Chapter 10 - Owen Broke First
Owen contacted Detective Sloan on day five.
Attorney beside him.
He wanted to cooperate.
Not because conscience woke in a flash.
Because Celia and Grant had started blaming him.
Texts:
CELIA:
You drove.
GRANT:
If this goes bad, driver is the one who left scene.
OWEN:
You pushed her.
GRANT:
Prove it.
That frightened him.
Cowardice finally became useful.
Owen admitted he knew they intended to pressure me.
He knew deed was in van.
He knew Grant had said:
“She doesn’t get out until she signs.”
He claimed he did not know Grant would throw me from moving vehicle.
Maybe.
Then:
“Why didn’t you stop?”
“I was scared.”
“Of Grant?”
“Yes.”
“Of losing money?”
Long silence.
“Yes.”
He had been promised $500,000.
Detective Sloan asked:
“After she hit road, did you want to turn around?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“Not immediately.”
“Why?”
“Celia said keep driving.”
“Grant?”
“He said she was done.”
“Meaning?”
“I thought dead.”
My breath stopped when I later read transcript.
Then Owen added something none of us knew.
Twenty minutes after the assault, Celia suddenly remembered my pendant.
She had seen a blue blink when Grant grabbed my collar.
“She records sometimes,” Celia said.
Grant ordered:
“Turn around.”
Owen turned the van north.
Not to save me.
To retrieve recorder.
They never reached me.
A rockslide and highway closure had forced traffic to stop south of the site. A plow and sheriff vehicle passed through in opposite direction.
Celia panicked.
They turned south again.
So the headlights I feared near Marcus’s camp were not them.
But they had tried to come back.
Detective Sloan asked:
“Why return?”
Owen answered:
“To get the pendant.”
Not:
To check Mother.
That answer would later matter at sentencing.
Owen also admitted he tried warning me two days before trip.
There was one missed call from him.
No voicemail.
“Why did you hang up?”
“I thought about the five hundred thousand.”
Money.
Again.
He accepted a cooperation agreement later.
No immunity.
May you like
He would plead to crimes he actually committed.
That distinction mattered to me.
