Chương 8
"Understood, Deputy," I replied. "My driver’s license and retired military ID are in the leather bifold in my breast pocket."
Harris reached around, his fingers cautious, and slid the wallet from my canvas jacket. He flipped it open under the fluorescent tube above the counter.
He didn't read it out loud. He didn't have to. The red stripe across the Department of Defense card identified my rank as Master Gunnery Sergeant. The service number and the thirty-year retirement credential told him everything else.
Behind us, Marcus Vance stood up from where he had been standing over his fighter. He had picked up a dry towel and held it against his chest like an apron. His cropped gray beard was stiff with sweat.
"Deputy Harris," Vance called out, his voice cutting through Boyd’s heavy breathing.
Harris looked over his shoulder. "Stay where you are, Mr. Vance."
"I’m staying," Vance said. He pointed a thick, scarred index finger toward the rear corridor that led to the utility closets and the private offices. "The office door is unlocked. The digital video recorder is a four-channel Lorex system sitting on the steel credenza behind the desk. It’s got a sixteen-terabyte hard drive. It records continuously at thirty frames a second."
Boyd turned on Vance like a dog snapping at a heel. "Marcus, you shut your traitorous mouth! I pay your salary! I bought the car you drove here in!"
"You bought a certified pre-owned Dodge with two hundred thousand miles on the block, Boyd," Vance said, his eyes hard and cold. "And I don't work for you anymore. You can mail my last check to the VFW hall in Beaufort."
Vance turned back to Harris. "The cameras caught everything. Sloane Mercer walked in here with her hands in her pockets. She didn't raise a finger until Colt closed the distance, put his hands on her, and threatened her family. She used standard defensive redirection. Colt escalated with an overhand right. If she hadn't put him down, he would have killed her on that mat."
"That's a lie!" Boyd yelled, lunging toward Vance before Harris stepped between them, his left forearm coming up hard against Boyd’s chest.
"Back up, Mr. Lusk!" Harris barked, his patience completely shredded. "Miller! Get the key to the back office from Mr. Vance and go secure that hard drive right now. Pull the power cord from the wall. Nobody touches the machine until Detective Strand gets here from Morehead City."
"Yes, sir," Miller said, standing up from Colt and moving briskly past Boyd toward the back hall.
Boyd stood there, chest heaving under his tailored wool suit, looking from the deputy to the locked cuffs around my wrists, and then down at his nephew, who was being tended to by two terrified nineteen-year-old sparring partners who had finally gathered the courage to bring over a clean roll of paper towels.
The car dealer’s eyes narrowed into tiny, poisonous slits.
"You think this is over, Sloane?" he whispered, leaning toward me over the reception desk, his voice dropping into a low, vicious rattle that didn't carry past the three of us. "You think you're going to walk out of here on some self-defense claim because you've got a military card and some dusty manuals with your name on the cover?"
"The law applies to people who sell pickup trucks, Boyd," I said quietly, not turning my head. "Even in Carteret County."
Boyd laughed. It was a dry, hollow rattle that sounded like dry husks in an autumn wind.
"The law is a telephone call, sweetheart," Boyd said. "And I made mine five minutes before I walked through those double doors."
Outside, the first wail of sirens began cutting through the coastal fog, coming fast down Highway 70 from the direction of the bridge. The flashing red and blue strobes painted the large plate-glass windows of the gym, reflecting off the crimson neon sign above the door.
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Two Carteret County Sheriff's cruisers pulled up over the curb, followed immediately by an ambulance from the municipal fire station.
The front doors were kicked wide, and four paramedics rushed inside pushing a collapsible Stryker gurney, their medical bags slapping against their thighs. Within seconds, the quiet of the gym was obliterated by the professional clutter of trauma response: the ripping of Velcro splints, the hiss of portable oxygen canisters, the sharp commands of an EMT calling out blood pressure numbers over the low thrum of the building's ventilation system.
