Trace Evidence (The Heir Hunter Book 2)

by Diane Capri

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Republic of Fiji

  Saturday

  The flight time from LAX was more than eleven hours, but Flint had slept and ate and watched television for a while. He’d read through the research files on Joshua Hallman again, looking for anything he might use to persuade Hallman to help his son. Perhaps he wouldn’t need persuading. But the man had disappeared for a reason and stayed away for almost seven years. It was pretty clear that he wouldn’t be all that excited to be found. Flint wasn’t exactly sure how he would change Hallman’s mind.

  The new materials were likely to be more helpful. Flint had reviewed those and committed the salient facts to memory.

  When he deplaned at Nadi International Airport, halfway around the world and a day later, he still didn’t have a solid plan. Which wasn’t the way he preferred to operate. He grabbed his bag and stretched his legs on the way to the terminal exit.

  The operative was waiting for him outside, leaning against a black sedan parked at the curb, arms folded across his chest. A big man, black. Close-cropped hair. Dressed in jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt that left nothing about his punishing fitness routine to the imagination.

  “Flint?” He pulled off his sunglasses as a courtesy, so that Flint could see his eyes. He extended his hand. “Charles Bell.”

  Flint shook hands. The man was strong. He’d be an asset, should they meet trouble. “Thanks for coming on short notice. Where are we headed?”

  Bell looked up at the terminal and nodded toward visible surveillance cameras. “Fill you in on the way.”

  He took the passenger’s seat while Bell slipped his sunglasses on and walked around to the driver’s side. Bell started the sedan and merged into traffic, which was surprisingly heavy.

  “We’ll need to fly to another island to find your man.” Bell glanced into the rearview mirror, perhaps to confirm no one was following. “Helo is the best way to get there. Any problem with that?”

  Flint shook his head. Helicopter travel was as normal as breathing to him. “Tell me what I need to know about this place.”

  “The Republic of Fiji has had a tortured history.” Bell shrugged. “These days, it’s mostly a tourist mecca. Resorts, sand, sea, sunshine. Fijians are good people. What’s not to like?”

  “How many islands?”

  “Three hundred and thirty, I’ve been told. But don’t worry. Only a hundred and ten of those are inhabited.” Bell flashed a smile as he turned the sedan onto the main highway. “Piece of cake to search. If you don’t move on to the more than five hundred islets.”

  Flint nodded. Hallman had chosen a perfect place to disappear. Not many investigators would be dogged enough to pound that much ground to find him. He could easily have lived in anonymity for the remainder of his life. If.

  If Jamie Beaumont wasn’t sick.

  If Veronica Beaumont wasn’t rich enough to pay for an inspired search.

  No doubt, Flint might have searched for Hallman forever, success nowhere close to guaranteed. Hallman might have been the one to spoil Flint’s perfect record.

  Might have been.

  If Flint hadn’t discovered the bank account and devised a plan to lure Hallman to withdraw his money.

  If the plan had failed.

  Which it had not. He grinned.

  “While you were in the air, we followed the money, like you asked. Located your man. We didn’t approach him. Left that for you.” When they’d boarded the helicopter, Bell grinned again. He ran through the start-up procedures expertly. The helo was ready to fly in less than five minutes. “As the pilots say, sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  “How long before we reach the island?”

  “Thirty minutes, tops. But it’s early here. Joshua Hallman’s not likely to be awake yet. Bet fifty bucks we’ll find him home in bed.”

  Flint nodded. “You’re on.”

  The helo flight over the country was enough to entice any tourist to stay forever. A group of islands with rugged landscapes, clear lagoons, and sandy beaches as far as the eye could see. He didn’t know how Hallman had made his way here, but this island paradise would be hard to leave.

  Bell pointed out the small town where Hallman had been living for five years. “Your man’s got a wife and two kids. They live in a modest house on a smaller lot in the interior.”

  “Find any photos of the wife or kids?”

  “Not yet. She’s a Fijian native. Kids, too. They seem happy enough, based on what we’ve found so far. No domestic violence reports in the local blotter, anyway.” Bell paused to make an adjustment to the flight path. “He uses a different name now. Or he did. He had to provide proof of his identity to transfer the money.”

  Flint nodded. Fifty thousand American dollars would go a long way here, and replacing those savings would have been near impossible. No wonder Hallman took Flint’s bait. Maybe he’d thought it romantic to leave the money when he ran from Wilcox Lodge. But after a few years, the romantic glow had been worn off by the reality of grinding poverty. He’d had plenty of time to figure out how to get his money. Flint wondered briefly what Hallman had planned to do to get his cash if Wilcox hadn’t died.

  Bell landed the helo in a parking lot and shut the engine down near a green army Jeep. “Borrowed our wheels from a mate. Bumpy ride out to the Hallman place.”

  Flint shrugged. Of course it was. This entire case had been a bumpy ride, and he was glad to be wrapping it up, one way or another.

  They secured the helo, and Flint stowed his laptop in the back seat of the Jeep. Bell set up a GPS connected to a US military satellite, and they left the business district, such as it was, for the interior.

  Bell drove through the little town, past a school and the bank, along a dirt road, and turned onto a poorly marked path that led to a dilapidated house with a rusty metal roof. The board siding had been painted bright pink once, but that was long ago.

  Bell parked the Jeep.

  Flint stepped out. “Wait here. If I need help, I’ll let you know.”

  “Got it.”

  Flint walked through the dusty front yard strewn with broken toys and an old satellite dish. Flint smiled. Hallman wasn’t totally disconnected from the world after all.

  He heard chickens in the back and a rooster crowing. The grass, such as it was, might have been mowed by lazy goats a while back.

  He knocked on the doorframe while he looked through a crack between the frame and the wall. The house was quiet. He knocked again. A cat roamed the kitchen, meowing for breakfast, or cat litter.

  He knocked again, louder, and the screen door banged against the frame. A man came through an open doorway wearing boxers and a holey T-shirt, roused from sleep. He rubbed his face with one hand and scratched his crotch with the other. His eyes were half closed and he yawned.

  He opened the inside door and slipped outside. “Keep it down, okay? The kids had a late night. They need to sleep.”

  Flint moved back off the stoop. “I’m Michael Flint. I need to talk to you, Josh.”

  Hallman’s eyes rounded and he came wide awake in an instant. He looked like he might rabbit. “What?”

  “I know all about what happened to you at Red Maple Lake six years ago. I’m not here to harm you.” Flint prepared to give chase. “What I have to say is important. A matter of life or death. Seriously. Veronica Beaumont sent me.”

  “Veronica?” Hallman’s wide-eyed fear turned to something Flint couldn’t read in his body language well enough to define. “I haven’t seen Veronica in years. Is she okay? What could she possibly want with me?”

  “Let’s find a place to sit. Got any coffee?”

  Hallman ran a hand through his hair again. “Uh, coffee? Yeah. Sure.” He looked over his shoulder toward the house. “Can you wait out here? I’ll bring it out. Everybody’s asleep inside.”

  Flint nodded. He found two plastic chairs under a tree in the front yard, turned upside down to keep the rain off. He righted the chairs and sat in one to wait. He figur
ed there was a fifty-fifty chance that Hallman would run out the back. But after a while, he came out with two plastic mugs. He hadn’t dressed or donned shoes. He carried the mugs over to the tree and sat in the second chair.

  The silence between them lingered a few minutes. Flint tried to sip the strong black coffee, but it was scalding hot. He was waiting for inspiration. None came. So he just laid it out.

  “Veronica Beaumont has a son. She says you’re his father. The boy’s sick. He needs your help.”

  “What? How can that be?” Hallman fell back into the chair with his mouth open. He blinked several times. He wiped a palm over his face and through his hair and shook his head. “How old is this boy?”

  “He’s almost eight. His name is Jamie. I’ve got a video. Would you like to see it?”

  Hallman nodded. Flint pulled out his cell phone and found the video. He queued it up and pressed the “Play” button and handed the phone to Hallman.

  The video was two minutes long. Flint had watched it several times. It began in the delivery room right after Veronica gave birth and continued through four random birthdays and three school events. The final thirty seconds was Jamie in the hospital, asking his doctor if he would get better. The doctor looked down and didn’t respond for a moment. When he looked up, he told Jamie what every patient wants to hear, but the certainty didn’t reach his eyes.

  Hallman’s face crumpled. He watched the video again and returned the phone to Flint. He sipped the coffee and leaned his forearms on both thighs and looked at his house, with his family sleeping inside. “Veronica says I’m this boy’s father?”

  “You doubt it?”

  Hallman shook his head. His voice was raspy. “I don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  “Before we broke up she told me she was getting an abortion. I believed her. I never knew.” Hallman’s shoulders shook. Flint looked away from his pain, giving him a chance to pull himself together.

  Hallman cleared his throat and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Have you met him? Jamie?”

  “He’s a good kid. My niece has a crush on him and she’s got great taste,” Flint teased to lighten the mood.

  “Yeah? That’s good. Is Veronica a good mom?”

  “She is. Believe it or not.” Flint smiled and Hallman gave a weak smile in return.

  Hallman cleared his throat again. “What does she need me to do?”

  “It’s for Jamie. He needs a bone marrow transplant. Veronica knows there’s only a thirty percent chance that you can be a donor. But she’s desperate.”

  Hallman looked toward his house again. “I can’t leave here. My family doesn’t know anything about”—he stopped to compose himself—“what happened. I can’t mess this up, Flint. Don’t ask me to do that.”

  “We need a cheek swab. I brought the kit with me. If you’re a match, we’ll contact you. It means a quick trip to a good hospital.” Flint paused and cleared his throat. Damn, this was harder than he’d expected. “Veronica told me you can do the whole thing anonymously if you want. You don’t have to see him or have any contact with either of them.”

  Hallman nodded, slowly. “You got the cheek swab kit on you?”

  Flint pulled it out of his pocket and administered the test. He knew what to do. He’d done it himself. When Hallman had completed the test, Flint sealed it and stuffed the baggie into his pocket.

  “Thanks for doing this, Josh. We’ll let you know in the next couple of days.”

  Hallman simply nodded, too emotional to speak. He cleared his throat and changed the subject. “How’d you find me? The money?”

  Flint nodded. People would reveal more than they should, as long as he didn’t interrupt. It was a lesson he’d learned long ago. So he said nothing.

  “I worried about that for years.” Hallman grimaced. “But you see how we live. I’ve got a wife and two kids. I have an obligation to them, too. When I saw that Wilcox, Vega, and Hayes were killed in that helicopter crash . . . Well, the money would go to the state, and they don’t need it. We do.”

  Flint didn’t reply.

  “It was a risk, I know. Boyd wasn’t on the helicopter. He didn’t die. And he had more power than any of them. He pulled all the strings. He’ll come after me one day, won’t he?”

  Flint cocked his head, trying to make sense of the question. “Why would Boyd come after you?”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. That night, I thought I had a nightmare. I heard a woman screaming.”

  “You think now it was really Aludra Wilcox you heard,” Flint said, nodding because that theory dovetailed with what Kevin Hayes had said before he’d stopped cooperating. “Do you know what happened to her?”

  “I didn’t see it happen, but if Aludra Wilcox was murdered that night, everything that happened to us makes more sense.” Hallman cleared his throat. “It’s the only way any of it does make sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Hallman said, quietly, “I think Boyd Wilcox killed her.”

  Flint raised both eyebrows. “Boyd? Not Mark?” Boyd was about as hot-blooded as a cold fish in Alaska. Hard to believe he could muster enough emotional energy to kill anyone.

  Hallman reached over for Flint’s empty mug. “Let me get more coffee.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Houston, Texas

  Monday

  Sebastian Shaw Tower dominated downtown Houston in the same way its namesake dominated the entire state of Texas. It jutted from the pavement as a monument to modern engineering. The reflective bronze glass sparkled in the sunlight, twisting from the center of the earth into the stratosphere like oil gushing to the sky.

  Baz Shaw said his first oil gusher, the one he’d found when he was a wildcatter decades ago, looked just like the tower. He exaggerated, of course, because that’s what men like Shaw do. But the gusher had been impressive and both his reputation and his wealth were built on its liquid foundation.

  Shaw was a man used to getting everything he wanted, every time. He’d taken an unwelcome interest in Flint a while back and Flint had been unable to shake him. Not for lack of trying. Had he known that Shaw manipulated Veronica Beaumont to hire him, would Flint have refused to help her and her son? He’d like to believe the answer was yes, that he’d absolutely have sent Beaumont to someone else. But then, Jamie might not have made it. Flint’s feelings on the issue were unsettled, so he left them alone.

  The elevator shot like a bullet, eighty stories up from the lobby. Flint stepped into the sky high above Houston. On the penthouse floor, there were few obstructions to Shaw’s breathtaking view of the city. From the elevator lobby, Flint’s sight line was straight across the cavernous building to Shaw’s open office, where he stood with a drink and a cigar in his hand, waiting.

  Flint had last seen Shaw a year ago, but it might have been yesterday. He hadn’t changed so much as a fine line around the eyes. His body was fit and his mind, no doubt, as sharp as ever. He’d been a lady-killer in his youth and he was blessed with movie-star handsome looks even now. He wore the luxury surrounding him as comfortably as Flint wore sweats on weekends.

  Shaw simply stood, relaxed, waiting for Flint to complete the journey across the divide. Flint walked straight and true and stopped twenty feet short. Shaw grinned and stuffed the cigar in his mouth for a quick puff before he said, “How can I help you today, Michael?”

  “If you want to talk to me, all you have to do is pick up the phone. I know you can make a phone call because you’ve done it before.”

  Shaw sipped his booze. Scotch, probably. His tastes in everything ran to the best that money could buy. He didn’t offer to share. “I hear your search for Ms. Beaumont’s missing ex was successful. Congratulations.”

  Flint nodded and watched him carefully. “Why do you care about Jamie Beaumont?”

  “What makes you think I do?” Shaw puffed and sipped and lied. “She asked me for help. I gave her your name. Nothing more.”

  �
��You know she’s dating Jasper Crane.” Felix Crane had been Shaw’s biggest rival for decades. They’d come up in the same small town in West Texas. Both sons of oil wildcatters. Before Crane died, the two had been locked in a blood feud without end. Jasper now owned his father’s business interests. With Crane dead, keeping closer tabs on Crane’s offspring was second nature to Shaw.

  Shaw’s eyes narrowed. “For such a beautiful woman, Veronica has appalling taste in men.”

  “Before he died, Crane told me you two had agreed to a cessation of hostilities. He said you’d settled your differences. Was that true?”

  “More or less.” Shaw shrugged. “Hard to maintain a war against a dead man and Jasper’s not half the man his father was. Very little pleasure in fighting things out with him. No challenge, you know?”

  Flint straightened his shoulders. The left one was still sore as hell. “So it wasn’t the kid and it wasn’t Jasper. Why did you give my name to Veronica Beaumont?”

  Shaw moved to his drink cart for a refill. With his back to Flint, he said, “I told you. She asked me for a recommendation. She said she’d tried everything. She said her kid would die if she didn’t find her ex.” He turned, backlit by the Houston sunshine so that Flint couldn’t see his face. “What was I supposed to do? She needed the best. And whatever else you are, Michael, you most definitely are the best heir hunter money can buy.”

  “Except that you know it takes more than money to buy me. That’s why you used Katie Scarlett’s daughter to hook me in. And that’s a lot more effort than simply passing my name along.”

  “Look. I’ve got business to do. I answered your question.” He raised his glass in farewell and nodded toward the elevator. “If there’s nothing else?”

  “You and Boyd Wilcox have known each other for decades. You knew I’d handled the Mark Wilcox case six years ago. You knew how that ended. Why didn’t you tell Beaumont all that?”

  Shaw shrugged. “Didn’t seem relevant.”

  Flint shook his head. Whatever game Shaw had been playing at the time was over now that Wilcox was dead. And whatever game he’d been playing with Beaumont was done, too.