The Dollmaker(The Forgotten Files #2)(60)

“I didn’t say drugs.”

Sharp rose, crushing the soda can in his hand. “You are now wasting my time. Better get a good lawyer.”

“Wait. Don’t rush out of here.” Dillon’s cuffed hands trembled as he dug his fingernail into the cup. “Some woman who works in the medical building. She said her name was Frances, but I think she was lying. She acted like she’d done this before. She told me she had some goods for me to deliver.”

“How’d she find you?”

Dillon dug his thumbnail into the cup’s rim. “We’re from a small town. It didn’t take long for word to get around I was out and back in town, holding court in my favorite bar. Everyone in town knew why I’d been sent away.”

“How did Terrance get looped into this?”

“While I was away—”

“Away in prison,” Sharp interjected.

“Yeah. Away. Terrance wrote to me. It’s natural for a boy to write his father, right? I wrote to him. It’s always good to have contacts on the outside. Anyway, Terrance and I reconnected. When I got out, I looked him up a couple of weeks ago just after I met with Frances.”

“When did you decide to get the kid to do the delivery?”

“I don’t know.”

Sharp sat back in his chair, setting the crushed can in front of him. “So you tell your kid that you have a job for him. He can make a quick buck and no one gets hurt.”

“Yeah, basically. I told him he’d make more in one night than he did working a month at that crappy maintenance job he’d worked over the summer.” Dillon turned and looked at the camera and then the deputy. “Do I need my attorney?”

“I’m not here to bust you on drug charges, Mr. Dillon,” Sharp said softly. “Or for stealing your son’s identity and taking out credit cards in his name. I’m looking for your son’s killer.”

Dillon stared at the now-tattered edge of the cup, his expression tightening. “Is my boy really dead? This isn’t some kind of con?”

“Like I said, I don’t play those kind of games. Who was your buyer?”

Dillon frowned, clearly weighing the potential consequences of his son’s murder. “I really don’t know. That’s the point. Nobody knows nobody.”

Sharp drummed his pen against his pad. “How did you contact this mystery buyer?”

Dillon blew out a breath and glanced again at the camera beaming on them. “I didn’t. Frances left me a burner phone. I was supposed to get a call and get a drop location.”

Sharp leaned forward, producing a smile he suspected was more feral than friendly. “If I find out this is bullshit, I’ll make it my personal mission to put you in prison for the rest of your life.”

Dillon held up his hands. “Don’t tense up. I’m being straight with you.”

Sharp sat very still.

“Okay, I called the seller. I told her I wanted more money. I figured I had her by the short hairs, so to speak, and she’d have no other choice than to pay more.”

“What did she say?”

Dillon’s cuffs clinked as he sat back and rested his hands in his lap. “She was pissed. But she knows how business like this goes. There’s always a surprise. She said she’d call me back. Five minutes later she said the buyer was willing to pay more.”

“You looked in the bag, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I did.”

“What kind of drugs were they?”

“I don’t know. I don’t ask.”

“You had an idea. A guy like you is smart enough to know what he’s dealing so he knows the value. What kind of drug was it?”

“It was enough to keep someone under for a long time.”

“You’re not helping, Jimmy. We both know a lot of drugs can do that.”

“You need an IV to make it work.”

“Okay. Now we are getting somewhere. How much did you sell?”

“A month’s worth, maybe. I don’t know.”

Weeks? Diane Richardson had been drugged for weeks via IV. Could a connection to Diane Richardson’s killer be this easy? “Are you talking about propofol?”

“Yeah. That sounds right.”

Propofol could put a patient into a deep state of sleep and render the recipient totally immobile. Diane’s killer would have needed it or a similar drug to work on her face.

“Why did you decide to use Terrance for the transaction?”

“Seemed safer that way. All the kid knew was he was selling a bag. I told him to make the exchange and bring me the money. It was an easy job.”

“The kid didn’t question you?”

“It took a little convincing at first, but I got him to agree.”

“You had no idea who was on the other end of this deal?”

“I only communicated directly with him once.”

Sharp simply waited.

Dillon tugged at his collar. “By phone. Frances gave me a number to call after our renegotiation. I called and we spoke. He was okay with the new price, and we set up the meet.”

“So you sent Terrance because you got a bad vibe about the caller, right?”

“It’s a vibe I get. I’ve learned not to ignore it.”