Free Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Redemption for Avery (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Ryker Townsend FBI Profiler Book 2) by Jordan Dane

teacher is a violent pedophile who likes teenage girls. Deputy Lovell is bringing him in for questioning. They’ll isolate him in an interview room until we get there.”
    It took balls for a sex offender—flying under the radar of law enforcement with an assumed identity—to seek gainful employment in a high school. His credentials had to be good enough to work for the average background check. Had Lily gone to him after her father threw her out? If the girl threatened his safe haven in any way, Altamonte had a lot to lose, and that meant he had motive.
    “I want everything we have on him.”

Chapter 10
     
    Big Bear Sheriff’s Station
    Evening
    Ryker Townsend
    “The leeches are gathering. You ready for this?” Crowley asked.
    I heaved a deep sigh when I saw the news media standing outside the building as we turned into the parking lot of the Big Bear Sheriff’s Station on Summit Boulevard.
    “Make sure no one speaks to the press until we give the word,” I said. “Deputy Lovell strikes me as someone who likes the sound of his own voice.”
    “He’d be the only one.” Crowley winced. “Let’s get this over with.”
    She parked the Chevy Tahoe away from the milling crowd of talking heads and the bustle of cameramen staging from their news vans. All were vying for a juicy sound bite. Deputy Zander Lovell had detained Wade Thomas Altamonte in an interview room and he waited for our arrival.
    Altamonte had a disturbing record of escalating crimes towards young, teenage girls, but instead of going into hiding after his last arrest, he brazenly changed his name to Dennis Whitehall and conjured the background of a high school teacher to insert his life into a target-rich environment.
    Had he found a safe haven in Big Bear by accident or had he deliberately come to the resort town with reason?
    “Hutch and Cam will report in tonight, no matter what time they get to the motel,” Crowley said as she turned off the engine.
    “Good. No one will sleep anyway.”
    My ERTs, Hutch and Cam, had stayed with our team’s medical examiner, Dr. Martinez, to handle the body recovery from the San Bernardino National Forest. They had thirty-four souls to identify. It would take a team of cross-jurisdiction law enforcement personnel to get the job done. The local FBI field office had established a call center to handle inquiries. Families of the missing were already calling in to beg for information and offer dental records.
    Crowley kept her head down as she shoved through the news crews and I followed in her wake.
    “Are you with the FBI?” A voice called out.
    Once the questions started, it turned into a feeding frenzy.
    “How many bodies were found today?”
    “Is this the work of a serial killer?”
    I waved my hand, didn’t make eye contact, and said, “No comment,” until I made it inside the building. Deputy Lovell stood by the lobby reception desk with a toothpick in his mouth and a grin on his face that made me nervous.
    “Where do you have him?” I asked.
    “Interrogation room three. Upstairs.” He hooked a thumb into the air, telling me where the second floor could be found in a two-story building.
    “Has anyone spoken to him since he’s been in the box?”
    “No. Well—” When the deputy scrunched his face, I braced for what he’d say. “I asked if he had dinner yet. After he said ‘no,’ I ordered pizzas. They should be here soon. You want in on that, it’ll cost you ten bucks, each.”
    “He’s not eating until I say he does. Where’s observation? Crowley and I want to watch him before I go in.”
    “Follow me.”
    As we took the stairs to the second floor, Deputy Lovell told us they had arrested Dennis Whitehall, aka Wade Thomas Altamonte, before he left his home for an evening tutoring session with a local teenage girl, Alexis King. A deputy had been dispatched to find the girl.
    “We read him his rights. With him not registering as a sex offender under his real name, we got him on enough