by Maggie Wells
Ben shifted, uncomfortable despite the ease between the two women. He never used to be the kind of guy who had a regular order. He’d gotten soft. Or maybe he hadn’t cared who followed him out here. Not at first. But now. He’d been careless. Forgetting for whole days he was a man with a target on his back, which was dangerous. Even all the way out here, in backwoods Georgia. He needed to be smarter. For his own sake, and for everyone around him.
“Let’s go sit on the wall,” Marlee said, tugging on his arm.
He glanced over at the woman beside him and his breath caught. She was the prototypical all-American girl. Her blond hair tumbled in loose waves over her shoulders, pulled back from her face by a narrow band of red elastic. She wore makeup, he was sure, but it didn’t obscure the dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose. The skirt she had on was full and fluffy, falling to her knees in swirling folds. It matched her headband, and the sweater. The sweater she wore was simple but fit snug over her slender figure. She had another long-sleeved sweater looped around her neck. Who wore sweaters tied around their neck in real life?
A strobe burst of memory slowed his steps as she led the way to the cinder block retaining wall encircling the property. White teeth and gold jewelry. His best friend standing in front of the city’s biggest thug, holding an assault rifle. Willing to put his body between a stampede of federal agents and a weaselly white guy who wore a tennis sweater around his shoulders.
He could still see Andre’s confusion melting away as he realized Ben was the only one who could have given them up to the authorities. But it all went to hell too fast. A blast of automatic-weapon fire on both sides. His weapon in his hand. Andre dropping to his knees, then pitching forward, the light gone from his eyes. They never told him if any of the bullets pulled out of his best friend’s body actually came from his weapon, and he never asked.
In the end, all that mattered was Ivan Jones knew his name and his face, and his life in Atlanta was over. Forever.
“Ben?” Marlee called to him.
Shaking off the memory, he picked up the pace again. A smattering of people sat atop the wall in patches of shade provided by nearby trees planted on the neighboring property. He checked their faces. They were vaguely familiar, but there were relatively few people he knew on sight.
They picked a spot a good distance away from a pair of teenagers splitting an order of tater tots smothered in chili and cheese. He automatically reached for Marlee’s arm to steady her as she hopped up to sit on the wall.
“Nice sweater,” he said, nodding to the cardigan looped around her shoulders.
“Thanks. I had to dress in layers. Wendell keeps the thermostat set at meat locker.”
His attention drifted to her bare calves as she crossed her ankles. She wore shiny red high heels. The shoes would definitely have drawn the attention of her secret admirer. If he’d lived to see them.
“Have you received more texts?” He sounded edgy, even to his own ears, but he cut himself some slack. He was running on less than five hours’ sleep in the past forty-eight.
“No.” She patted the wall beside her. “Sit.” She shifted to face him more fully. “I have to tell you something.”
“Okay,” he replied warily.
“I called you last night to tell you I had a run-in with my dad’s minion, Will Thomason, and until this morning, he was number one on my possible creeper list.”
“What? Why?” He scowled, pushing down the urge to plant a fist in the guy’s face merely on her say-so. “What do you mean, ‘run-in’?”
Without a clue about his inner turmoil, Marlee proceeded to tell him about the mystery involving her drapes and how she’d been traipsing around her house in nothing but a towel the previous night.
Ben’s hands curled into fists. He looked everywhere but at her, needing a moment to get a handle on the rage roiling inside him. Marlee would neither welcome nor appreciate any kind of caveman reaction, so he needed to keep the lid clamped down tight.
“Long story, and we’ll get to it, but let me tell you what I found this morning.”
Ben wanted to bow up at being put off, but she was so obviously bursting to share, he didn’t have the heart to disappoint her. “What do you want to tell me?”
“I was going through all these papers, trying to draw some more lines between the members of the Sportsmen’s Club and my brother, and I came across a consulting firm with a funny name.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Funny how?”
“They set themselves up not long after the furor from the DEA operation died down. They call themselves White, Pinkman, Schrader and McGill.”
He shook his head, momentarily confused. “Is this the wild thing you mentioned?” She nodded, and then something clicked. “What were the names again?” He gaped at her as she patiently repeated them.
“White, Pinkman, Schrader and McGill.”
“Like the characters from Breaking Bad?”
She nodded, pleasure lighting her face. “I knew you’d get it. I imagine a lot of you DEA guys watched that show.”
He shrugged. “Some did. It was good television, but to be honest with you, most of us were annoyed they made a sort-of hero out of Walter White.”
“Yes, well, I found an offer to buy the land at Sawtooth Lake from this group.” She shrugged. “Not the first, but it was the one my brother took to my father.”
“And Henry rejected it.”
She confirmed his assumption with a brief nod. “Then later reached out to them to accept it. But by then, another party was involved. A real estate investment group represented by Jared Baker. The guy I wanted to go work for in Atlanta.”
This was the first he’d heard of any plans Marlee had extending beyond Pine Bluff. Of course it would be Atlanta. The one place in the world he’d never step foot in again. Not even on a layover, if he could help it. “You planned to remain in Atlanta,” he said, keeping his voice as even as he could.
She waved a fluttering hand as if her plans were inconsequential. “Yeah, well, the best-laid plans of Masters children and all,” she said dismissively.
She was speaking in riddles, and he didn’t have the patience to unravel them now. “What kind of law was it?”
“Corporate but medium-sized. Not the flashy stuff.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. My father made sure I couldn’t get an interview, much less the job. This morning I saw Baker’s name on the papers.”
Ben took a moment to digest the information. “Jared Baker is connected to the Sawtooth Lake Sportsmen’s Club, this partnership, and you were supposed to interview for a job with him?”
“Sheriff Ben!” Darlene shouted from the window of the dairy bar.
Marlee nodded and picked up her phone as he slid down from the wall. “You grab the food, and I’ll pull up their website and text it to you.”
Ben’s mind raced, parsing the sentence for pertinent information then filing bits away to be reviewed later. Marlee planned to leave Pine Bluff. That knowledge had to be stowed away for now too. He had to focus on what was happening around Sawtooth Lake. He heard the chime of a text alert as he reached for his wallet to pay for their lunch. “What do I owe you?”
Darlene waved him off. “Nothing. I charged it to Henry’s account.”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “You run tabs for people?”
Smirking, she said, “I run a tab for Henry Masters.” Then she slid the window shut with a metallic thwack, indicating the end of the conversation.
Clutching their food and drinks, he hurried back to the spot where Marlee sat waiting for him. Upon approach, he wagged his head in exaggerated dismay. “This town is nuttier than a fruitcake.”
She beamed as she extracted her milkshake from his hands. “You’re only noticing it now?”
He placed the bag between them, then resumed his seat on the wall. “I guess I’m
getting used to seeing more instances of nuttiness hanging out with you.”
She smiled, then dug into the bag and removed two foil-wrapped burgers along with a paper boat filled with onion rings.
He studied her closely. “You seem to be bearing up well,” he observed mildly.
She lowered her sunglasses to peer at him over the frames. “So far, I’ve lost my brother and two men I’ve known most of my life.” She pushed the glasses up and took a bite of an onion ring, chewing while she let the information sink in. “I can’t think too hard about it now.”
“Marlee, I—”
“Can we take ten minutes?” Her eyes implored him. “I found the information, and I will talk about it. But I didn’t stop to think what it might mean beyond sort of filling in the blanks. And I want—” She broke off. Her gaze dropped to the remaining bite pinched between her fingers. “I want us to eat lunch together like normal people. Maybe talk about something other than death while we do it?” She grimaced. “Do I sound horrible?”
He looked into her big blue eyes, and something inside him uncoiled. “No. I get you,” he answered quietly. “Ten minutes isn’t going to hurt anyone.” He set to work unwrapping his cheeseburger. “I haven’t tried a burger yet.”
She stared at him, shock widening her eyes as she chewed. “You haven’t?”
“There are too many other things. Even I can cook a burger,” he said with a shrug.
She snorted and set to work unwrapping her own sandwich. “Not a Daisy burger,” she asserted. “You’d better try an onion ring too. They’re life changing.”
Ben eyed the thick burger. “They are, huh?”
She reached for another of the lightly battered rings and held it so close to his eyes, he could pick out the flecks of pepper in the breading. “You’ll swear you saw God this day, Ben Kinsella. Mark my words,” she intoned gravely.
Chuckling, he took the onion ring from her and let it dangle from his index finger as he took a big bite of the burger. Juicy, well-seasoned beef made his taste buds sing. He closed his eyes for a moment, then widened them at her as he chewed, letting out an appreciative moan.
Beside him, Marlee laughed and wriggled, delighted by the small triumph. “Told you so. The ring is going to blow your mind.”
* * *
THEY ATE QUICKLY but kept the conversation mercifully light. Selfishly, she wanted to sit with Ben in the dappled sunlight, eating cheeseburgers and talking about their favorite fried foods. She needed a moment of normalcy, even if it was a bit forced. People cast curious glances in their direction, but she didn’t care. She was happy sharing a slice of peace with him.
They split the last onion ring between them. She watched as Ben sucked a bit of burger grease from his finger and thumb, then handed over the remaining, yet wholly inadequate, paper napkin. He took his time wiping his hands. “You ready to talk more now?”
Marlee sighed, a blush warming her cheeks as she balled up her own napkin and tossed it into the paper bag. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You’re the one who came to me with your suspicions,” he reminded her gently. “We aren’t the ones making these things happen. If they are connected, if there is something going on, don’t you think we owe it to your brother to figure out what it is?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to need to have a handle on everything you can unearth about this property deal.”
She nodded. “Right. But I think you’d better make it more official. Come to Wendell’s office this afternoon. We’ll tell him what we suspect and let him decide what he wants to tell my father and when.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “You want me to give your father the chance to lawyer up?”
“My father doesn’t need to be any more lawyered up than he already is. Besides, he has as much of an interest in seeing this solved as I do. More, even. He’s the one who has had to live with my mother day in and day out since Jeff died,” she added quietly. “Maybe it will help him to realize she hasn’t been entirely off the mark.”
He nodded, then dropped down off the wall. She scrambled to gather her wits and her belongings, but he snatched up their trash in one hand and offered her the other. Grasping her discarded cardigan, she placed her fingertips in his palm and allowed him to steady her as she gained her footing. To her surprise, he closed his fingers around hers, hanging tight to her hand as they made their way toward the trash bins. They’d almost made it past the front bumper of Reverend Mitchell’s Buick when he remembered himself.
He tried to drop her hand, but Marlee was having none of his nonsense. She made a show of sliding on the loose gravel at the edge of the pavement and hooked her wrist through his arm. When she flipped her hair back over her shoulder, she tossed a friendly wave toward her family’s minister.
“Afternoon, Reverend Mitchell,” she called, squeezing Ben’s bicep to halt him.
He shot her a glare but obliged as the clergyman rolled his window down.
“Good afternoon,” the older man called to them. “It’s nice to see you home, Miss Marlee.”
“Good to be home,” she lied through bared teeth. “I assume you’ve met Sheriff Kinsella,” she added.
“Yes, we have met,” the minister said genially. “Sheriff, I hope you’re settling in? We’d love to see you some Sunday.”
Ben stiffened slightly under her grasp, but he gave the older man a respectful nod. “Kind of you, Reverend. I appreciate the invitation.”
“I have to get on back to work,” Marlee said, using the hand holding her sweater to wave. “You say hello to Mrs. Mitchell for me.”
“You can tell her hello yourself on Sunday,” the minister replied. “See you, Miss Marlee.” Without waiting for her reply, he grinned and rolled his window up again.
Marlee laughed, hugging Ben’s arm to her side as he led the way. “Darn, I walked smack into that trap, didn’t I?”
She beamed up at him, but the moment was shattered when her phone dinged to indicate a new text message. A creeping sensation crawled up her spine as she pulled her phone out. Forcing a smile to trigger the device’s facial recognition, she stopped dead when she saw the message notification from an unknown number.
No one wants you here, Marlee. Go away!
* * *
BEN RESENTED HAVING to return to the sheriff’s office. Every minute he spent parted from Marlee made him itchy. Aside from the text that blew his theory out of the water, he wanted to be with her when she shared the information she’d unearthed about the land sale with Wingate so he could gauge the man’s reaction. Right now, only the two of them knew about the land, and he wanted to keep it that way for now. What was the old saying? Two people can keep a secret, but three people can only keep one if two of them are dead.
Whether Marlee was aware of it or not, there was inherent risk in sharing her findings with Wendell Wingate. They had no clue who could be mixed up in whatever this was, but Wendell Wingate was aware of the land transactions. If he hadn’t already been asking himself questions about the circumstances between Jeff Masters’s death and Clint Young’s, adding Bo Abernathy’s to the mix should certainly set the gears to grinding.
They’d have to watch Wingate carefully. The attorney was too sharp, too skilled a lawyer to have any of the obvious tells. This was where his status as someone new to the area could help. His impressions of Wingate would be fresh and unfiltered.
Sitting at his desk, he scrolled through the Baker Law Firm website, scouring every page for a clue connecting the man to Masters County and Sawtooth Lake. But he found none. The guy was an Atlanta native. Buckhead area, of course. He’d attended Pace Academy, gone north to Harvard for undergrad and law school and then come back to practice. He’d spent only two years as an associate at one of the city’s prestigious firms prior to striking out on his own.
From what he could find, the firm’s client bas
e was more eclectic than the corporations they represented at his old firm. There were a couple of deep-pocket corporations, of course, but also a mix of financial wizards, athletes, a reality television star and some hotshots from the local rap scene on their client roster. He lingered over an article linking Jared Baker to a gang-connected rapper whose name Ben recognized from the time he spent embedded in the SEATL crew. He closed out of the screen with a growl of frustration.
Spinning away from the computer, he tapped his forefinger to his upper lip as he weighed the possibilities. Also, divulging their suspicions might cause any of the people involved to go to ground—which would be good and bad. Good because it might bring a halt to these horrific scenes but bad because the how or why behind it would remain a mystery.
He sighed and pushed out of his desk chair. He’d stalled as long as he could. He needed to get over to Wingate’s offices and start fitting puzzle pieces together. He also needed to talk to Marlee about keeping her nose out of the investigation. There was a time and place for attorneys, but usually, it came later.
Now, he needed to be a cop.
As much as he hated to admit it given the circumstances, for the first time in a long time, it felt good again.
Chapter Thirteen
Wendell sat in his desk chair, his elbows propped on the arms and his fingers steepled beneath his chin, his attention fixed on Ben. Marlee fought the urge to interject facts here and there while Ben methodically laid out the details surrounding the deaths of Jeff Masters, Clint Young and now Bo Abernathy, as well as the connection Marlee had drawn between the three men and the sale of her family’s property at Sawtooth Lake. Any information she had in addition to the facts Ben so painstakingly outlined would have been an exercise in gilding the lily. All they had at the moment were three deaths without any evidence pointing to anything beyond suicide and a basket full of supposition, so she kept her mouth shut and let Wendell’s sharply honed intellect do the work.