Chương 10
Janice handed Leo a towel.
“You hit hard for somebody who looks half dead,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Just don’t do it again.”
Leo dried his hair.
“Who are you?”
“Registered nurse until I let my license lapse.”
“Why?”
“Too many pain pills after back surgery.”
Her answer was immediate and without decoration.
“I met your father at a recovery meeting. He paid me to help him after the motel.”
“With what money?”
“Whatever he had left.”
Leo sat beside Harold.
The old man moved a red queen onto a black king.
“You cheat at solitaire?” Leo asked.
“Only when I’m losing.”
“That defeats the purpose.”
“At my age, winning is the purpose.”
Leo watched him turn over another card.
“Why did you help my father?”
Harold kept his eyes on the game.
“We worked together one summer when we were seventeen. County road crew. Your father complained every day and still arrived twenty minutes early.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“No.”
Harold placed a card in the wrong pile, noticed, and left it there.
“My son was Darren Pike.”
Leo stared at him.
The rain filled the silence.
Harold finally looked up.
“His mother gave him her last name. We were never married. I wasn’t much of a father.”
Leo’s throat tightened.
“You knew Darren recruited me.”
“Yes.”
“You knew he worked for Vey.”
“Not then.”
“How long have you known?”
“Thomas told me after your arrest.”
“And you helped him?”
“I hated him first.”
Harold gathered the cards, though the game was unfinished.
“I blamed Thomas because blaming him let me avoid what Darren had become. Then Darren disappeared. Vey told me he’d fled the country. Thomas said Vey killed him or had him killed.”
“Did he have proof?”
“No.”
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
Harold squared the deck against his palm.
“Your father came to me after he disappeared. He thought Darren had hidden something before the robbery. He wanted me to search his old belongings.”
“Did you?”
“Eventually.”
“What did you find?”
“A storage receipt.”
Leo sat forward.
Harold removed his cap and rubbed the crease it had left across his forehead.
“The unit was empty except for a broken chair and a duffel bag. The bag had clothes, cash, and a memory card sewn into the lining.”
“Where is it?”
“Thomas has it.”
Leo stood so quickly the cards scattered.
Thomas was awake.
He had been listening.
“You said Rebecca had the proof,” Leo said.
“The memory card has part of it.”
“What part?”
Thomas looked at Harold.
The old man remained on the floor gathering cards.
“Darren recorded Ross Vey,” Thomas said.
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
“Where is the card?”
Thomas pointed toward a metal case beneath the cot.
Leo pulled it out.
Inside were documents sealed in plastic, three flash drives, and a small memory card taped to cardboard.
Evelyn moved beside him.
“Has anyone copied it?”
“I made one copy,” Thomas said. “Cole has it.”
Leo looked toward the doorway.
Cole was gone.
The SUV was no longer outside.
Evelyn swore.
Thomas tried to rise.
Janice pressed him back.
“He left ten minutes ago,” Harold said. “Said he was checking the road.”
“He took the copy?” Leo asked.
“He always carried it,” Thomas said.
“Why would you give him evidence?”
“As protection.”
“For him?”
“For all of us. If I disappeared, he was supposed to release it.”
“He found you beaten and still didn’t release it.”
Thomas had no answer.
Leo inserted the memory card into an adapter from the case and connected it to the old phone.
There were three audio files.
The first contained music and road noise. The second was twelve seconds of silence. The third began with Darren’s voice.
“You said nobody would be there.”
Ross Vey answered. His voice was younger but recognizable from public interviews.
“The guard changed shifts.”
“You told us empty.”
“I told you what I was told.”
“Shawn shot him.”
“That is not my problem.”
“It becomes your problem if we get picked up.”
A car door slammed in the recording.
Vey lowered his voice.
“Leo Miller takes the fall. His father backs off the audit. You and Shawn leave town.”
“He won’t plead.”
“He will when we show him the gun.”
“You put it in his car?”
“I handled it.”
The recording continued another forty seconds. Darren demanded money. Vey threatened to reveal Darren’s informant status. Then the file ended.
Leo played it again.
No one spoke until the final click.
Evelyn took the phone from him.
“This could be significant.”
“Could?”
“We need to authenticate it. We need the original device Darren used, metadata, chain of custody.”
“Harold found it.”
“Years after the recording.”
“You think he made it?”
“I think Vey’s lawyer will say he did.”
Harold placed the last card in the deck.
“I don’t know how to fake a recording.”
“That will not prevent them from accusing you.”
Thomas shifted on the cot.
“Rebecca has the informant reports. They show Vey’s arrangement with Darren. The recording proves motive. The payment ledgers connect Vey to Hale. Together, they establish the chain.”
“And if Rebecca is dead?” Leo asked.
Thomas looked at the boarded window.
“Then we have what we have.”
A phone rang in the corridor.
Not the old smartphone.
Cole’s spare phone lay on a chair near the door. He had left it behind.
Evelyn picked it up.
The screen displayed a blocked number.
She answered on speaker.
Grant Hale spoke.
“Thomas, I believe Adrian has decided to improvise.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
Hale continued in a conversational tone.
“He took my daughter from her home twenty minutes ago.”
Cole’s voice came faintly in the background. “She came willingly.”
A woman shouted, “Dad, stop.”
Hale sighed.
“Adrian seems to believe Rebecca Sloan will exchange the ledgers for my daughter. I explained that my daughter is thirty-four years old and makes her own poor decisions.”
Cole’s voice sharpened. “Tell them where Rebecca is.”
“I don’t know.”
May you like
“You’ve been paying her.”
Silence followed.
