Page 48 of Jack
“Yes. And that’s when I picked up the case and stopped studying for the bar exam.”
He said it quickly, easily, as if it weren’t a knife to his soul.
“And after that—the trip to Iowa to visit her family, and then you finding her car by the side of the road at a Minnesota rest area. The interview with a couple OTR truckers who saw her car there that morning, smoking. Did the movie get it right?”
“Yeah. I finally got the footage from the rest-area cameras, identified the trucker who picked her up.”
“The movie had you tracking down the trucker.”
“Nice guy. He brought her to a nearby town, where she got a tow-truck operator to pick up her car. Then she went to a local café to eat, and from there?—”
“Vanished again.”
“Yeah. Took me two weeks to figure out that she’d gone to meet with a witness. She was working for a law firm as a clerk, and I’m not sure why she went to talk to Hinkle, but she met him at the diner, then went back to his farm, where he showed her the radiation poisoning to his cows.”
“Which eventually killed Hinkle.”
“Yeah. I talked with him before he died. He filled in the blanks of how she went to the nuclear plant, got inside with the help of a local security guard, got samples, and was all set to deliver them to officials when she was caught.”
“The movie ends with her running for her life through the woods in the dark.”
“Actually, it ends with me—or my character—finding her body at the bottom of the cliff, but with the evidence intact. She saved lives.”
“So did you, by finding her.”
Her words found raw places inside, scraped up by the story. “Yeah. I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t gone for that run . . .”
“Jack. You have to forgive yourself.”
He had turned into the Moonlight parking lot. Eight years since Sabrina’s death, and he didn’t have a clue whatforgive yourselfmeant.
Now he just looked at Harper and must have worn his thoughts on his face, because she reached out and touched his arm. Sweetly. Like they were friends.
“Just saying that maybe the professional nice guy deserves some grace.”
He glanced at her touch, heating his entire body, then blew out a breath. She let him go, and he unstrapped his seatbelt. “Let’s find your friend.” He got out and headed for the supper club.
Julian rose from his desk when he spotted them. “I talked with Marcus. He pulled up the footage and found your friend.” He came around and led them back through the building, past the ballroom, the coat-check closet, and the dining room, all the way to a locked room, where he knocked.
A man answered, military vibe, built, and stuck out his hand to Jack. “Marcus Alvarez.”
Jack introduced himself and Harper. “What did you find?”
“I pulled it up for you.” The office held flatscreens with multiple cameras, a few rolling chairs, and in the next room, an office with a conference table, a whiteboard.
Now, Marcus offered Harper a chair and she took it. Jack stood behind her, arms akimbo.
The center flatscreen held a still picture of a woman getting into a white Toyota Camry. Definitely Penelope, dressed in that all-white outfit, the oversized man’s jacket.
“Is that someone in the car already?” Harper leaned forward, and Marcus enlarged the screen. Hard to tell.
“Any shot of the license plate?”
“I already got that.” Marcus handed him a piece of paper. “I ran the plate. That’s definitely Ty Bowman’s car.”
“Play the footage,” Jack said.
Marcus pushed play, and Jack watched as Penelope got into the vehicle and closed the door. It drove off-screen, darkness, the red lights flashing, then disappeared into the night.