Page 95 of Won't Back Down

“Let me get this straight.” Chief Carson stared hard at me from across the table in the interrogation room. “You’re telling me that Roland O’Shea, member of the Kiwanis Club, volunteer at the church, and general upstanding member of the Sutter’s Ferry community, abducted and tried to kill you?”

Despite the anxiety twisting in my gut, I didn’t even flinch. I’d vowed to tell my truth. All of it. “Yes. You should find a bullet lodged in one of the trees not far from where his car was left, from where he shot at me when I managed to escape.”

“I’ll have my people look for it. And why, exactly, would he do this?”

“Because my memory is a threat.”

“Explain.”

Once the dam had cracked, I’d been able to remember a little bit more. “Twelve years ago, I left that bonfire with Gwen Busby. We went into the woods to the north of Osprey Beach. I don’t know why. I can’t remember that part. But while we were there, we were attacked. When I came to, I was on the beach and someone was arguing.” I repeated the details I could remember from the flashback.

“When Joe Anderson refused to kill me, Roland shot him.”

“You saw that?”

“I saw someone from behind. I didn’t know for sure it was Roland until he admitted it himself. Based on what he said tonight, I was never supposed to be there. Gwen was the target. Whose target, or for what, I don’t know. But we were both put on a boat. Roland told whoever else was there to take me out to sea and toss me overboard. That was how I ended up in the water that night. I wasn’t supposed to survive.”

Carson’s eyes narrowed. “If all this is true, why didn’t you come forward before?”

I’d expected this, so I was ready. “Chief Carson, I literally drowned. My heart stopped. If you’ll recall, I was in the hospital for quite some time after Sawyer rescued me. I didn’t remember anything at all around that night to begin with. And Roland apparently recommended that my parents send me to a psychiatrist he knew with a specialty in memory recovery.”

I told him the rest, about Collin Caswell and my two-year institutionalization, and all the efforts made to ensure I didn’t remember a damned thing.

“I didn’t remember for years. I couldn’t even go near the area without falling into a panic attack or a migraine. But once we found Joe Anderson’s remains, I guess that started unlocking things. I started deliberately pushing. It’s still not clear, but Roland assumed I’d remembered everything. That all the conditioning I’d been put through had been broken. I guess he started talking because he had no intention of letting me live. But I escaped.”

He listened without comment as I went through the last of it, all the way to the point where Triton charged him.

“That animal is a menace.”

“No. He was only defending his baby.” And me, but I didn’t think I needed to say anything else to challenge his willingness to suspend disbelief. “The horses are wild animals, and so long as they’re left alone, they don’t cause any problems. Roland was the one waving a gun around, threatening to kill them.”

Carson scrubbed a hand down his face, for once looking as old as his almost sixty years. “I don’t even know where to start with what to do with all this.”

“You start by digging into Roland O’Shea. He was working with someone. He said he was in charge of logistics. He referred to Gwen as a package. She was on that boat, and I think it’s not too far out there to assume she left here alive. To where or for what, I don’t know.” I’d had some time to think about it while the police had secured the scene. “It sounds a hell of a lot like she could have been trafficked. And I know that if that’s true, the likelihood of finding her is slim. But you have to try. This is the first lead we’ve had in years.”

I had to clamp down on the sudden surge of grief. If only I’d remembered sooner, when the trail was relatively fresh. Maybe they’d have been able to find something and bring her home.

The chief of police stared at me for a long time, and I was fully aware that the only reason he wasn’t investigating me was because I was a Sutter. Well, that and the fact that it was pretty hard to argue with the very clear hoof-shaped wounds all over what remained of Roland’s body and the gun with his prints that had been found nearby.

At last, he nodded. “I’ll look into it. I don’t know what there’s left to find after all this time, but I’ll sure as shit try. The Busbys deserve that.”

At least we could agree on something.

“You’re free to go, Miss Sutter. I’m sure I’ll be in touch as things move forward, but for now, go on home. You’ve had… an eventful night.”

There was little enough left of it, and all I wanted was to shower and fall face-first into bed.

I stepped out of the interrogation room. Sawyer shot up from the chair where he’d been waiting.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. “We can go now.”

His hand closed around mine, quieting the lingering unease from the prolonged questioning. I’d have more processing to do later, but for now, my brain had hit the point of overload, and I was on autopilot.

When we stepped out of the police station, I saw the sky was already beginning to lighten. It truly had been a long night. We walked through the quiet, empty streets of the village to where we’d left his truck a few blocks away.

“Did he give you any grief?”