Thinking of kindness sent Max’s mind back to Allie, and he dialed her number. He’d forgotten to ask her to stay home from the mall again today. Part of him said that staying home should be assumed, but the rest of him remembered what his mama used to say about assuming things. Plus, he wanted to hear Allie’s voice and know she was okay. A gnawing feeling that trouble was coming hit him hard as he pressed Call.
“Max?” Allie answered on the first ring, a thread of fear in her voice. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” He smiled, glad her fear was only born of concern for him and nothing more. “I’m calling for a favor,” he said. “I need you to do something for me. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“I’m only going into the mall for five minutes today,” she said, in her all-knowing way. “My parents are taking Max Jr. out for a day on the town, and I’m going to see how many online orders I can fill with no distractions. I’m hoping it will keep my mind off worrying about you.”
“Only five minutes at the mall?” he clarified.
“Yep. I’m running in to grab a few things I left in the kiosk. Then I’ll be working from home the rest of the day.”
“Thank you.” A wave of relief swept over him. “We’re close to getting this guy now, I promise. You won’t have to stay away from the mall much longer.”
“Good, because I can’t,” she said. “The lease on that kiosk requires more sales than I make online.”
“I know,” Max admitted, “and I’ll help you out however you need as soon as this is over. Until then, knowing you and Max Jr. are safe will help me concentrate so I can get this done.”
“Fine.”
He could practically hear her smile in the response.
“I appreciate you for doing this for me,” he said.
“And I appreciate being given a choice instead of an order,” she replied dryly. “So we’re both having a good day.”
Max laughed. “I guess we are.”
“Now hurry up and catch the bad guy. Then come home to me.”
His chest puffed with pride over the progress they were making. And her confidence filled him with everything he didn’t know he needed. “Baby, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.”
He said goodbye and disconnected with Allie as Selena returned to the driver’s side.
She set a disposable cup of coffee in each of the two cupholders, then placed a white paper bag on the console between them while she buckled up. “They sold Krispy Kremes in there,” she said, her expression caught somewhere between guilt and excitement. “I bought two. Be the partner I need right now and eat one so I don’t eat them both.”
Max grinned. “A doughnut and coffee on the job. I’ve never felt like more of a lawman than I do right now.” He opened the bag and offered it to her first.
Selena tapped her doughnut to his before taking a bite. She moaned with satisfaction, then finished half before starting the SUV’s engine. “Okay, now I’m ready.”
Max smiled. “Let’s start with the medical office where Pamela works instead of her home. We’re closer to the office, and we can always head to her house from there if she has the day off.”
“Agreed.” Selena sipped her coffee, before shifting into gear. “Address?”
Max entered the name of the small family practice from Pamela’s photo into a search engine, then tapped the address into the dashboard GPS.
It was time to catch the bad guy so Max could get home to his family.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Carly parked the SUV on a curving asphalt driveway outside a stately brick home in an upscale gated community. Two large stone pillars stood on either side of the property’s entrance. A house number was carved into one pillar. The name Waters was carved into the other.
“Wow,” Aria said, unfastening her safety belt and turning to stare through her window. “I think my entire extended family could live in that house, and there are thirty-five of us in Traverse City alone.”
“I don’t know. That’s a lot of Italians,” Carly said, enjoying the look on Aria’s face. Not awe, exactly—more like she might actually be calculating the available square feet per family member. Before she got too caught up in that, Carly delivered the bad news. “There’s probably only one kitchen.”
Aria laughed, spell broken. “You got me there. My aunts and grandma would kill each other.” She climbed out and buttoned her coat to the top.
“Not your mom?” Carly asked, locking up and meeting Aria at the front of the vehicle.
“Nah. My mom would be cleaning something and protesting the arguments. Bless her, but she wants to be the voice of reason in a family who’d debate the sky was blue if you challenged them.”
Carly laughed. It was hard to imagine growing up surrounded by family the way Aria had been. But it would’ve been interesting. “Well, the sky is definitely not blue today,” she said, rolling her gaze heavenward. The dreary January day was gray from top to bottom. Gray clouds overhead. Dirty gray snow everywhere else.
The agents moved onto the massive front porch of the sprawling colonial home and stood beneath a giant wrought iron lantern. Carly rang the bell.
Aria leaned back, craning her neck for a scan along the snow-covered landscaping. “You think this looks like the kind of house where a kid who’d grow up with Fritz O’Lear lived? I pegged O’Lear for a broken-home, blue-collar family. How would he ever cross paths with a kid from this neighborhood?”
Carly pulled her lips to the side. It was an excellent question. Opaline hadn’t been able to find O’Lear’s parents yet, but the process wasn’t always cut-and-dried. Maybe Fritz had a different last name than his parents. He could’ve run away and changed his, or maybe their names were never the same. Anything was possible, and despite her online sleuthing skills, Opaline was still working to locate his birth certificate, which would have made the task much easier. If they’d had any money, odds were that he wouldn’t have lived in that run-down apartment building. “Hopefully we’ll soon find out.”
The door opened, and a petite woman in black dress slacks, a red blouse and diamond earrings looked out. She had fire-red hair and heels, nails and lips. Her eyes were green, like the cat who lived outside Carly’s condo. Hopefully, the lady was nicer.
“Hello.” She smiled politely, curiosity tugging her tightly Botoxed brow. Opaline had included an image of Mark Waters’s parents, and this was definitely his mom.
Aria lifted her badge. “Hello, Mrs. Waters. I’m FBI special agent Calletti. This is Special Agent Welsh. We’d like to ask you a few questions about someone you might know. May we come in?”
The woman’s artificially inflated lips opened and closed. “Well, yes. I suppose.” She shuffled back a few steps, allowing room for them to enter.
“Thank you,” Carly said softly, taking over where Aria had begun. “We won’t keep you long. We’re just looking for information on a man named Fritz O’Lear. We believe he was a friend of your son Mark’s.”
The older woman’s eyes misted and her face flushed. She stood taller, likely attempting to remain in control of the unexpected emotion.
Carly knew grief when she saw it, and her heart broke immediately for the mother before her.
“Mark’s been gone almost a year now.”
“We know,” Carly said, a little softer. “We’re deeply sorry for your loss. We wouldn’t bring up such a tender subject if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Would you like to sit down while we talk?”
Mrs. Waters fished a tissue from the box on a side table, then ushered them down a marble-floored hallway. One side of the space was lined in windows overlooking a snow-covered patio and garden, complete with stone statues and a large empty fountain. Carly assumed it was an extraordinary view in better weather. The opposite side of the hallway had wainscoting and a chair rail, above which hung a row of floral paintings
in ornate, gilded frames. The hallway spilled into a vast gourmet kitchen. More windows. More fancy everything. Granite counters, an elaborate tile backsplash, cherry cabinets, top-of-the-line appliances and about two miles of kitchen island.
A balding man in a polo shirt and Dockers pulled a set of half-glasses down the bridge of his nose as Carly and Aria followed Mrs. Waters into the room. “Annie?”
Mrs. Waters went to the man’s side. “Darling, these women are with the FBI, and they want to talk to us about Mark.”
The man paled but extended an arm across the island. “Anthony Waters. What’s this about?”
Aria took his hand first. “Special Agent Calletti. This is Special Agent Welsh.”
“You can call me Carly,” Carly said, accepting the man’s hand for a shake. “We’d like to see if you remember a man named Fritz O’Lear. We believe he was connected to your son, Mark, and we’d like to know more about him. We’re running thin on ways to do that.”
The Waterses exchanged a troubled look.
Aria leaned against the island, separating the agents from the homeowners. “An older entry on your son’s Facebook page referred to O’Lear as a lifelong friend. We hoped you might know him.”
The couple shook their heads.
“Marky had a lot of friends,” Mrs. Waters said. “Can I get you something to drink?” She switched her attention from Carly to Aria, then back. “I can make tea? Or coffee? I have bottled waters and juices.”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Waters,” Carly said. She brought up the images of O’Lear on her phone and passed the device to Mr. Waters. “Does he look familiar to you at all?”
Mr. Waters pushed the glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Not this guy,” he said, poking the more recent photo. The image changed, and the man’s gaze jumped to Carly. “Sorry. I did something to it.”
“No, it’s fine.” She pointed back to the screen. “This is another image we wanted you to see. Do you recognize him?” The image of O’Lear all shined up for Ramsey Realty centered the screen.
“Hmm.” Mr. Waters took a longer look. “Maybe this man. Annie?” He handed the device to his wife, who’d already put on her glasses.
She drew the phone close and frowned. “I think I might. He looks incredibly familiar. I don’t recall his name.”
“Fritz O’Lear,” Aria supplied. “Your son called him a lifelong friend.”
Mrs. Waters returned the phone to Carly, biting her round bottom lip. “Maybe.” She looked to her husband. “It’s been years, but could that have been the name of Doris’s little boy?”
“Who?” he asked, looking genuinely confused.
“Doris,” she repeated. “She cleaned for me for several years after we moved here. Marky was young and still attending St. Joan of Arc school.”
Her husband looked to the ceiling a moment, then back to his wife. “I don’t remember Doris. How would I know her little boy?”
“He came with her sometimes,” Mrs. Waters pressed, sounding more sure of herself by the moment. “When we had parties, she’d come on the weekends to clean up afterward, and she had to bring her son because she wasn’t married. No family in town. No school on the weekend.”
Mr. Waters listened, considered, looked to Carly, then shrugged. “She would know. I barely remember those days. I worked eighty hours a week back then. I was lucky to attend my own parties.”
Carly forced a tight smile. “I understand.” She moved her gaze to Mrs. Waters. “What happened to Doris? Any chance you have contact information for her now?”
“Or before,” Aria said. “We’re glad to work with anything you can offer. The matter is time-sensitive.”
Mrs. Waters’s expression fell. “I’m sorry, but no.” She stepped closer, pressing her middle against the island between them. “Doris stopped cleaning for me when she got sick. I heard later from some of my friends who’d used her, too, that she didn’t make it. Cancer.” She whispered the final word.
“Did Doris work for a cleaning agency?” Aria asked.
Mrs. Waters shook her head. “She walked door-to-door one spring. She had her son with her. He had a little bike with training wheels. She put paper flyers in the mailboxes, offering spring cleaning. She did such a nice job that a lot of us hired her to come back regularly.”
Aria’s shoulders slumped.
Carly kept her warm smile in place. Hoping this wasn’t another dead end. “Do you remember anything about her little boy? It sounded as if your son kept in touch with him after the loss of his mother.”
Mrs. Waters shifted, and her gaze darted away briefly. “No. We never saw the boy outside the times he came with Doris to clean,” she said, “but it’s possible he and Mark saw each other again. The truth is that Mark had some troubles in high school, and we didn’t get to meet a lot of his friends.”
“Got kicked out of St. Joan of Arc for using pot,” Mr. Waters said, his voice going hard and gravelly. “Don’t let her sugarcoat it for you just because he’s gone. Mark was caught drinking here more times than we could count, and that was before he was old enough to drive. He was busted with pot at his overpriced private school. He blew off college. Moved out at eighteen and didn’t look back. He showed up here from time to time, mostly when he needed money. The next thing we know, there are highway patrolmen on our doorstep at three a.m. telling us he crashed a motorcycle going a hundred miles an hour in the rain.” He tore his glasses off and tossed them onto the countertop. “That’s what I know about my son. I don’t know anything about who he did or didn’t call a friend. What do you want this guy, O’Lear, for anyway?”
“Serial bombing,” Aria said.
Mr. and Mrs. Waters’s eyes widened a moment before Mr. Waters cursed. “I’m going to the study. Good luck, Detectives.” He headed for an ornately carved archway on the other side of the kitchen, then vanished through it.
Carly shot a look at Aria, whose mouth had pulled into a frown. They were special agents, not detectives, and the lack of success they’d been having on this case made that fact abundantly clear.
“Mrs. Waters,” Aria said, turning a compassionate look on their hostess, who was still staring after her husband. “Just one more question, if you don’t mind. Did you know your son owned a Toyota Camry when he passed?”
She stilled, turning her attention back to the agents. “We bought Mark a Camry when he turned eighteen. Before he moved out. We wanted him to have a way to come home and visit after he left.”
“Any idea where that car is now?” Aria asked.
“No.” Mrs. Waters sucked in a ragged breath. “It was the last thing we bought him. We assumed he sold it for drugs or cash a long time ago. Maybe even that he traded it for the motorcycle he was on when he…” She pressed the tissue to her nose again. “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe he’s gone. There’s so much I would do differently if I could.”
Carly pulled a business card from her pocket and set it on the countertop. “We’ll get out of your hair now. Please apologize to your husband for us, if we upset him. We’re truly sorry to have put you through this today. If you think of anything later that you want to tell us, just give me a call.”
“We can see ourselves out,” Aria said.
Carly followed Aria back down the hall to the front door, then into the freezing winter day. They didn’t speak again until they climbed into the SUV and cranked up the heat.
“Well, that was a bust,” Aria said. “We upset those poor people for nothing.”
“Yeah.” Carly admired the big house another moment before backing down the drive and pulling away. “Hopefully Max and Selena are having better luck.”
Aria sighed. “I can’t see how they could be doing worse.”
Carly’s phone rang, and she recognized the number on-screen. She answered using the speaker option. “Hey, Axel,” she said. “You’ve got me and Ar
ia.”
“Hey. How’d it go with the Waters family?” he asked. “Were you able to catch them at home?”
“Yep,” Aria said. “Nice people. Total dead end.”
“Their son was estranged at the time of his death,” Carly explained. “They weren’t familiar with his friends, and his mom didn’t even realize he still had the Toyota. It was a gift from her and Mark’s father when Mark was eighteen.”
“So O’Lear could potentially be driving that car?” Axel asked.
“It’s possible,” Carly said. “Mrs. Waters thinks O’Lear might be the son of her former cleaning lady, Doris. Unfortunately, Doris passed away years ago, and according to Mrs. Waters, she didn’t have any family other than her son.”
Axel made a disgruntled sound. “So we know this guy’s had it rough. Single mom. Potential feelings of abandonment by Dad. No father figure. Mom cleans for rich people in town, which could’ve led to being teased. Then Mom gets sick. Income stops. Medical bills pile up. She dies, and his anchor goes with her. Do we know how old he was when she passed?”
Carly shook her head. “No.”
“So he was potentially orphaned,” Axel continued. “That’s a lot of weight for one kid. He’s probably felt like an underdog his whole life. I’ll see if Opaline can find any record of him in the foster system.”
“Good call,” Aria said. “Have you spoken with Max and Selena?”
“No. Not yet,” Axel answered. “I’m going to reach out to them when I finish here. I’ve got O’Lear’s face on a flyer, and I’m canvassing the neighborhood around his building. I have about a half dozen more apartments to go before I call it quits on this area and move to the block with Burger Mania.”
“Learning anything?” Aria asked.
Axel gave a humorless laugh. “Most people don’t answer their doors. The ones who do are a split. Some don’t want to talk to me. The rest say they don’t recognize O’Lear’s picture. A couple of men on the sidewalk said they thought they knew him from some bar downtown. They had no idea he lived on this block.”
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