She showed him the close-up photo of the letter opener. Again, his response was unexpected.
Reggie leaned in, turning his head so that his good eye could get a closer look. He studied the photograph. His gaze went to his desk, as if to search for the letter opener. He finally looked back up at Leigh. His head started shaking.
“No,” he said. “No-no-no.”
“You were at Maddy’s school Sunday night,” Leigh told him. “You saw me talking to Ruby Heyer. Did you tell Andrew about her? Is that why he had you kill her?”
“I—” Reggie coughed. The muscles along his jaw were spasming. For the first time, he looked afraid. “No. Not me. Told Andy she left her husband. Fucking her physical therapist. Moved to the hotel. But I didn’t—no. I wouldn’t. She was fine.”
Leigh asked, “You’re telling me that you followed Ruby Heyer to the hotel, then you told Andrew where she was, but you didn’t do anything else?”
“Right.” He kept looking at the photos. “Not me. Never.”
Leigh studied what was left of his face. She’d thought from the beginning that he was an easy read. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Reggie Paltz was showing Leigh the kind of fear that Andrew Tenant had never shown.
“Leigh.” Walter was picking up on it, too. “Are you sure?”
Leigh wasn’t sure of anything. Andrew was always three steps ahead. Had he gotten the drop on Reggie, too?
She told Reggie, “Even if what you’re saying is true, you’re still opening yourself up to a conspiracy to commit murder charge. You told an accused rapist how to locate a vulnerable woman who’d just left her family and was living on her own.”
Reggie winced as he tried to swallow down his terror.
She asked, “What about your story about how Andrew located me? You said that you showed him the Atlanta INtown article and he recognized my face. Is that true?”
He nodded quickly. “Yes. Promise. Saw the article. Showed it to him. He recognized you.”
“And he had you look into me and my family?”
“Yes. Paid me. That’s all.” Reggie looked at the crime scene photos again. “Not this. I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”
Leigh felt in her gut that he was being honest. She exchanged a look with Walter. They were both silently asking the same question—what now?
“The—” Reggie’s cough was wet. His eye turned toward the server closet. “On the ledge.”
Walter went to the door. He reached up to the top of the trim. He showed Leigh the padlock key. His eyes mirrored the apprehension that Leigh was feeling.
She didn’t need a siren in her gut to tell her this wasn’t right. She let herself think back over the last five minutes, then she ran through the last few days. Reggie had been willing to break a few laws for Andrew. Leigh could even believe that he would commit murder for the right sum of money. Where she got caught up was accepting that Reggie would commit this kind of murder. The brutality visited upon Ruby Heyer was clearly doled out by someone who enjoyed what they were doing. No sum of money could buy that level of frenzy.
She asked Reggie, “Did Andrew ask you to store some digital files for him?”
Reggie gave a single, painful nod.
“You were told to release them if something happened to him?”
Again, he managed to nod.
Leigh watched Walter twist the key into the padlock. He opened the door.
She had been expecting a large rack with flashing components, something out of a Jason Bourne movie. What she saw instead were two tan metal boxes sitting on top of a filing cabinet. Each was as tall and wide as a gallon of milk. Green and red lights flashed on the fronts. Blue cords snaked out of the backs and plugged into a modem.
She asked Reggie, “Did you look at the files?”
“No.” His neck strained as he tried to speak. “Paid me. That’s it.”
“They’re videos of a child being raped.”
Reggie’s eye went wide. He started shaking. Now his fear was unequivocal.
Leigh couldn’t tell if he was disgusted or terrified of the legal ramifications. Almost every pedophile the FBI had ever arrested claimed they had no idea that child porn was on their devices. Then they spent the next chunk of their lives in prison wondering if they should’ve tried a different excuse.
She asked Reggie, “What are you going to do?”
“There,” Reggie said, his head tilting toward the filing cabinet in the closet. “Top drawer. Back.”
Walter didn’t move. He was clearly exhausted. The adrenaline rush that had brought him to this place had ebbed away, only to be replaced by the horror he felt over his own violent actions.