Chapter 7 - THE QUARRY
DNA confirmation took time.
Tyler’s mother waited twelve years.
Another few weeks felt cruel.
But science didn’t care about emotional urgency.
The remains were Tyler’s.
His death became an active homicide investigation.
That did not mean Vance was automatically guilty.
Caleb’s testimony placed Tyler alive with him.
The mileage records placed Vance near the quarry.
Vance’s statement at our house raised suspicion.
But suspicion wasn’t a conviction.
Then forensic examination found an old metal fragment near Tyler’s remains.
Part of a handcuff chain.
The serial markings were damaged.
Not useless.
Records showed the sheriff’s department had replaced several sets of cuffs after 2014.
One set had been reported “lost during field operations.”
Assigned deputy:
Raymond Vance.
The walls tightened.
Vance’s attorney stopped him from talking.
Good attorney.
Smart decision.
Gordon started talking instead.
Self-preservation is powerful.
He admitted paying Vance for years.
Not in 2014.
Later.
He claimed Vance approached him.
Vance offered protection from inspections.
Gordon expanded the scheme.
Then Halcyon entered the picture.
Military freight made the profits bigger.
The risk grew too.
That was when my name appeared.
Gordon said Vance suggested framing me.
“Why Logan?” investigators asked.
Gordon laughed.
“Because Vance hated him.”
Personal resentment had contaminated financial crime.
That helped explain why the scheme became reckless.
Amelia gave formal testimony.
She admitted approving false invoices.
Her attorney negotiated around her cooperation.
She might still face professional consequences.
She accepted that.
One night she came home and placed her wedding ring on the kitchen table.
I stared at it.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you leaving?”
“I don’t know.”
I hated those words.
But she deserved to use them.
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
“Because love isn’t the problem.”
She sat opposite me.
“I lied to you for eleven years.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“No.”
She flinched.
I continued.
“But I want to.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
We sat in silence.
Then she said:
“When Vance poured that milkshake over you, I hated myself.”
“Why?”
“Because for one second I was twenty-six again.”
I waited.
“I wanted to make him happy so he would stop.”
Her voice shook.
“So I attacked you.”
I looked at the ring.
“Amelia.”
“I need to know whether I’m staying married because I choose you or because I’m afraid of another life falling apart.”
That hurt.
It was also honest.
She moved into her sister’s house.
Not forever.
No promise.
Space.
Meanwhile, Nora gave investigators another piece.
Her husband had mailed something to himself before his death.
A sealed envelope stored in a post-office box Nora didn’t know existed.
Inside was a photocopy of a freight ledger.
And a photograph.
Vance standing beside Gordon.
Between them stood a third man.
Halcyon Tactical’s regional vice president.
Robert Kane.
On the back Nora’s husband had written:
Kane says military inspector is handled.
The photograph was dated two months before I joined the review team.
Someone inside the military investigation had been compromised before I ever arrived.
May you like
The frame around me wasn’t only local.
And whoever “handled” the military inspector might still be inside my own chain of command.
