by Diane Capri
“Such as?”
“Such as, it’s possible the tech tycoon Boyd Wilcox is involved. And his brother, Mark.”
“That guy on TV? The one whose wife was kidnapped and murdered a while back?”
“That’s the one.”
“You worked on that case.”
He nodded. “Not a great success. All we ever found was her head. We never found the rest of her body.”
“Case was never solved, right?”
He scowled. “In the sense that we didn’t find the killers, if that’s what you mean. But my end of it was solved. We found her head. I got paid.”
She shook her head. “I’m guessing that wasn’t exactly what her husband had in mind when he hired you to find his wife.”
Flint pursed his lips and said nothing.
“And you already knew all this about Hallman, didn’t you?” She arched her eyebrows. “So what is it that you need me for?”
“You’ve got a good grip on everything we know. I want all these loose ends nailed down. Quickly. I’ve got to find this guy in the next few days.”
“My team can handle that. I don’t know what you expect to learn, though. The guy’s been gone a long time. What are these people going to know that they haven’t already told someone involved with the earlier investigations?”
“That’s what I want your team to find out. We’ve already covered the records. We need personal contact now.” He paused. “I’m especially interested in whether anyone even remotely connected with those four guys I found at Wilcox’s house on Red Maple Lake have been in contact with the families or friends of Hallman’s two passengers.”
“You think the Wilcoxes are involved in this and you’re looking for evidence to support your hunch?” She cocked her head, like her daughter’s little schnauzer, Whiskers. Flint imagined that her ears might have pointed straight up like Whiskers,’ too.
“And I want to know what was said. Precisely.” He paused. “If I’m right about the connection, it makes sense that they’d have covered all their bases and tried to find Hallman through the others.”
“We can nail that down.” She paused and settled back in her chair, hands folded over her flat stomach. She arched both eyebrows. “What do you think you’re going to find here? Hallman and Jimmy Hoffa playing poker on some yacht in the Pacific?”
“More likely that Hallman has gone off the grid somewhere and some small fact will help us find him.” Flint ignored the sarcasm. “That’s how it often works. A piece of information. Something that seems inconsequential. But it can hold the key to solving the case. You know that.”
“Okay. We’ll handle it. Let you know what we find.” Scarlett punched a button on a remote and a big-screen television came to life. Two videos were cued up. The left side was the Reno story on Hallman’s plane crash that Flint had seen in Veronica Beaumont’s office. The right side was the final story on the kidnapping and murder of Mark Wilcox’s wife.
“Notice anything similar about these two news stories, Flint?”
He said nothing. Of course he had noticed it. The second he’d learned that Wilcox owned the house that sat between the Cessna crash site and the Red Maple Lake Resort.
“Hallman disappeared a few weeks after Wilcox’s wife.” Scarlett pointed the laser to the date lines on each story. “What do these two stories have in common? Several things.” She tapped the laser pointer on her desk for emphasis. “Timing. Wilcox.” She gave him a pointed look. “You.”
He nodded slowly.
“What do you make of that? Coincidence?” She shook her head. “Not a chance.” She put the pointer down, folded her hands on the desk again, and leaned forward. “Stop screwing around. Tell me what’s really going on here.”
“Good question.” He shrugged. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Let’s say the original situation had nothing to do with you, but somehow concerned Wilcox. Making that assumption, seems to me there are three possible choices.” She held up her index finger. “Hallman was a hit man. Somebody paid him. He killed the two passengers and Wilcox’s wife. Then he disappeared with the cash.”
“Possible. That story would answer a lot of open questions. A hit man could have created a false identity easily enough back then.” At the time, Flint had asked his inside contacts to find suspicious deaths that could have been assassinations, similar to Aludra Wilcox’s murder. Nothing had turned up, which made the theory unlikely.
But Hallman could be cleverer than most assassins. Although nothing in his files suggested any particular expertise in execution techniques. His military service hadn’t included deployments to countries where beheadings and honor killings were common.
“We could assume that Hallman was not involved with Wilcox at all.” Scarlett held up a second finger. “Wrong place, wrong time, for Hallman and his friends. They saw something they shouldn’t have out there and lost their lives for it. Which means that Hallman’s body is most likely at the bottom of the lake. Or somewhere in that forest. All you have to do is find it.”
Flint said, “The place is remote. It’s almost impossible to get in or out. Hallman’s body would never be accidently discovered if he died in the forest, or if he’s in the lake. Searches have been restricted.”
“Third option.” Scarlett nodded and held up a third finger. “Hallman’s crash was unlucky and his friends were killed by someone else, but he is somehow still alive and running from the killers. Probably living under an assumed identity and probably out of the country. It’s damned near impossible for an average Joe to stay off the grid inside the US these days. Too little privacy. Too many ways he can be tripped up. But there are lots of places in the world with limited technology. He could be hiding in one of them.”
This was the conclusion Flint had settled on because he wanted Hallman to be alive. “Got a favorite?”
“Of the three possibilities? They’re all good, but the third option is the least likely.”
“Agreed.” He grinned. “So I’ll take option number three. You rule out one and two.”
She scowled. “You still think you’re so damn smart, don’t you?”
“Maybe the guy is armed and dangerous, but I doubt it.” He shrugged. She knew him too well. Hallman’s short stint in the military included basic training, but he never saw action. Nothing turned up to suggest any serious combat training or covert ops or anything even remotely close to those skill levels. “If he got away and stayed below the radar all this time, we can assume he’s clever and resourceful. He’s got strong self-preservation skills. But he’s not a Mossad killing machine or anything like that.”
“You gonna tell me why we’re looking for this guy?”
“I will when I can. I promised the client confidentiality. It started out as a favor for a friend. But now that we suspect Mark Wilcox is involved in this thing, it feels like unfinished business. The guy hates me. Back then, I thought he’d get over it. And it’s been years. And I didn’t kill his wife. But he’s not over it. Not even close.” He paused and grinned again. “You know how I hate to leave loose ends. I need to find his wife’s killer.”
She wasn’t amused. She cocked her head again and narrowed her eyes.
“Miles to go before I sleep. Drake’s waiting for me outside.” He stood and stretched. “How soon can you handle chasing down all of Hallman’s contacts, including contacts for his two dead friends?”
“Not long.” Her voice acquired a sharper edge. “What are you going to be doing while I’m handling your scut work?”
“Looking at the Wilcox case again.”
She shook her head. “I don’t like it.”
“I’ll be fine, Mom. I promise,” he teased on his way out the door.
“Flint.” He turned at the threshold to hear the rest. “Maddy told me she asked you to find Jamie Beaumont’s father.”
He arched his eyebrows. “Is Maddy okay? She was too upset to talk when she called me.”
“She’s be
tter, but her friend is really sick and she knows what that means. It’s not the sort of thing a kid simply gets over in a few hours.” Scarlett narrowed her eyes. “Is this missing guy, Josh Hallman, Jamie’s father?”
He took a deep breath and shrugged. “Veronica Beaumont says he is.”
“Let’s say she’s right. You think that barracuda hired you to find Hallman without knowing about your involvement in the old Wilcox case?”
He shrugged. “Wilcox’s name never came up until I went out to the crash site. She never mentioned him. He didn’t mention her.”
“You know all these moguls hang out together. They belong to the same clubs, attend charity balls and sporting events together, and all that crap. They talk.”
“Meaning what?”
“You have a reputation in certain quarters as the best heir hunter in the world. You cultivate your rep to the point of being obnoxious about it. But it’s not like you’re advertising on television.” She paused. “You keep your skills quiet for good reasons. Your clients are referrals, usually of unsolved cases, from sophisticated investigators.”
He knew what she was getting at. The situation felt like a setup to him now, too. But a setup by whom? And why?
“Somebody’s feeding Beaumont information. And don’t tell me she hired you because Maddy and Jamie are friends.” She shook her head. “Veronica Beaumont isn’t the kind of woman who makes life-and-death choices on the advice of a seven-year-old girl she barely knows. I don’t like it. Something’s off. There’s more going on here.” She took a deep breath. “Watch yourself, Michael.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned and lifted his hand to tip an imaginary hat to her before he strode through the building and outside to Drake’s limousine waiting at the curb.
Her point was well taken, though. The Hallman case had become more complicated than a simple search for a missing bone marrow donor. He could have handled that in a single afternoon. He agreed that Beaumont had used Maddy to get to him.
Scarlett was right, as she usually was. But whoever was manipulating Beaumont had reasons for placing him in Mark Wilcox’s path again. Reasons that had nothing to do with Beaumont or her son or even her missing man. There weren’t that many people out there smart and resourceful enough to orchestrate the situation. In fact, he could only think of one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Houston, Texas
Wednesday
Drake dropped him off at home. He showered to wash off the travel grime and dressed in black jeans, black turtleneck sweater, and black boots. He found nothing edible in his refrigerator, which was fine. Houston wasn’t a foodie haven, but there were places to eat along the way. He grabbed his black leather jacket and his keys on the way out the back door.
He reached the hospital, parked in the visitor’s lot, and made his way to Jamie Beaumont’s room. Veronica Beaumont was there, by her son’s bedside, as Flint had expected. She might be the wicked bitch of the west, as Scarlett insisted, but she loved her son. That much was obvious to any observer.
Jamie was sleeping. He looked even more frail than the first time Flint saw him at Daisy’s Dairy Barn. He knocked lightly on the doorframe. Veronica looked up. She put a finger to her lips and stepped away from Jamie’s bed, waving him into the corridor. She followed him out and pulled the door closed.
“Did you find Josh?” Gone was the fashionable bitch she’d been every other time he’d seen her. Her voice was raspy. Deep circles smudged under both eyes. She’d gnawed her lipstick off long ago. She looked exhausted.
“Not yet. We need to talk.”
“I can’t leave Jamie.”
“Who gave you my name?”
“What do you mean?” She blinked and shook her head as if she was confused by the question. “You know Maddy Scarlett told Jamie about you. After that, I did my research. I told you all of this before.”
He watched her face carefully. “Tell me the truth this time. It’s important.”
She looked down at her shoes. He saw her shoulders rise and fall with deep breaths. He waited. When she looked up again, she pushed her lips around her teeth for a moment.
“Look, Veronica, here’s the thing. I’ll help you find Hallman. Maybe he’ll be the donor Jamie needs. I hope he will. We’re running short on time. I’ve got to make some decisions here and I can’t do it blindfolded.” He ran a palm over his face. “You need to be straight with me. Last chance. Who gave you my name?”
“He told me not to tell you.” She closed her eyes for a moment.
“Of course he did. Tell me anyway.”
She did the thing with her lips again, stalling. She narrowed her eyes and gazed into his face, searching for something that she didn’t find. She shook her head.
Her reluctance told him more than a blurted answer would have. She was afraid of the man. Not many people had the capacity to frighten her. She was tough as nails and she did exactly as she pleased. He admired those qualities in a woman. Usually.
“Let’s do it this way, then. I’ll suggest a few names. You tell me if I get one right.”
She cocked her head. He took that as consent.
He’d narrowed the options to one real possibility, but he didn’t start there. She’d be more likely to tell him if he warmed her up first, so he began with a man her age. In her orbit. Financially, close to her equal, although he’d acquired his money the old-fashioned way—his daddy gave it to him—and she’d earned hers. According to the gossip rags, a man she’d dated as recently as six months ago and might be dating still.
“Jasper Crane.”
Her eyes widened. “You’ve worked for Jasper? He never mentioned it.”
He’d never even met Jasper Crane and he’d certainly never worked for the man. It was Crane’s father, Felix, he’d crossed. But he’d let her find that out on her own. “Mark Wilcox.”
“Don’t know him and don’t want to.” She shook her head and trembled with something resembling revulsion. “Word is, he’s rich and famous, but jealous and controlling. Hot temper, too. A total asshole.”
Flint didn’t argue, although he wondered who’d supplied her with that assessment. “Boyd Wilcox.”
She shook her head again. “You do get around, don’t you?”
He’d never worked for Boyd Wilcox. Nor would he, given the way things had ended with his brother. “Sebastian Shaw.”
Her eyes widened involuntarily and her lips formed a little O before a frown crossed her face and she pursed her lips as if to hold her comments in check.
Flint nodded. Bingo. Exactly what he’d thought. “What did Shaw tell you about me?”
She shook her head again. Whatever Shaw had said, the words had been strong enough to keep her quiet.
“Okay. I’ll ask him myself.”
She shrugged, and her usual defiance was back.
He’d confirmed that neither Jasper Crane nor Mark Wilcox had sent her his way. Baz Shaw was another matter.
Shaw was one of the wealthiest oil tycoons in Texas and a client of Scarlett Investigations. Flint had been coerced into handling an heir hunt for him last year. It had ended in disaster and he’d vowed never to work with the man again.
He’d found Shaw to be every inch the ambitious, wealthy, manipulative, controlling snake his reputation claimed. Veronica Beaumont was smart to be wary of him. Shaw had pushed Beaumont to hire Flint for his own reasons. Which probably had nothing to do with Veronica or Josh Hallman. Shaw played a long game. Whatever his motives were, they could wait.
Flint moved on to his second goal. “I’ve been out to Red Maple Lake. Boyd Wilcox owns acreage and a house there. Near the site of Hallman’s plane crash. Did you know that?”
She nodded. “It came up when I hired an investigator to find Josh a while back. Why? Is that relevant?”
“Probably. Wilcox hasn’t been in touch with you?”
“As I said, I’ve never met the man. Or his brother.”
“I found three men out there with Mark Wi
lcox yesterday. They might have been the ones who came to your home looking for Josh.” He pulled his phone out of his jeans and found the headshots he’d looked up online. Ruben Vega from an old company profile. Kevin Hayes from his medical practice. The pilot, Larry Cole, from the California DMV.
He showed Cole first. “Is this the man?”
“No.” She didn’t even have to think about it.
He showed her Hayes next. “Is this the man?”
She took the phone and looked carefully at the photo. She enlarged it and cocked her head for a slightly different view. “He could have been the one behind the wheel of the SUV. I’m not sure. I didn’t get a good look at him and it was a long time ago.”
He took the phone back and showed her the photo of Ruben Vega. “What about this guy?”
Almost instantly, she said, “Yes. That’s him.” Her voice quivered. She handed the phone back. “I’ll never forget his face. Never.”
“Okay.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Maddy’s upset about Jamie. How’s he doing?”
She looked away. When she returned her gaze to his face, her eyes were glassy with unshed tears.
“The doctors say he could be cured completely if we can find a donor.” She paused and wiped one of the tears away. “If you find Josh, please make him understand that he could cure Jamie. The whole thing can be done anonymously. He doesn’t need to meet Jamie or ever see us again afterward. We certainly don’t need his money, if that’s an issue. We’ll leave him alone.”
“You never explained why Hallman has never met Jamie.” Flint frowned. “Jamie’s a good kid. Maddy likes him. That makes him worthy, in my book. Why wouldn’t Hallman want to meet him?”
“It’s complicated. Josh doesn’t know Jamie exists. Let’s leave it at that.” She looked down at her feet and swiped her palms down the sides of her pants. She cleared her throat before she looked up again. “Show Josh that video of Jamie that I gave you. He’ll see how special Jamie is. Just tell him it’s really important and I wouldn’t ask if we had any other options, okay?”
“I will. Sure. But—”