He sat in stunned silence. “I wish I knew something. I’ve never seen this woman before. And Anthony . . . he’s a good guy. He wouldn’t get mixed up in something like this. I can assure you of that. Besides, he’s so busy with working and training that he wouldn’t have time to get into trouble.”
“Do you know where he was on Sunday?” I asked, saving Jamie the agony.
“I do, as a matter of fact. We went to church together. Then afterward we took a ten-mile run along the river. I had a barbecue with his family that afternoon. Does that put your mind more at ease?”
Jamie’s shoulders slumped with visible relief. “It does. Thank you.”
A shadow crossed his face. “I think I can help you find some more answers, though. How about if I ask Anthony to stop by?”
“You’d do that for me?” Jamie’s voice lilted like she was impressed.
He nodded. “Anything for you, Jamie.”
I paced as I waited for Anthony to show up. This could potentially bring us the answers we needed. Or it could lead us to more questions. I wasn’t sure if I could handle more questions. I was up to my eyeballs in them already.
Jamie looked equally as nervous, though Wesley appeared to be a nice distraction. They sat on the couch beside each other, talking about ways to make popcorn. Both looked totally entrenched in the meaningless conversation.
I remembered those early days of dating when everything seemed new and fresh and exciting. Chase and I used to talk for hours about inconsequential things like four-leaf clovers, and the best way to shuck corn, and how calculus should be outlawed in high schools and a course on taxes should replace it.
Had that faded from our lives? Even if it had, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Relationships had different phases, as did life.
I only wished I felt more certain about things lately.
Just then, the doorbell rang. All three of us stiffened. Finally, Wesley stood and strode out of the room while Jamie and I remained in the library. In the distance, I could hear the door open and the two men exchange a jovial greeting. The suspicious side of me had to wonder: Was Wesley prepping Anthony? Whispering in his ear? Gathering weapons?
Finally, they appeared at the library entrance. I quickly soaked in Anthony’s features. He was a tall, thin, light-skinned African-American with curly hair that was cropped close. His smile didn’t come as easily as Wesley’s had.
Actually, it didn’t come at all.
I braced myself for whatever would happen next.
Wesley’s face looked tight, and Anthony’s face instantly showed confusion when he spotted us.
“What’s going on?” Anthony’s gaze fell on Jamie. “Another article?”
Wesley shook his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t speak the total truth. Jamie and her friend, Holly, have some questions they’re hoping you can answer. I know you’re a stand-up guy who would want to help.”
His body looked tense, with tight shoulders, a hard jaw, and piercing eyes. He undoubtedly felt like he’d been backed into a corner. Anyone would.
“Okay . . . what’s going on?” Anthony didn’t sit, but instead stood beside Wesley.
Wesley nodded toward Jamie, who then looked at me.
“You take it, Holly,” my friend said.
It sounded totally unlike my brazen friend. She really liked this guy.
“I need to ask you about your connection with Katie Edwards,” I started.
As soon as I said her name, Anthony’s head subtly jerked back. He blinked. Flinched ever so slightly.
I held my breath, waiting to see what he would say or do next.
“Who said I know a Katie Edwards?” he finally said, his expression stone cold.
“Well, based on your reaction, you did,” I said.
His gaze darted from person to person. He was a man on the edge, I realized. He was ready to run. Fight or flight. Even more than that, I realized, he knew something. I wasn’t leaving until I found out what.
“What about her?”
I got right to the point. “She’s missing. So is her baby. Her boyfriend is dead.”
He closed his eyes and hung his head, transforming in an instant from on the edge to burdened. “I tried to warn her.”
My heart pounded in my chest. We were close. So close. I could feel it. “Warn her about what?”
“That she was in over her head.” He paced toward a seat beside the couch. “I need to sit down.”
I swallowed hard. All the optimism in the world couldn’t defeat the power of bad news. And bad news loomed like a storm in the distance right now.
“How did you know Katie?” I asked, trying to gather all the facts I could.
He shook his head, which was still lowered. “I didn’t. Not really. I knew her boyfriend, though. I’d seen her picture on his phone and asked if he was married. My mom always told me I had the gift of gab.” He let out a chuckle, but it quickly faded. “Anyway, he mentioned her name to me, and, with a little research, I was able to figure out where she lived. I thought if I could reach Katie, maybe she could get through to Gage.”
“And how did you know Gage?” I continued.
He raised his head, but his face looked like it had aged a decade since he arrived. “He showed up at my house asking questions one day.”
“About . . . ?” I was going to have to pull each detail from him, wasn’t I? He was obviously nervous and hesitant to share. In fact, if Wesley hadn’t been here, I wasn’t sure he would be sharing.
“You really don’t want to know. The less you know, the safer you are. You’ve got to believe me.”
That kicked my curiosity up another notch.
But I wasn’t buying it, not when so much was on the line. “I think we can handle the truth. We have no choice but to handle the truth. The life of a little six-month-old depends on it. Every minute that passes makes this more critical.”
He hung his head and swung it back and forth. “I was afraid something like this was going to happen.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Wesley’s gaze never left his friend.
Anthony raised his head but remained quiet. I thought he might refuse to speak. Finally, he drew in a deep breath.
“It all started when Gage showed up on my doorstep about three weeks ago. He was doing some research into a string of robberies in the area. My home was one of those that had been broken into.”
“He was writing about the robberies?” Jamie clarified.
“That’s right,” Anthony said. “It was a little odd because the guy who broke into my house was caught. He’d been slapped with a fine but not given any jail time. Pretty light sentence, right? Especially since he stole around $5,000 worth of things from my place.”
“I remember you mentioning that,” Wesley said.
“Yeah, it was a headache. But that’s not really what Gage wanted to talk to me about. It went deeper than that.”
“What was it?” I asked, desperate to put together the pieces and tired of being fed a tiny morsel at a time.
“He was asking about some prescription drugs I’d been taking.”
I let that settle in my mind. It hadn’t been what I’d expected to hear. Not at all. “Prescription drugs? How’d Gage know you were taking prescription drugs?”
He shrugged. “I guess it was any easy assumption since my accident. Most people whose bodies have been through the kind of trauma mine has end up taking something to control the pain. Anyway, after the robbery, my drugs disappeared.”
“Gage thought that was newsworthy, I guess?” I asked, trying to grasp what he was getting at. I was determined to follow this through to completion.
He dragged in another deep breath. “Not in itself. He got a lead that someone was stealing prescription drugs from people’s homes and selling them at top dollar on the street.”
Heathcliff. Was that what Heathcliff was doing? Was he behind the break-ins? We’d thought it was weapons, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was
both?
“The strange thing was this: While the burglar was still in jail—this was before he went before the judge and was let off too easy—my house was broken into again. Nothing was taken the second time—except my prescriptions.”
“Interesting.” I remembered my own medicine that was missing. I needed to look for those pill bottles again when I had the chance. I hadn’t thought about them again until this conversation. “But I’m still not sure why knowing that information puts my life in danger.”
“There’s more to it.” He swallowed hard. “In each of the cases where drugs were stolen, different people were behind the crimes. The burglaries themselves weren’t connected, other than the missing drugs.”
“So there’s a ring of guys who are breaking in and making it look like they’re stealing electronics when they’re actually stealing drugs?” I clarified, feeling like I was missing something.
“On the surface that might be what it seemed like, but Gage had a different theory. He apparently thought someone else connected with the scenes was stealing the drugs.”
“Who would do that? I mean, that would require the same people being at these crimes and being unseen by the officers there. They would almost have to be—” Before I finished my sentence, my voice caught.
I knew exactly what he was getting at. But I hoped I was wrong, that I’d jumped to conclusions too hastily.
“First responders.” Anthony frowned. “Gage thought they were pocketing the drugs as they did their investigations. He was trying to collect enough evidence to prove it.”
Chapter 27
I gave myself a minute to let that sink in. This wasn’t about weapons. It wasn’t about street drugs. It was about prescription drugs all along.
The color drained from my face. When had I last seen my own prescription painkillers? Was it before the police had come to my house this week? “So what do you think happened?”
Anthony’s gaze locked with mine. “I think one of the first responders picked up on what Gage was researching for his article, and I think he was killed to keep him silent. I think Katie was set up to look like the one who did it, and that the police manipulated the evidence.”
My heart pounded in my ears.
It couldn’t be.
First responders? I’d worked with them numerous times. They were all stand-up men and women . . . right? They’d only done justice by me—as far as I knew.
My next thought was of Chase. He wasn’t involved in this, was he?
I had seen that picture of him meeting with Morgan Bayfield. He’d lied about being at the homicide that night.
No, Holly. Have faith. You know him better than that.
Even that thought didn’t calm my stomach, which churned with anxiety.
Jamie’s hand went to my back. She must have read my thoughts. The tables here had turned, and I was the one now nervous.
“So you went to warn Katie on Thursday?” I could hardly speak because my throat was so tight. “How did you know danger was closing in?”
“Ever since Gage talked to me, I felt like I was being watched. It made me suspicious. I started talking to people at the break-ins, and their stories confirmed Gage’s theory. Someone has been stealing drugs, but it’s been like a slight-of-hand trick. There’s always been a bigger crime involved that helped to cover up the missing prescriptions.”
“Did you confront the police officers or do anything to make them suspicious of you?”
He shook his head. “No, but I started getting threats. Weird stuff started happening. Then my neighbor’s car was vandalized. Somehow the things that were stolen ended up in my shed. I thought they were going to arrest me on the spot.”
Wesley nodded. “It’s true. I was there for all of it. The weird thing was when the robbery supposedly went down, Anthony had an alibi. We were training together out of town.”
Whoever was involved in this ring was using evidence tampering. They didn’t deserve to have a badge. They were wielding their power to hurt others.
“Do you remember what any of the cops looked like?” I asked.
Anthony shook his head. “I’m nearly certain there were different cops who showed up each time. I couldn’t tell you which one was involved.”
“Do you remember anything about any of them?” I asked. I was close—so close. But narrowing down who was involved would only make this more complicated.
He sighed. “One was older with a square face. I thought he was too old to be on patrol. But his voice seemed kind.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Officer Truman.
Was he involved this?
I prayed that wasn’t the case.
Because I was beginning to lose faith in humanity . . . something an optimist should never have to say.
Chapter 28
“When was the last time you saw Katie?”
As soon as the question left my lips, Anthony stiffened again, and I knew there was more to the story. Digging for more answers had paid off.
His jaw flexed, and he rubbed it. Closed his eyes. Sighed. Opened his eyes again and stared in the distance. Finally, he said, “I talked to her again on Sunday.”
Anticipation buzzed through me. This man was the link I’d been looking for. He’d been so close yet so far away this whole time. “When on Sunday?”
“That evening.”
“She called you after she discovered Gage was dead . . .” I realized. After she dropped off Jonah. As she went on the run after everything that had gone down.
Anthony nodded. “She did. She told me what happened. She told me she was going to hide out, but she didn’t know where yet. Said she’d made sure the baby was safe and had tried to cover her tracks.”
“What did you tell her?” Jamie’s eyes were riveted on Anthony.
“Between the four of us, I told her I had a place out in Brown County, Indiana, that she could use. I figured no one would find her there—for a while, at least.”
“Did she go there?” The question came out quickly, as if my mouth was trying to keep up with my thoughts.
He leaned closer and lowered his voice until it was raspy. “You can’t tell anyone this. Her life is on the line.”
“Because she was framed?” I filled in the blanks. All that evidence at the crime scene had most likely been set up by someone else. Someone experienced, who knew how to cover his or her tracks. Someone who had access to things if they forgot anything.
“Exactly,” Anthony said. “And if the cops who set her up get to her first, she’s as good as dead. They’ll kill her and make it look like an accident. Maybe a suicide.”
He had a point. It suddenly made sense why she ran. Why she left the note. I still wasn’t quite sure why she left Jonah with me—maybe because our connection was so disconnected—or why she addressed the note to “Ms. Holly,” unless she’d done that just to throw me off her trail. It was a possibility.
And speaking of setting someone up to look like a suicide . . . what about Bo, Violet’s brother? He’d supposedly taken his life. What if it was all staged also? What if he’d actually been killed and the police had swept it under the rug?
Things were starting to make sense, but I wasn’t liking the answers I got. That was the danger of searching for answers, I supposed. Sometimes you found them, and they made you sick to your stomach when you did.
“I can only assume that any evidence Gage found to prove his theory was taken after he was killed,” I mused aloud. The police had been there at the scene. Covering up after themselves would have been easy.
“Most likely.” Anthony nodded. “So we’ve got nothing. No proof. Only speculation. We take this information to the wrong person, we’re all sitting ducks. That’s why I didn’t want to tell anyone.”
“Thank you for sharing this,” I told him. “There’s only one person I trust to help us. Do I have your permission to speak with him?”
Anthony didn’t say anything for a moment. “Is he a cop?”
I nod
ded.
He rubbed his jaw. “I don’t know.”
“You can’t let the bullies win,” Jamie said. “Then everyone loses.”
That was a line from the article. I remembered reading it.
He rolled his shoulders back at her pronouncement. “Are you sure he’s trustworthy?”
I nodded again.
Finally Anthony bobbed his head up and then down. “Tell him about the drug ring. Tell him other cops are involved. But don’t tell him you know where Katie is. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Jamie and I were both quiet as we stepped into the cold outdoors. I pulled my coat closer as I walked toward my car. The conversation had left me chilled.
Truman? Really?
I still couldn’t believe it.
I climbed into my Mustang and cranked the heat.
I couldn’t bring myself to put the car into Drive. Not yet. I had too much on my mind.
“You really think you can trust Chase?” Jamie asked beside me.
“Yes, of course, I can trust him. Why?”
Her shoulder shrugged upward. “He did get that new truck recently.”
“He said he got a good deal on it . . .” Even as I said the words, I realized how it sounded. “Jamie, you know him. He wouldn’t be involved in something like this.”
“Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment. Then why was he photographed with the blonde woman? Morgan Bayfield?”
I didn’t have the answers yet. “He had to have good reason.”
She made a face before nodding. “If you think he’s on the up and up, then I’ll go with your decision.”
“Thank you.” A hint of doubt lingered in the back of my mind, though.
Trust, Holly. Trust.
Before I could second-guess myself, I picked up my phone and dialed Chase’s number. He answered right away. His voice sounded short and hurried. That meant he was on the job, usually. “What’s up?”
“Chase, there are some things I need to tell you,” I started.
“Is this about Jonah?”
Random Acts of Greed: Holly Anna Paladin Mysteries, Book 4 Page 18