“I was in the process of—”
“I will make sure your agency never handles another case. I will sue your ass to the point where you’ll be lucky to open up a lemonade stand after I’m through with you. Do you hear me?”
Mia repositioned the ice bag on her knee. “Again, Mr. Whitcomb,” she said, “if you’d just let me—”
“You’ll hear from my attorney,” he snarled and hung up.
Well, that was unpleasant. Mia dropped the phone on the couch. She picked up her beer bottle and drained it. Can he really do that? On the one hand, there’s no contract to be in breach of. But on the other hand, without written proof from Whitcomb that I had permission to photograph his house that makes what I did trespassing.
Somehow this is all Jack’s fault. She picked up the phone and scrolled through her recently received phone calls to see if there was any way she might have missed one from him. Her eyes fell on the dirty plates from last night.
How is it possible the man who looked at me the way he did, who touched me like that…how is it possible he hasn’t effing called me?
She got up from the couch and hobbled into the kitchen, ignoring the dirty pans in the sink, the cookie sheet of blackened biscuits and the glutinous, hardened cement of the cheese grits where they still sat in their pot. She looked in the refrigerator. There was milk, but she knew for a fact it was sour. A couple of withered lemons rolled around in the veggie crisper.
Jack always did the grocery shopping and Jack hadn’t been around for going on three weeks. She closed the fridge and went to the pantry. And because Jack doesn’t buy processed food, I don’t even have a damn frozen potpie to keep me from starving to death. She found a can of kidney beans in the pantry and opened it. Not bothering to heat them or get a bowl, she pulled the last beer from the fridge and limped back to the couch with the can and a soupspoon.
With her leg propped up on the coffee table and the now dripping bag of peas perched on her knee, Mia leaned back into the couch and ate her beans. They tasted terrible, and she realized that was kind of the point. This wasn’t a night when she wanted to feel good about anything.
Wait ’til I tell Ned he was wrong after all. She picked up the remote control for the TV. At least that was something.
God, is that douchebag accountant really going to sue me over this?
When the phone rang again, Mia jumped and the peas fell to the carpet. She snatched up the cell phone but didn’t recognize the number.
Maybe Jack was calling from his ex-girlfriend’s phone?
“Hello?” she said.
“Is this the agency of Burton and Kazmaroff? The detective agency?”
Oh, crap. Is Whitcomb’s lawyer calling already?
“It is,” she said, warily.
“I hope to God you can help me.”
Mia set her beans down and sat up straight.
“You need me…er, us, for a case?”
“My name is Sam Murray. Can we meet tomorrow? I’m…well, I guess you’d call me a whistleblower, but I need your help in lining up my evidence. I was told you guys were the best at undercover work like this.”
“You were?” Who in the world could have told him that?
“So can we meet? Tomorrow? Say nine o’clock?”
“Sure. Whistleblowing where?”
“If you don’t mind, Ms. Kazmaroff, I’ll fill you in on everything tomorrow. Suffice to say, secrecy is imperative here and there is a lot at stake.”
“Do you want to come to my—our—office?”
“Can we meet someplace neutral? Like The Varsity?”
“Absolutely.”
“Thank you. Will both detectives be coming, because I’d really like to keep this as quiet as possible.”
“No, just me. Discretion is everything at Burton and Kazmaroff.”
“You don’t know how glad I am to hear you say that.”
After she disconnected, Mia leaned back into the couch, still holding the phone. A case! And not just one about a cheating spouse but a real case. Mia felt the excitement trace up and down her spine at the thought of how important this new client might be for the agency. For their reputation.
If there was ever a good reason to call Jack, to tell him about this amazing new development for the business—their agency—this was it. She wouldn’t sound like was checking up on him or wondering where he was or coming off as accusatory in any way. This was a bona fide reason to call a business partner. Nothing more. She dialed his number before she could think too much more about it…
…and listened to the call go straight to voice mail.
Chapter SIX
Mia drummed her fingers on the table in the back room at The Varsity. It was busy even at ten in the morning, handling early lunch orders for a couple of buses full of tourists as well as the downtown office crowd. There were even a few Georgia Tech student-looking types, she noted—the original target customers of the historic Atlanta restaurant.
Why did he want to meet here? she wondered as her eyes scanned the crowd. Maybe because it was so crowded? She sat with a tray of food in front of her. Mia wasn’t hungry, but didn’t need to look like she was meeting her drug dealer either.
She spotted him before he saw her. It had to be him. He gripped his tray and searched furtively over the heads of the other diners in the back room looking for someone, for her. She didn’t wave. He’d find her in his own time. Meanwhile, it gave her a minute to see what she was dealing with.
Young guy, mid twenties, short-cropped hair, straight nose, thin lips. He looked worried.
Well, after all, he was in the process of hiring a private investigator. They’re all a little worried at this point.
He saw her and immediately headed for her table.
“Mia Kazmaroff?” he said once he reached her table.
“That’s right,” Mia said, smiling. She’d spent some time practicing a friendly, competent smile that didn’t reveal anything more. Her mother said it made her look constipated. “Sam Murray?”
He put his tray down, pulled a chair out and sat down before answering. Mia thought he sat down with such relief it looked like he collapsed in the chair.
“I’m so glad you could meet me,” he said.
“How did you hear about our agency?”
“I read on the Internet that you do weird cases, the ones the cops aren’t interested in doing.”
She nodded. That was a pretty fair assessment, all in all. Sounded better than track down cheating spouses, too.
“I bill at fifty dollars an hour,” Mia said, glancing at his worn jeans and frayed cuffs on his shirt. While appearances were often deceiving—and she more than anyone had learned that the hard way—this guy didn’t look like he had much money.
“I can pay,” he said. “No problem.”
“You mentioned on the phone something about a whistleblowing situation?” she asked, reaching for her drink cup.
Murray took a long breath and glanced around him before leaning across the table to her.
“I work for Hart of Georgia Cattle Feeders,” he said.
“I have no idea what that is.”
“It’s a feedlot,” he said, lowering his voice and forcing Mia to lean across the table toward him. She felt a strong urge to reach out and clamp a hand onto his wrist to get all the other stuff he probably wouldn’t think to tell her, but he likely wouldn’t take it well. Most people didn’t.
“A feedlot.”
“It’s an operation about twenty miles due west of the city outside of Powder Springs where cattle that have been pasture-grazed since they were born are fattened up with grain before they’re slaughtered.”
“What is your role there?”
“I’m the HR guy and inoculator.”
Mia frowned and he continued.
“I do the low-level hiring and I help give the animals antibiotics to keep them from getting sick.”
“Preventative antibiotics?”
“The place is not e
xactly conducive to good health, Ms. Kazmaroff. You’ll see when you’re there. You’ve got two thousand cattle wedged into a space of about the size of a football field and they’re all shitting and eating nose to tail. There’s a lot of opportunity for disease.”
Mia pushed her burger away. “Okay. And they’re doing something illegal at this feedlot?” As opposed to just seriously revolting.
Again, he looked around him. Mia wasn’t sure why he bothered. It was so noisy in the restaurant she could barely hear him and she was sitting less than eighteen inches away.
“They’re dumping waste into Pine Valley Lake.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen them.”
“By ‘them’…?”
“The owner. JJ Hooker. But mostly he gets the illegals to do it for him. Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t care who works there or what their papers say. I only care about what they’re doing to the lake.”
“I see. I guess it’s a small lake?”
“You mean because you’ve never heard of it? Yeah, it used to be a major fishing lake years ago. Now not so much. But it empties into Sweetwater Creek. I guess you’ve heard of that?”
Sweetwater Creek was the name of a major state park outside of Atlanta. If what Murray was telling her was true, this was a serious crime—as in federally serious. Excitement rippled through her. Screw Mickey Mouse cases like cheating spouses! Wait until Jack hears about this. The thought of him sent a flush of annoyance and embarrassment through her. And she’d done so well not to think of him all morning, too.
“You okay?”
“What do you need me to do, Sam?”
“Take photos of them dumping the waste. Get proof so when I blow the whistle I don’t get my ass handed to me.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Beyond being a concerned citizen, you mean? Someone who cares about the environment and preserving the state I live in?” Murray pushed his own uneaten food away and leaned back in the chair, clearly relaxing for the first time. “I’m a fisherman. And my father before me and my grandfather before him. I’m not saying what the Hookers are doing is the worst crime in the world, but to a fisherman? It’s right up there.”
*****
That afternoon, Mia was shocked to see that the cattle stood—packed tightly just as Sam had warned her—in dirt pens. The quick research she’d done before driving out to the feedlot told her cows were natural grazers which, in a feedlot, was not a desirable habit.
Going from a grass diet to a largely grain one was more than just a dietary adjustment. The cattle looked like they didn’t know what to do with themselves. They stood dumbly, watching her walk by, dripping diarrhea from their tails onto the ground. In fact, closer inspection revealed the ground wasn’t dirt at all—or mud—as she’d initially thought.
The stench and the apathy in the animals combined to create an immediate portrait of animal cruelty that made Mia cringe. These animals lived their whole lives walking about a pasture—with grass—until they were brought here.
Last stop before the gallows.
The smell was overwhelming, matched only in its horror by the sight of the animals themselves. Mia shook herself in an effort to block out the sight. This is how our food production system works. And nobody loves her cheeseburgers more than you do, so just quit.
Sam hired her on the spot at The Varsity in the position of Pen Rider. He assured her responsibilities would largely involve riding the property. After Mia accepted the case—and five hundred dollars cash down payment—she went home to change into jeans and riding boots and followed Sam’s directions to the feedlot for her first day on the job.
Mia picked her way around a large pile of horse droppings on the hard-packed dirt road in front of the fence encampment containing the cattle. Long cement feed troughs lined the perimeter of the enclosure. She watched as the cattle stuck their heads out between the flexible fence slats and ate the grain in the troughs.
Sam came from the direction of a trailer that looked like a sub-contractor’s office for a new housing development. He was leading a small Appaloosa, about fifteen hands, tacked with a western style saddle. She frowned. She hadn’t ridden western since pony rides at the state fair.
How hard could it be?
On the other side of the horse was a man. Short, ruddy, late forties. Mia pegged him as the owner, JJ Hooker. He smiled. Does he come out to greet every nine-dollar an hour employee Sam hires?
“Nwah-la?” Hooker said, stretching out his hand to her, his mouth smiling, his eyes not.
“It’s Mia,” she said, shaking his hand. She was hoping to feel something definitive when she touched him and was disappointed when she didn’t. Sometimes, even bad guys were just so bland and one-dimensional they didn’t register with her.
Not unless they’d just strangled someone a few hours earlier.
“Sounds African?” he said, openly inspecting her as if he’d bought her rather than hired her.
“Irish, actually.”
“Very interesting,” Hooker said, turning away from her to address Sam. “You’ll have her do the perimeter? Tell her what to look for and then report back to you.”
Sam nodded. Hooker slapped a hand against the horse’s neck, prompting it to instantly shy from him and Mia wondered if the man had ever been around animals before.
“All right then,” Hooker said, “carry on. Welcome to Hart of Georgia, Nora.”
Mia watched him leave and then turned to Sam. He held out the reins to her.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “He’s an ass on top of being a felony polluter.”
“I don’t know how you can work here.”
Sam looked over his shoulder at the cattle in the pens. “You get used to it.”
Mia patted the Appaloosa’s neck and ran her fingers along his jaw until she got to his face. She was relieved to feel that the animal had been well treated. She could tell he was relaxed—well, as relaxed as most horses can be—and that he seemed interested in the world around him. She patted him again, then eyed the saddle.
“Basically, just ride the perimeter of the operation,” Sam said, going around to the other side of the horse to hold the opposing stirrup down for balance. “Keep your eyes open for the place where the creek comes onto the property. That’s where you’ll want to take the photos. You got a camera?”
Mia gathered the reins in one hand and swung into the saddle. She hated how wide the saddle felt—like a big, slippery easy chair that would be so easy to rock right out of.
“I do,” she said, frowning.
“I didn’t think to ask if you rode western,” Sam said.
“It’s fine. I guess the basic proponents are the same.”
“He neck reins,” Sam said. “He doesn’t respond by whatever you English riders do with your knees and legs and stuff.”
Okay, so that was going to be interesting.
Mia closed her legs around him and, sure enough, the horse just stood there.
“What’s his name?”
“Beckett.”
“Like the Archbishop in Henry II?”
“I have no idea.”
Mia leaned onto the saddle horn—another thing she’d have to get used to—and stretched her hand out to Sam. “We never sealed the deal,” she said.
He shrugged and shook her hand. “Okay. Although I was pretty sure that’s what the five hundred dollars was for.”
Again, if she’d been expecting a definite confirmation as to whether Sam Murray was or was not who he seemed, she was disappointed. He wasn’t overtly evil and she definitely got an honest impression from him—one of anger and disgust that was consistent with his revulsion at what his employer was doing to his boyhood fishing hole.
What good is this stupid gift if you can’t tell the good guys from the bad? She pulled the left hand rein against Beckett’s neck to direct him down the road to where the feedlot began.
*****
For as bad as the
day was, Jack had to admit it had gone by surprisingly fast.
After his talk with Ethan, Jack drove to the cinema complex where Twyla was supposed to have met Ethan for a midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. A quick conversation with the ticket taker resulted in no helpful information. The night had been busy and the teenagers—most of whom were in costume—looked alike to the people manning the ticket booth.
He came into the house to see Vernetta and Sandy still sitting in the living room where he’d left them, hunched over the coffee table and Twyla’s video as if they expected contact from her through it.
Jack knew the first forty-eight hours of any missing person case—kidnapping or not—were the most crucial. He felt like he was handling this case with both hands tied behind his back.
He didn’t need to ask if anybody had called. The only call they were waiting for now was the one with the ransom demand. And their prayer that it was a demand. Jack knew Sandy feared there would be nothing she could do, no amount of money she could throw at the nightmare to make it go away.
And meanwhile, all they could do was wait.
“You guys need to eat,” he said, tossing down his jacket on a chair in the living room. Sandy looked up and her eyes went to his shoulder harness. If he read her look right, a part of her relaxed at the sight of the gun. He realized the two of them didn’t really know each other anymore. She had no reason to believe that he could help get Twyla back. Their time together had been brief and a very long time ago.
“Will he call tonight, do you think?” Sandy asked him. Vernetta lifted her head to hear his answer. She seemed to have made a decision to trust him after all.
“I’m sure he wants this done as soon as possible,” Jack said. His experience with kidnapping cases was limited. Just one, and that one—unsuccessful.
“Unless he wants to torture you, darlin,’” Vernetta said. “If it’s really Eugene what’s gone to all this trouble, he’s going to want you to squirm first.”
“I know,” Sandy said, touching Twyla’s phone gently with a finger.
Jack came into the room and sat down. “I spoke with Ethan.”
Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4 Page 46
