End Game (Will Robie 5)

“Well, like you said before, we don’t really know the man that well.”

“Who really knows anybody these days?” countered Reel.

“You got that right,” retorted Robie, drawing a quick stare from Reel. But he wasn’t looking at her.

He walked over to the single-car garage and peered through the window. The garage was now empty. “I would imagine they took the car away when they investigated the deaths.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine coming home and finding my parents dead by their own hand.”

“It might explain why Blue Man never married.”

“He wanted to marry Claire,” Robie pointed out.

“True.”

The front door was locked. Robie took out her pick tools and it no longer was.

“He left the furniture,” noted Robie.

The front room had a couch, two chairs, and a battered coffee table.

They passed through into the kitchen. Plates and glasses were still in cabinets. A framed picture of the Rocky Mountains was on one wall.

Robie tried the kitchen faucet and water came out. “They have to be on a well. No water lines out here. Septic, too. Looks fresh and clean. He’s probably paid someone to maintain it all.”

He tried a light switch. It came on. “Place has juice, too.”

“So he must be paying the utility bill.”

Robie opened the door to the garage, and both gazed at the spot where the car would have been with the two dead people inside it.

Robie glanced at Reel, but she didn’t look at him.

They took the stairs up and encountered one bathroom. The fixtures were all from decades ago but the sink and toilet worked.

One bedroom they entered had a bed and an empty closet.

“He obviously cleaned out their closets,” observed Robie.

“And no pictures on the walls or furniture. He must have taken those, too.”

There was only one other bedroom up here. The bed was still in this one, too. And under the bed was a large wooden box.

Robie slid it out, put it on the bed, and opened it. He took out a number of faded athletic trophies and frayed first-place ribbons.

They all had Roger Walton’s name on them.

“He was a high school sports star,” noted Robie.

Reel looked over the items with amazement. “I just thought he was this big brain. I never saw him as an athlete.”

There was a scrapbook in the box. Reel lifted it out and opened it.

On the yellowed pages was basically a chronicle of a youthful Roger Walton’s achievements in Grand, Colorado.

“He made the local paper a lot,” noted Robie. “For sports. And he was high school valedictorian and the damn prom king. He captained the debate team. And this clip is about him accepting a full ride to Stanford.”

“It’s a wonder he had time to sleep,” observed Reel.

“I don’t think he sleeps as an adult,” replied Robie.

“Why do you think he left all this stuff behind?”

“I’m no shrink, but maybe it has something to do with preserving his life here. I mean, the one he has in DC couldn’t be more different from what he has here. Maybe he uses it to balance his life out. Probably why he keeps coming back. To his roots.”

“Robie, he never talked about his life here. Even the DCI didn’t know about this stuff. It would have been in the briefing book.”

“Did you ever talk about your life to him?” he asked. “I never talked about mine.”

“That’s true. But he obviously worked his ass off for all this. Why not be proud of it?”

“Maybe he had a reason. Blue Man always has a reason for everything.”

Reel pointed a finger at a picture on the page in the scrapbook. “And she was the prom queen. I can still make out the names at the bottom.”

They both stared at a decades-old photo of Claire.

“She was a knockout,” observed Robie. “I could definitely see why Blue Man would have fallen for her.”

“Well, there were limits to their feelings for each other. She wouldn’t leave and he wouldn’t stay. Game over.”

Robie looked at her curiously. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” replied Reel, staring at him.

For some reason Robie felt like they were no longer talking about Blue Man.

The next moment they heard the front door open, and footsteps followed as someone came into the house.

Reel and Robie pulled their guns. Robie pointed to the window while he edged over to the door.

Reel peered out the window. “It’s a cop car. Malloy’s.”

A moment later they heard the sheriff call out to them. They headed down the stairs and met her at the bottom.

“Find anything?” she asked, looking around.

Robie said, “An old scrapbook, a bunch of trophies.”

“And no Roger Walton,” added Reel.

“He owns the place and keeps it up, but Claire Bender said she doesn’t think he ever comes here. He must pay someone local to keep it clean.”

“But I don’t see what all this has to do with what happened to Roger Walton. He was obviously not here when he was taken.”

Robie shrugged. “We’re just collecting intelligence. And we can’t rule out the possibility that his disappearance is tied to something in his past.”

Malloy said, “You’re not believing what Zeke Donovan said—”

Robie cut her off. “No, I’m not,” he said, glancing at Reel because she had raised this same point earlier. “But it could be something else. He was the local town hero and then went off to college and then on to DC. Maybe somebody here was jealous of him. And decades later decided to do something about it. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Malloy thought about this for a few moments. “I can check into that. See if anyone here was holding a grudge.”

He handed her the scrapbook. “You might want to start with this. Maybe somebody from high school?”

Malloy took the scrapbook and then looked at Reel. “Where’d you learn to shoot?”

“Wherever I could,” said Reel curtly. “And keep those two morons locked up. For their safety.”

She walked out the front door.

Malloy glanced at Robie. “She always so friendly?”

“You should catch her on a bad day.”

Then Robie walked out, too.

Chapter

17

IT WAS NIGHT and Robie couldn’t sleep.

It was getting to be a frustrating pattern.