Watcher in the Woods (Rockton #4)(50)

I remember standing at his bedside, ready to walk away. If I hadn’t realized the bottle was empty? If I hadn’t spotted the foam on his lips? I don’t want to think about that. I’m just glad that I did.

I’m by Paul’s bedside when he wakes. Dalton tried to get me to go home and sleep. I refused. That’s not just guilt. It’s the very real possibility—likelihood even—that guilt is what drove Paul to take those pills. Guilt over what he’d done. There’s no other reason for him to decide this is the time to commit suicide. He tried to kill Garcia, and when he failed, instead of making a second attempt, he tried to take his own life before Garcia woke and named him.

I’m dozing there, in a chair. Dalton’s asleep in the one beside me. We’ve moved Garcia’s body into the front room. I know how callous that sounds, stashing his corpse here and there, but we’ve had no time to do anything else.

“C-Casey?”

Paul’s groggy voice wakes me. I get to my feet and move to his bed. He’s trying to prop himself up. He accidentally tugs against the IV line and follows it, blinking at the drip bag in confusion.

“Wh—where—what—?”

“Paul, I need to ask you a question.”

I don’t ask whether he feels up to answering. Down south, I’d have to do that. I’d need to read him his rights. I’d need to give him the option of not speaking without a lawyer present. None of that counts here. He’s still dopey from the drugs, and he could very well say something that incriminates himself, and I am okay with that.

“Do you remember what happened?” I ask. “Do you remember taking the sleeping pills?”

His eyes half shut, shame darkening his face, telling me there’s no chance someone force fed those pills to him.

“You were attempting to take your own life, yes?” I say.

He nods.

“Because of something you’d done.”

Another nod.

“Do you want to tell me about that?”

“He—the marshal. He’s here for me. For what I did. It was a Federal offense, and he’s a Federal agent.”

“So you shot him.”

Paul’s eyes round. “What?”

“You’re the one who answered the radio. You knew we were bringing him in, and he’d tell us it was you, so you shot him.”

“N-no. No.” He pushes up onto his elbows. “At that time, I figured he’d already told you it was me. There was no point doing anything. Not that I would have anyway. When you called, I ran and got Will. Then I heard the marshal got shot and . . .” Paul swallows. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad. But when you said he’d pull through, that gave me time to think about it. Really think about it. I realized I couldn’t go back. I committed a Federal offense, and then I fled the country. I was going to jail for a very long time. I . . . I couldn’t do that. So I took the pills.”

He goes quiet. I’m ready to ask something else when he blurts, “Can I speak to him?”

“Hmm?” I say, my mind elsewhere.

“The marshal. May I speak to him? Maybe if I do that—if I talk to him, if I explain—we can work something out. I know, I should have thought of that before I swallowed a bottle of pills, but I panicked. I didn’t see any other option.”

“What’s he want you for?” Dalton’s voice comes from behind me, and I turn to see him awake, straightening in his chair.

“Tell us about this federal offense you committed,” Dalton says.

Dalton knows Paul’s official story. He doesn’t say that, though—he wants to hear it from Paul.

“It was a really stupid mistake,” Paul says. “And it’s a long story.”

“From the beginning,” Dalton says.

Paul swallows and nods. “Okay. It began on my lunch hour. I worked in Manhattan. Sales. Boring as hell, but it paid the bills. I was thirty-four. Divorced for a year. No kids. So I was just kind of plodding along in life. Waiting for things to get better but not doing anything to make them better. I was coming back from lunch, alone, with my headphones on, when this girl falls right in front of me. I look up and see a guy coming at her. A scrawny kid, looked like he just crawled from an alley. I used to play quarterback in high school, kept it up with a few hours in the gym each week. So I fend him off. Turns out I was so lost in my music that I walked straight into the middle of a protest. It was Manhattan. Honestly, you learn to ignore them. Anyway, she was a protester, and that’s why this Neo-Nazi creep went after her. I stayed to make sure she got help. The next day, she called to thank me and asked me out for coffee. I said yes. Hell, yes.”

He pauses and looks up at me. “Did I mention it’s a long story?”

“Keep going,” Dalton says.

“So, fast forward a year. We’ve been dating, and I’m crazy about her. Sure, Cindy’s too young for me—twenty-four—but I’m still smarting from my divorce, and this is the ego boost I need. She’s cute and smart and sweet, and I’m smitten. She’s also into social activism. Really into it. So I’m right in there with her. It’s like when I met my wife, and she was a dog trainer, and all of a sudden, I was the biggest dog lover ever. And it wasn’t like Cindy and I had different political views in general. So I was right in there with her, protesting so much shit I had to set reminders for myself. Tuesday is animal rights, Saturday is pro-choice, and make sure I grab the right sign for each, ‘cause screwing that up is really embarrassing.”