Dirty Money: A J.J. Graves Mystery (Book 7)

by Liliana Hart

  “Seriously, though,” he said. “I saw this ice cream place not far from here on the way in. If we could drive through that would be awesome. Have you ever seen this really old movie Gremlins? I, like, have to eat or it’s not pretty.”

  Jack took both of Doug’s duffle bags and slung them over his shoulder, looked at me, and then headed out the door. Doug talked the entire way, telling us everything he could about pop culture and his eating habits on the three-minute walk back to the car.

  Doug paused and looked at Jack’s unit with distrust as Jack opened the back door for him.

  “Man, I’ve got bad memories about riding in the back of a police car,” Doug said. “It’s just too soon. You think I could sit in the front?”

  “No,” I said, but I smiled at him to soften my answer.

  Jack tossed the bags in the back and closed the door behind Doug. When I got in, I noticed Jack looked kind of shell-shocked. One Ben Carver was enough, but to find out there were two was a little overwhelming.

  “Ice cream sounds good,” I said, fastening my seatbelt.

  “Yes!” Doug said. “Travel makes me super hungry. So, what’s this problem y’all are having? Auntie Em said Uncle Ben was trying to figure it out before he had his wreck.”

  “Auntie Em?” I asked, turning to look at him.

  He grinned, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Yeah, she hates it. But she loves me, so she tolerates it.”

  Jack pulled into the drive-thru line for Lickety Splitz. Doug hung his head out the window like a dog and ordered The Trough, which was a banana split on steroids that came in a giant bucket and was covered in whipped cream, cherries, and nuts.

  “I’m good with a cone of rocky road,” I told Jack.

  He ordered one for each of us, and then we paid and drove away with our treats.

  “Is that going to make you sick?” Jack asked.

  “Probably not,” Doug said. “I have crazy good metabolism. I, like, have to eat all the time or I feel sick. I hardly ever throw up or anything. Well, this one time when I ate a bad batch of cookie dough, but mom said that’s one of those live-and-learn lessons.”

  Jack turned onto Anne Boleyn since it was the main road we took to get to our house. It was wide and there were usually cars parked in front of the cute, cottage-style houses that lined each side of the street, since most didn’t have a garage. Big sycamore trees were spaced evenly on each side, and the sidewalks were cracked from gnarled roots.

  It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon, and there’d still been no word from Nash. Jack wasn’t one to show a lot of outward emotion, but I could tell it was on his mind. We needed to find evidence if Roy Walsh really did kill his wife, otherwise he’d be getting away with the perfect crime, just like he planned all along.

  We were just passing the last two houses, before Anne Boleyn turned into a narrow country road, when something exploded against my passenger side window. Something sharp struck my cheek, and I automatically leaned toward Jack, covering my head with my arms.

  “What the hell,” Jack said, turning the wheel hard enough to make me jerk back the other direction.

  Water was shooting against the front windshield and pouring inside the broken window on my side, soaking me to the skin. My ears were ringing, and I tried to undo my buckle, but I was completely disoriented. I wasn’t sure if I was hurt or not. I couldn’t feel anything.

  Jack pulled up a little farther, so the water was no longer hitting the car, and then he flipped on his lights and jumped out. He opened the back door for Doug, and then Jack was opening my door and reaching in to undo my buckle for me.

  “Let me see where you’re hurt,” he said, running his fingers across my neck and face. He looked worried.

  I tried to push his hands away and tell him I was fine, but his hands were covered in blood, and I stared at them a few seconds, wondering where it had come from. Then I realized it belonged to me. He put his arms beneath me and lifted me out of the car, and then set me gently in the grass of a stranger’s lawn and knelt down beside me.

  “I’m fine,” I told him. My hearing and senses were starting to come back, and the blood was rushing loudly in my ears. “It probably looks worse than it is.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It looks pretty bad. That’s a lot of blood.”

  “The head always bleeds a lot. I don’t even feel anything.”

  “Which is a worry in itself,” he said.

  He went to the back of the Tahoe and grabbed my bag and then came back and knelt down beside me. He found a package of white cotton squares and pressed a couple to the side of my face.

  “It’s from the glass,” I told him. “I’m okay.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and pressed his forehead against mine for a bit. “Still scared me to death though. I’d prefer not to do that again.”

  “Man, that was crazy!” Doug said, looking at the two of us. He still had his ice cream bucket in hand and his backpack slung over his shoulder. It looked like only some of the ice cream had slopped onto his shirt during the crash. “Does that happen a lot?”

  We all looked over to the fire hydrant that was spurting water straight up into the air like a geyser and flooding the street, and Jack and I both shook our heads from side to side.

  “No,” Jack said. “Definitely not normal.”

  Jack went over and picked up the cap that had blown off and hit my window. I was lucky it hadn’t hit me directly in the head. If it had, we’d be dealing with a much different scenario. Bleeding would be the least of Jack’s worries.

  “Hey, Sheriff,” a lady said, running toward us. “I called 911.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  I noticed there were several people who’d come out of their houses to see what had happened.

  “I saw the whole thing,” the lady said. “The cap just shot right off the hydrant and smacked right into you. That’s rotten luck.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, turning the projectile over in his hands. “Rotten luck.”

  A compact white car was heading toward us from the country road—an older model Volvo with tinted windows. It slowed to a stop and the window rolled down.

  He looked different, was all I could think. His hair was darker, and he had a goatee. But it was him.

  “Looks like you guys had a heck of an accident,” Malachi said.

  I felt my blood run cold, and Jack dropped the hydrant cap to reach for his weapon. But just that quick he was driving away, passing the line of emergency vehicles coming toward us. I lost sight of him before he reached the end of the block.

  “Son of a bitch,” Jack said, kicking his front tire.

  “We need to know where he’s been,” I said. “He came from the direction of the house. Please tell me the flash drives aren’t there.”

  “No,” he said. “Not at the moment.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. Maybe Malachi had unfinished business at our family home. Just because the deed belonged to someone else now didn’t mean it would stop him from making himself at home if he needed something.

  Jack’s unit had minimal damage. The cap from the hydrant had hit my window, shattering it, and then the cap had skipped across the hood, leaving some interesting dents. Water had soaked the interior, and I watched it drip in a steady cadence from the running boards onto the pavement.

  “Blasting cap,” Jack said, looking closer at the hydrant. “Set on a remote time. He was probably sitting down the street the whole time waiting for us to pass by so he could hit the detonator.”

  “That was on purpose?” Doug asked, visibly swallowing. “Oh, man. That’s not good.”

  A fire engine and a couple of squad cars had parked behind us, and the ambulance pulled in front of Jack’s Tahoe. Two EMTs rushed out, grabbing the gurney and medical bags, and came straight toward me.

  “I’m fine,” I told them, holding up both hands to ward them off. There was nothing I hated more than being doctored by other people. “I promise. Just some cuts
from the glass, and a ringing in my ears from impact. I just need some ibuprofen.”

  The male EMT looked at the female EMT for direction as she knelt down beside me, completely ignoring my protests. She took my vitals and shined a light in my eyes.

  She was short and slightly plump, and her thick blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her eyes were a gorgeous shade of violet.

  “I’m Shelly,” she said, taking the blood-soaked dressing from my face. “That’s my partner, Joe.”

  “Hi,” I said. “Thanks for coming out. But really, I’m fine.”

  “You will be,” Shelly said. “But first we need to get the glass tweezed out of your face and someone to sew up that gash. Not too many. You probably won’t even have a scar.”

  “Then it’s probably not worth getting stitched. Just put some superglue on it and a butterfly bandage.”

  “Come on, Doc. You know you’re going to have to put on your big-girl scrubs and come with us.”

  I blew out a sigh. I could’ve gotten Joe to let me go. I sensed weakness in him, and I narrowed my eyes at him for letting me down. But Shelly was no pushover. I was going to have to go to the hospital.

  I noticed a couple of the officers were bagging the pieces of fire hydrant, and the firemen were trying to cap it off so the water would stop gushing into the street.

  Jack came back over to me and looked at the side of my face again.

  “Shelly says I have to go to the hospital,” I said.

  “You should probably listen to Shelly,” Jack said, pushing my hair back behind my ear. “I think she’s probably right.

  “I hate hospitals,” I said.

  “I know, babe. I need to take Doug to the house and get things set up there. I’ll send an officer to pick you up when you’re done being stitched up.”

  “Stitched up?” I said, looking at Shelly accusingly. “I thought I just needed to have glass removed.”

  “It’s a two-part process,” Shelly said, straight faced. “I only told you the first part.”

  “Sneaky,” I said.

  “That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” she said.

  Jack helped me to my feet, and he put his arm around me. I leaned into him because I could. Because he was there. And because I’d always been able to lean on Jack, even when we disagreed.

  “I love you,” he said against my temple. Then he leaned down and kissed me, and it was like being given a bottle of water after being out in the desert.

  “I love you too,” I said. “I’ll see you in a little while. Just take care of Doug. My dad saw him. He’s going to want to know who he is and why he was with us.”

  I kissed him one last time and got in the back of the ambulance. And on the way to the hospital, I looked out the tiny back windows expecting to see my father driving behind us, but I didn’t.

  But I could feel his eyes on me anyway.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was just under two hours later when Officer Cheek picked me up at the hospital and took me back to the house. My face was numb from the local they’d injected to administer my four stitches. Four stitches were hardly worth a trip to the hospital, in my opinion, but whatever.

  “You should take a vacation, Doc,” Cheek said. “Whoever this guy is who’s after you means serious business. Maybe Hawaii. Or Vegas. I always like Vegas. They’ve got a hotel that looks just like the Eiffel Tower. No reason to spend all that money going to Paris if you ask me.”

  “Good point,” I said. “A vacation sounds nice.”

  “Yeah, when you and the sheriff were on your honeymoon, we hardly had any crime while you were gone. Maybe taking a vacation would give the rest of us a break too.”

  I couldn’t fault his logic. He pulled into our driveway and parked behind another unit. I noticed Jack’s Tahoe was nowhere in sight. I grabbed the plastic bag they’d put my wet clothes in, and got out of the car. They’d given me a spare set of scrubs to change into at the hospital.

  Cheek followed me to the front door, and I used my key to unlock it. I automatically walked into the kitchen to find the ibuprofen and a glass of wine. Cheek headed toward the sound of the television. To my surprise, Jack was already in the kitchen pouring two glasses.

  “I figured you’d need this,” he said and then looked at me. He looked dumbfounded for a moment, and then he raised a brow and he got a certain look in his eyes that could only mean one thing.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I just realized I’ve never seen you in scrubs before. I like it. You should wear them later.”

  “Much later,” I said, taking the glass of wine. He handed me two ibuprofen and I wanted to weep. “I really love you.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because Doug might literally be the death of me. He’s like Ben times a million. I’m exhausted.”

  “It’s been two hours,” I said.

  “It feels like two years. I’ve ordered more pizza. He’s eaten most of the good stuff already. How’s your face feel?”

  “Just a little throbbing where they put in the stitches. The wine will help. What’s Doug doing?”

  “He and the guys are having an Xbox break. I didn’t want to explain what we need him to do until we’ve got a little privacy.”

  “Any news from Nash?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “The tissue and blood samples all came back with a positive, so they corroborated your findings. They’re testing possible sources right now.”

  “So, we’re exactly where we started,” I said. “I’m going to be really pissed if Roy Walsh gets away with this.”

  “Slow and steady,” Jack said. “Something will click eventually.”

  “Hey,” Doug said from the doorway. “When does the pizza get here?” Then he noticed I was home. “What’s up, Doc?” And then he snorted out a laugh. “The guys told me to say that.”

  “I can see they’re being a good influence on you,” I said.

  “Oh, for sure. I’m thinking about being a cop. You live in this pretty sweet house with all this cool technology. Your security system sucks, but most people’s do, so I’m not worried about that too much.”

  “I noticed you’ve got a computer similar to Ben’s Miranda,” I said. “Did Ben give it to you?”

  “Kind of,” Doug said, shrugging. “Hey, can I have a beer? I noticed you’ve got some in the fridge.”

  “No,” Jack said. “What do you mean, kind of?”

  “Uncle Ben made a prototype of Miranda. It was supposed to be the Miranda II, but she turned out way different than he expected so he named her Matilda. I think Uncle Ben felt like he was, like, cheating on Miranda or something, so he gave her to me. So, I tinkered with her a bit and took off all the restrictions Uncle Ben had put on. The FBI has a lot of rules about computers and stuff. Once I gave her an overhaul, she most definitely wasn’t a Matilda anymore. I call her Trinity. Have y’all ever seen that old movie The Matrix?”

  I found Doug highly amusing, but I could see how his level of energy might be exhausting after a while.

  “We’ve got some flash drives that your Uncle Ben was working on for us. The drives are encrypted, and it almost destroyed Miranda before he was able to block it and shut it down. But he wasn’t able to get past the encryption before the accident. This is very dangerous. Your Uncle Ben was almost killed because of those flash drives. I want you to know what you’re getting into.”

  Doug was momentarily shocked into speechlessness.

  “We don’t just need you to get past the encryption,” Jack said. “But we need you to do it without alerting anyone at the FBI or any other agency. The guy who made those flash drives is wanted by everyone, but not everyone can be trusted.”

  “Wicked,” Doug said. “Who is this guy?”

  “My father,” I said.

  “That’s bad,” Doug said.

  “You have no idea,” I told him. “No one knows about him but the three of us and your aunt and uncle. We need to keep it that way.”

 
“Do you think you can do it?” Jack asked. “There’s no shame in saying no. It’s dangerous, and it’s going to be difficult.”

  “Of course I can do it,” Doug said, looking offended. “Like I said, Miranda has regulations. Trinity does not. She’s a wild child. Sexy as hell.”

  I shook my head. “It’s like The Twilight Zone.”

  “What’s that?” Doug asked.

  “A really old show,” I said.

  The doorbell rang and Doug said, “Pizza! Finally.” And he headed off to the front door. But I heard Lewis intercept him before he could open it and explain about letting one of them open the door.

  My phone started ringing from inside my bag, and Jack’s started buzzing on the counter. That was never a good sign. I looked at my glass of wine with sorrow. “I didn’t even get to drink half.”

  Jack sighed and answered his phone, and I dug around in my bag until I found mine, but it had already stopped ringing.

  “Lawson,” he said and listened to whoever was on the other end of the line. His face went stony and I had no idea what was happening. “We’ll be right there,” he said, and hung up.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Dispatch took a 911 call a few minutes ago. Woman said her husband complained of a headache, took some aspirin, and then dropped dead seconds later.”

  “Okay,” I said, not quite sure why we’d both be going out on a call like that.

  “The guy drops the pills on the ground when he falls, and their little dog comes up and eats one.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said, starting to get the gist. “Poison?”

  “That’s what the wife thought. They sent it straight to us because of the Walsh case.”

  There was no reason to change clothes. I had a spare pair of coveralls in the Suburban.

  “Damn,” I said. “Suburban’s still at the funeral home.”

  “They took the Tahoe in to be repaired. Cheek can drive us into town, and we’ll grab the Suburban. Crime scene is in King George.”