The sheriff is unavailable right now, in the hospital.”
Zoller shot her a look. “I was talking about—”
“Brewster, I know, but he’s out of the office too. Another meeting.” She snapped the holster into place.
“He’s gone more than he’s here,” Zoller said.
“Politics.” And Cort Brewster reveled in them, in the power. In the few days he’d been appointed the acting sheriff, he’d taken his administrative duties to heart, the part of the job Grayson detested. God, she wished Grayson would improve, show some sign of returning. “I’ll get Alvarez. We were about to go see Samuels anyway.”
“I’ll find a partner,” Sage said.
“Where are you going?” a male voice asked from outside the open door.
Damn!
Pescoli ran a litany of swear words through her mind as she recognized Manny Douglas, wearing his signature parka as well as his ever-present smirk, hovering just outside the door.
“How’d you get in here?” she demanded. She didn’t need the press. Not now. Not when she felt the case could finally be breaking.