“I won’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“I have to believe it.”
She sighed, frustrated she wasn’t getting through to him. “Who left the note with the key under your mat?”
“We should really go inside and talk to Dean. I just wanted to give you a few answers privately.”
“Just answer me.”
“Drake did.”
She gaped at him, shocked at how dense he was being. “You have to go to the police.”
“Not yet. Drake isn’t at the top of this twisted pyramid, and I’m not going to stop until I find that person. If Drake’s off the street, he’ll just be replaced. And don’t even get me started on how badly you screwed things up for me—”
“I screwed things up?” she yelled, astonished.
“That’s right,” he shot back. “It was the closest I’d ever come to being in the same room as Becky. I was supposed to get Ashley at the house and bring her to Drake’s, and from there we would go to wherever Becky is. And you came along and shot all that to hell.”
Stunned, she didn’t know what to say, but managed, “How did Ashley get roped into this?”
“That’s why I needed to be there and transport her, because I don’t know. All I know is that it was voluntary, and that this drug operation needs decoys like Becky and Ashley. When Scott and his entire precinct are sorting out information, these people make their moves.” He quieted for a moment. “The only reason I’m telling you all of this is because I know you’re just like me.”
“Technically, you’re the one who is like me, not the other way around,” she clarified good-naturedly.
“I know you won’t tell Scott, because you haven’t told him things when you knew you were onto something. And I have to do this. I have to be the one to find Becky, face her, confront her about all of this. Not Scott, not the Rock Ridge Police. Me. I know, I know, that you know exactly what this feels like.”
“Your father,” she breathed, understanding him. She did know how he felt, and it pained her that he was going through the same thing, or perhaps a worse version. At least Greg had been one of the good guys. Becky’s innocence was very much in question.
“Do me a favor, at least.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t push your brother away. It’s been killing him. He needs you.”
Jason glanced off into the darkness and seemed to feel the sting of what he had been doing to Jared. When he returned his gaze to his mother, he said, “No one’s closer to me than Jared. But right now, I can’t risk it. We’re too close. It’s like he can read my mind. I have to avoid him. If I don’t, he’ll guess in two seconds what I’ve been up to. I can’t drag him into this. You know, if he had even the slightest idea, he would be right there by my side. Do you really want both of your sons in danger?”
“That’s not fair,” she stated.
“It’s accurate,” he pointed out. “And you know it.”
“Does Drake know that you killed Donna?” she asked as soon as the question struck her. “They’re twins.”
“That’s how I got in with Drake,” he commented. “And yes, he knows.”
Her brows flew up, alarmed. “Does he want revenge?”
“He’s a hard-core criminal and he had been having friction with Donna. If he wants revenge, he hasn’t acted on it.” After a beat, he added, “Let’s go talk to Dean.”
Apprehensively, Kate padded up the steps, Jason trailing behind her. She knocked on the door, but her son grabbed the handle, pushing the door open for her to go right in.
Dean was seated on the couch going over the financials on the amusement park development, but rose when she walked in with Jason.
“It’s been a long day,” she said, relieved in anticipation of any answers he might provide. “You told me nothing is as it seems and that Becky wasn’t abducted,” she went on, setting the stage for him to dive right in.
Dean shot her son a quick glance, and Jason nodded in unspoken conversation.
“Most of my guys working here at the amusement park have recently been released from prison. I’m sure I don’t have to explain cheap labor. Plenty of businesses around town have been hiring the ex-cons for this very reason, and they should. Everyone deserves a second chance.”
She was with him so far, but anxious for him to link his point to Becky, Drake, and the corruption that had been sweeping through Rock Ridge.
“I’ve got my ear to the ground with these people. Jason has also been my eyes and ears.”
Kate was impressed Jason had actually been making it in to work, heading the construction project for Wentworth Contractors. For a while there, things had been rocky, but clearly her son and the mayor had arrived on the same side.
“From what I gather, the prison warden, a man named Grant Conover, has been playing both sides of the field.”
“What about Drake?” she challenged, frustrated to no end that the man clearly responsible for all of this was being overlooked.
“Drake doesn’t have the power and connections. He’s the muscle, the brawn, but not the brains behind this operation, from what I can tell. Why don’t you have a seat?”
Kate did, nearing and sitting on the edge of a chair across from him.
“You might want to have a seat, too, Jason.”
When Kate glanced up at her son, the look of trepidation on his face told her that he hadn’t expected new information to surface.
“I’ve been getting in good with the warden.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she blurted out, staring at both of them. “The two of you. Have you no fear?”
“For political reasons,” Dean clarified. “The fact of the matter is that Grant sends a lot of ex-cons to my town. There’s nothing surreptitious about our meetings.” He let that hang for a moment until Kate conveyed she believed him. “I’ve been very careful with this guy. He has access to countless prison records on a national level, holding the position he does. If I need to know about one person, I’ll ask him about ten, so he can’t figure out what I’m getting at.”
“What do you ask him about?” she asked.
“Mainly, during the hiring process I want to know if a guy was violent in prison, but we’ve been hiring admin positions, as well, women mostly, so I’ve been inquiring in that regard, too. When I told you nothing is what it seems and Becky wasn’t abducted, it’s because I was in the process of getting new information.”
“About Becky?” Jason asked eagerly, leaning forward in his chair.
“You met her when?” he asked Jason.
“My senior year.”
“And she was a transfer student,” he supplied.
“Right.”
“She didn’t transfer from another college,” said Dean. “She was an inmate.”
“What?” Jason exclaimed.
“Ashley, as well,” he went on. “In fact, they were in the same cell.”
Kate guessed, “Drugs?”
And Dean confirmed it.
“Why stage a hoax abduction?” she asked.
“Culpability, or I suppose to establish they have none.”
Kate and Jason exchanged a worrisome glance.
“The good news,” Dean went on, “is that because Donna had pulled the wool over my eyes and was using the amusement park as a hiding place to move the shipments, Grant thinks I’m corrupt, or at least he got to a point of trusting me to edge into the topic. And I’m playing along.”
Kate wasn’t sure she could hear any more of this. “Do you understand that it’s time to involve the police?”
“We will,” Dean assured her. “I just need to get a little closer.”
“We’re almost there, Mom,” said Jason.
“Jenna Johansen, the reporter,” Dean continued. “She was on the precipice of cracking this thing wide open.”
“Her murder ties into this?” Kate asked, a strange mix of astonishment and logic washing over her. Of course her murder tied in
to this.
“She was killed before she could get the word out.”
As Kate listened to Dean elaborate, the explanation of which seemed to contain little information and mostly speculation, Kate leaned back in her chair, wrestling down the lump in her throat. Of all the times she had ventured into dangerous territory against Scott’s warnings, she had never attempted to single-handedly tackle a conspiracy as tremendous as the one Dean and Jason were determined to take down. It was a suicide mission. She needed to tell Scott, if for no other reason than to get him to intervene for Dean and Jason’s safety. Maybe he could call in the Feds or the DEA and turn the entire case over, since it seemed to spread so far and wide that containing it could very well prove impossible, at least with Rock Ridge’s resources.
It was eleven thirty by the time they wrapped it up. Kate gave Jason a long, lingering hug. She didn’t want to let him go, but eventually did when he laughed, urging her back. She told Dean to be careful and hesitated when Jason asked her to promise not to tell Scott.
The drive home was a blur. Luckily, she knew the route so well, just as she knew every inch of this town, that she could maneuver her truck on autopilot without thinking, but slipping into deep thought.
The house was dark when she stepped inside, but as her eyes adjusted, she realized the bedroom light was still on. Scott hadn’t turned in for the night.
She made a pit stop in the kitchen, hoping to find a bottle of white wine in the refrigerator. If ever she needed a nightcap, now was the time. She only found condiments in the door so she opened the cabinet where three bottles of red wine stood in a cluster. She preferred a chilled glass of white, but reasoned that any alcoholic beverage would do and poured herself a generous glass.
She was too tired for a shower, and if she drew a bath she would likely fall asleep in the hot pool, so she forego bathing in favor of changing out of her overalls and into something far more comfortable—her sweats that were hanging in the bathroom.
In the bedroom, Scott was leaning against the headboard and reading a book, but he glanced up at her as she entered.
“You had a long day,” he said, checking the clock on the nightstand.
“You have no idea how long this day has been,” she said with a shuddering sigh, as a wave of guilt surged up her chest. She drank down more wine and set the glass on the nightstand.
As she pulled the covers back on her side of the bed, Scott slapped his book shut and placed it on his nightstand. Without so much as a look at her, he laid down on his side, his back to her.
Maybe he’d had a long day, as well, but Scott had never been one to give her the cold shoulder before going to sleep. She had expected their usual cuddling. The fact that he was avoiding it gave her pause.
She climbed into bed and tried to sound casual, as she asked, “Is everything okay?”
In response, Scott reached for the lamp on his nightstand and flipped off the light.
Kate stared at him—his square shoulders, his white hair on the pillow. Strange, she thought, but was too mentally exhausted from her hour with Dean and Jason to allow herself to fret over Scott’s abrupt mood. She drank the rest of her wine, set the empty glass on the table, and fell asleep when her head hit the pillow.
Chapter Ten
The next morning, when Kate woke up, Scott’s side of the bed was empty. She lifted onto her elbows, listening for signs he was in the shower or the kitchen, but heard nothing. The clock on the nightstand read 7:05 a.m. and she considered going back to sleep for another hour. Her growling stomach got her out of bed. Sleep wasn’t as valuable as eating a full breakfast, she decided, as she threw her robe on and padded down the hallway, through the living room and into the kitchen.
She filled the coffeemaker with water, replaced the old filter with a new one, and measured out heaps of dark roast. As it percolated, she began making breakfast—scrambled eggs and bacon and toast, which she buttered heavily.
Avoiding the morning paper, she sat at the kitchen table with her plate and began eating, drinking coffee in-between each bite.
If Jenna Johansen had been on the precipice of cracking this thing wide open, as Dean had mentioned, then it was possible that whatever evidence she had unearthed still existed, whether with Jenna’s crew or replacement or perhaps tucked away at the Rock Ridge Tribune since it seemed most of the out-of-town reporters trusted Eric Demblowski enough to stop by his office, as Rachel Meadows had done.
What if the evidence Jenna had come across would be enough to take down the entire drug operation? If Kate could get her hands on it and give it to the authorities to handle, then Jason and Dean would no longer be in harm’s way. They wouldn’t have to venture deeper into the dark world they were tangled in, because it would no longer exist.
The fastest way to extinguish frustration was to be proactive, an attitude that came naturally to Kate. Rachel had seemed to warm to Kate the other day when she’d given the reporter a ride. And it gave her the idea to find Rachel. She didn’t know how promising it would be, but it was a place to start.
Kate put in a call to Larry before she left the house to check on the account Justina had mentioned she would set up. The funds were at Grayson’s, Larry told her, as well as the tiles she had asked him to order over the phone.
When she climbed into her truck, she gave some thought to where she might find Rachel Meadows. It was possible the reporters might still be covering Ashley’s abduction, therefore shooting segments outside of her house.
She drove off towards the center of Rock Ridge, and as soon as she hit Main Street, she kept her eyes peeled for the national news van.
As luck would have it, she spotted the vehicle parked along the curb in front of the Rock Ridge Tribune and pulled up behind it. After climbing out of her truck into the hot morning—the sun was beating down without a cloud in the sky to soften it—she neared the passenger’s side of the news van, but saw it was empty.
Figuring that Rachel was inside the Tribune, she was just about to turn for the walkway when she spied a folder inside the van. It was tucked between the passenger’s seat and middle console, and its tab had the name Jenna Johansen printed clearly.
Even though she told herself breaking into a news van would be a crime, her curiosity was killing her. She gaze landed on the lock just inside the door. It looked far too tall for the passenger’s side door to be locked and the realization made her heart punch up her throat.
Cautiously, she glanced over her shoulder at the Tribune. There was a terrible glare bouncing off the windows and the entrance door was shut, likely to keep the air conditioning from escaping.
She couldn’t linger next to the news van forever, and if she asked Rachel for the file or even simply about the file, she had little faith the reporter would answer honestly.
So she took it, yanking the door open, snatching the manila folder, and slamming the door. Her heart was galloping by the time she jumped in her truck, and she couldn’t twist the key in the ignition fast enough. Keeping her eyes glued to the Tribune entrance, she reversed away from the news van, threw her truck in gear, and peeled out into the street.
It wasn’t until she pulled into the parking lot in front of Grayson’s Hardware that she opened the manila file with high hopes of discovering the key evidence she would need to keep her son and the mayor safe.
Inside, she found what appeared to be a rough draft on a segment Jenna had been working on. The top sheet had a list of bullet-point questions, and when she turned to the next sheet, the name printed in bold across the top jumped out at her. Harold Simpson. Was it the same Harold who worked at the Langleys’ mustard facility—who had been accepting cash to look the other way when shipments of drugs passed through?
She scanned the top sheet and confirmed it, reading the fourth question. How often did Grant Conover show up at Langley’s Mustard after hours?
Excitedly, she turned to the third page, which was the beginning of a bank statement that went on for pages and pages. S
he first noted that the account belonged to a company called Colombia & Partners International, LLC. As she closely scrutinized the transactions, several names jumped out at her—Donna Kramer, Thomas (Tommy) Barkow, Drake Kramer, Grant Conover, Harold Simpson, Clifford Green, and Rebecca (Becky) Langley.
The transactions, all outgoing wires to the recipients listed and referencing the vague job of consulting, were for exorbitant amounts, ranging from ten to fifty thousand dollars.
Jenna Johansen had done it. She had found a document linking all the major players in the drug ring. And according to the file, perhaps the one person who would have been willing to talk to Jenna had she lived was Harold Simpson. She flipped back to the top sheet and her eye landed on the very first question. Who owns Colombia & Partners International LLC?
Dean and Jason had been right. Drake Kramer wasn’t behind it all, and neither was Becky. The fact that they were collecting payments from Colombia & Partners indicated as much.
If Kate could find out who owned the company, she would have a prayer of exposing them.
She needed to find Harold Simpson. She could pick up where Jenna had left off, but would she dare? She had begged Jason and Dean to go to the police. She wouldn’t want them going down this road, but now that she was facing the same opportunity, she couldn’t imagine walking away.
But the last person who had refused to walk away had been shot dead in the parking lot behind Carnegie Real Estate.
She decided to think things through, so she put her truck in drive and rolled around the side of Grayson’s to the loading garage where Larry had surely stacked the boxes of tiles she had ordered for fixing up Justina’s apartment building.
Larry was behind the counter when she entered through the rear door. He smiled, but immediately turned serious. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” she said heavily and then made an honest effort to sound like her usual, upbeat self. “Thanks so much for getting those tiles packaged up. Were you able to deduct it from the fund Justina had set up?”
“Yeah, got the accounting squared away, no problem,” he said, studying her. “You sure you’re all right?”
Mrs. Fix It Mysteries, Season 2 (5 Cozy Mystery Books Collection) Page 37
