Agent Ren Bryce Thriller Series Books 1-3: Blood Runs Cold, Time of Death, Blood Loss

He smiled. ‘Phew.’ He looked past her.

Diaz was slumped in his chair, his head turned toward the back wall. His left pants leg was wet and there was a small pool under his foot.

Bob glanced at Ren. ‘If you’ve eaten his face …’

She looked back at Diaz, then leaned into Bob’s ear. ‘Much worse than that … Just call me Theseus.’

‘Who the fuck is Theseus?’

Ren smiled. ‘The guy who slayed the Minotaur.’

Bob frowned, then called into the prisoner, ‘Diaz, you ready?’

‘Get me a towel or something,’ said Diaz in Spanish. ‘Let me clean myself up.’

‘Let him clean himself up first,’ said Ren.

‘I’ll call maintenance.’ Bob walked back down to the control room. ‘Hey, you need me to send someone in to look at that camera?’ He knew the answer.

‘No. It came back just as you got here.’

Chapter 42 (#u8bb60e53-87b4-54e1-a600-62c12d8c99b9)

Ren spent an afternoon under the shadow of Mark Wilson. The file was more than just a distraction. She knew it had come her way for a reason. Misty’s job the day before had been to clear her hangover and see if she could pick up the scent of a body that may have been overlooked in the search. She succeeded in fifty per cent of her task.

Mike Delaney was dragging file boxes from behind his office door and piling them up behind his desk.

‘I think they were hidden better behind the door,’ said Ren.

‘Ah,’ said Mike, ‘maybe from people coming in to the room. The loser behind the desk had to look at them all day. Until today. I have decided to keep my problems behind me for a little while.’

Ren smiled. ‘It could be a self-fulfilling-prophecy thing.’

‘I hope so.’

‘I was wondering – being the mountain man that you are – would you have a map of the whole area at the base of Quandary Peak and out the road toward Fairplay?’

‘Sure,’ said Mike. He opened one of the drawers in his desk, checked through a few maps and handed her one.

‘Thanks,’ said Ren. She went back to her office, opened it out and laid it on the table. It covered a wider area than the previous maps she had been looking at. Or getting the guys to look at and report back to me on.

There was a tract of land on the map between the Brockton Filly and Fairplay that had no name or reference number but was marked as private property. Ren went back in to Mike.

‘Mike,’ she said, ‘do you know what this is here? Is it anything?’

He looked where she was pointing. ‘It’s the old Barger Brewery.’

‘Like Charlie Barger Barger?’

‘Yup.’

‘How does a doctor wind up with a brewery?’ said Ren.

‘It started out as his father’s. Charlie’s father, Emil, set up one of the first breweries in town. Have you been to Big Mountain Brewery?’

‘Yup.’

‘They still sell Lime Beer there. It’s a Barger beer – Emil backward. I’m guessing he was kind of a dork. But the beer is good.’

‘Oh, so it’s not because it tastes of lime,’ said Ren.

‘No, but Big Mountain Brewery gets a kick out of confusing the customers.’

‘So BMB used to be owned by Emil Barger?’

‘Kind of,’ said Mike. ‘Emil Barger started brewing his own beer in his garage when he retired. This was the late seventies. Anyway, he can’t help himself and, within a year, he had bought that place off McCullough Gulch Road. I guess you’d call it a micro-brewery. Two years on, it’s huge, it’s the Barger Brewery, supplying to a lot of the bars around town, and people are loving it. Emil passes away, leaves the brewery to Charlie who, sadly, runs it into the ground. The brand was bought out and it became Big Mountain Brewery. Charlie got to hang on to the building and land. BMB, as you know, has premises just on the edge of town.’

‘Jesus,’ said Ren, ‘his father’s got the Midas touch, Charlie’s got the everything-he-touches-turns-to-shit thing. The guy in the Welcome Center told me about the Bargers owning half of Breck. And I’m guessing that’s not the case any more.’

‘I don’t know, Ren … I’d rather not … Charlie’s a friend.’

‘I understand that. And I don’t want you to betray anything or anyone. But it’s in plain sight that his house is run down and his daughter has a touch of the meth face.’

Mike looked at her.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ren. ‘I shouldn’t have said it that way. But there is a sadness about that house.’ A terrible, cloying, sadness.

Mike let out a breath. ‘OK – Shannon Barger is a meth addict. And Charlie’s in debt. He has been bailing that little bitch – God forgive me – out since she was sixteen years old.’

‘Sixteen? How old is she now?’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘Oh my God, I thought she was, like, over forty.’

He nodded. ‘It’s very sad. She’s been to rehab a dozen times.’

‘And he’s a doctor,’ said Ren. ‘That’s gotta hurt.’

‘And the son of a very successful man, a war hero, an athlete, one of the founding fathers here … He owns nothing of what his father built up, and everyone knows it. Apart from the house –’

‘That used to be the Cheapshot Inn –’

‘Yup, which obviously didn’t go too well.’

‘No.’

‘He told me he’s thinking of starting the brewery again,’ said Mike. ‘Of making money that way.’