Changing Tides

by Veronica Mixon

  “You assumed control over the business when your grandfather had a debilitating stroke.” He strode across the library in grandstanding courtroom fashion. “You focused on restructuring the company. Left running the warehouses to your property manager, Joseph Lafferty.”

  Three sharp raps interrupted Cedar’s defense of my honor. He placed his forefinger to his lips and cracked the door.

  Erica stuck her head inside and caught my eye. “We need to talk.”

  “We’re in a conference,” Cedar said. “Shouldn’t take much longer, another ten minutes or so.” He pushed the door.

  She blocked it with her shoulder. “Now.” Erica’s tone left no room for rebuttal.

  My eyes locked with hers, and raw guilt seized my heart. How could I stand on the opposite side of the law? It went against every rule I’d ever lived by. “I’m ready.”

  “We’re in the kitchen.” Erica turned, and then looked back. “You’re not under arrest. You won’t need your attorney.”

  Cedar flashed his winning, mega-watt-courtroom smile. “Oh, I think I’ll tag along.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cedar and I followed Erica down Spartina’s main hall. My feet grew heavier with each step, like a condemned criminal taking her last walk as a free woman.

  “I need to get something from my car.” Cedar winked, half-sprinted past Erica, and disappeared through the atrium that connected the house with the kitchen.

  A cold sweat worked its way over my skin. I had no idea what Cedar’s twinkling eye meant or why he’d chosen to abandon me. We entered the atrium, and even at five o’clock in the afternoon the glass ceiling bathed the room in sunlight.

  The space was cozy and cheery with yellow chintz cushions and white wicker furniture, but no amount of manufactured comfort could dispel the wave of trepidation washing over me. My knees buckled, and I slid into the closest chair.

  I was trapped in a circle of deception. Evading and postponing the truth about my family’s past, no matter how I wrapped it, was a lie. A wave of maternal yearning penetrated so deep it caught my heart. Owen had to be kept safe. Nothing else mattered.

  Erica glanced over her shoulder and stopped. “Are you okay?” I motioned for her to go on, but she backtracked and stood in front of me. Her olive skin seemed to give off refracted light; her eyes were serious and watchful but held no worry or concern. “You need a glass of water or something?”

  “I’m fine.” I rose and forced my feet forward. My world now compressed into three words: get to Owen.

  Parsi was the only person in the kitchen and had made himself comfortable at the breakfast table. His briefcase lay open on one of the chairs, and he studied his small, ever-present notebook. He looked up.

  I stood paralyzed. I weighed my instinct to beg his help and regurgitate my deepest secrets—the threatening note, the money laundering, the alias passport—against the bombshell that a cartel snitch had embedded himself or herself in Nathan’s group. If Cedar was right, my safest option was to wait until Owen and Mom were safely harbored in California.

  Finding resolve, I slid onto the bench seat opposite Nathan.

  Erica checked something on her phone and pulled on her earlobe, a nervous habit I remembered her having in high school. Whatever she was reading made her uneasy, or maybe it was what was to come.

  Nathan leaned forward. “We’d like to review a few things. Let’s start with why you hired Ben Snider.” His tone came across as easy, almost friendly.

  But I wasn’t Nathan Parsi’s friend. “I told you why.”

  He scanned my face, as if he planned to run the results through his list of known felons, looking for a hit.

  I stared back.

  Cedar practically danced into the kitchen, placed his briefcase beside the table, and joined me. He looked animated, eyes sparkling with expectation, like butting heads with the Feds was a favored pastime.

  Fury swept like a dust storm through my body. I crammed every ounce of my irritation into a seething look, and directed it at Cedar.

  Nathan flipped through the pages of his notebook. “Earlier, at the marina, you said you hired Mr. Snider to find Calvin.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Nathan clicked his pen open, closed, open. “But that’s not accurate.” Cedar opened his mouth to speak, and Nathan wagged an index finger, without taking his gaze from me. It’d take more than a wagging finger to shut Cedar up.

  “What difference does it make why she hired Ben Snider?” Cedar said. “How is the reason pertinent?”

  “Snider summoned Kate,” Nathan said. “Then didn’t show for the appointment but left her cousin dead in his trunk.”

  Tears filled my eyes, surprising me, and from Nathan’s expression, him as well. “Ben didn’t kill Calvin. He didn’t even know him.” An unadulterated sureness engulfed my voice.

  “You think your cousin’s killer just happened to steal Snider’s car?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I can’t reach Ben. Maybe they’ve hurt him, too.”

  Erica blew a scoffing breath worthy of politician caught in a lie.

  Nathan referred to his notes. “You called Snider late Sunday evening. But Calvin wasn’t missing on Sunday. You met with him Monday morning. Locating Calvin couldn’t have been the initial reason you contacted Snider.”

  “Kate’s lost a family member and berating her over details that have nothing to do with his death is counterproductive.” Cedar’s rebuttal shot forward like machine gun fire.

  Stone-faced, Nathan didn’t bother to acknowledge my attorney, as if the roaring tirade held no more importance than a two-year-old’s temper tantrum.

  I hadn’t anticipated the question, but I should have. A couple of plausible excuses ran through my head, and I decided to go with the truth. “I didn’t say the original reason I’d hired Ben was to find Calvin, just that I asked him to find my cousin after he disappeared.”

  Erica perked up. “Then why did you originally hire Snider?”

  Nathan sat back and crossed his arms, reminding me of Owen when his mind was made up, and nothing I said would change it.

  “Sunday, after Owen and I were stalked by the airboat, I returned to Spartina.” I hoped the edge in my voice would be taken as steel, not the nervous jitters spiking inside me. “A dive boat, which I later learned was Calvin’s, blocked my lift.” I glanced at the paper in front of Erica. Even upside down I recognized my Orlando address. I slid my hand to the sheet and swiveled it to face me.

  She slapped a palm over the paper and pulled it back.

  I made a show of rolling my eyes and shaking my head. Checking into my life in Orlando was a waste of time, but knowing they were digging into my past pushed my anxiety up a few degrees. Their next logical step would be to dig into the family business.

  Nathan studied me. There was too much weight in his stare to believe he’d accept my innocence without proof, and I had none until I located Joseph Lafferty. I had to buy time, be smarter, calmer, more calculating than my nemesis.

  I reiterated a brief recount of my altercation with Calvin’s skiff and gave the impression, without actually saying so, the run-in was the impetus for hiring Ben.

  “You couldn’t just ask your cousin about his boat?” Nathan’s delivery was smooth, as if he were truly perplexed.

  “I could, and I did.” I shut my mouth, remembering my old accountant’s advice to refrain from offering the IRS anything not specifically asked for. I figured the same rule applied to federal marshals.

  Nathan pulled out a red file that I recognized from our first meeting. “Yesterday afternoon Beth Thompson visited you. You had coffee at Starbucks, and then went to a boutique. Twenty minutes later, you returned to your office. Beth disappeared.”

  “You’re blaming Kate for Beth Thompson’s disappearance?” Cedar wrapped a protective arm around my shoulder.

  “Have you found Beth?”

  “No,” Erica said. “And we would appreciate you provid
ing her whereabouts.”

  Nathan flipped through his red file and didn’t look up.

  “Beth didn’t disappear.” I said.

  Nathan considered me through hooded lids. “Then why’d she leave through a back door and need a disposable phone?”

  My face heated, but I kept quiet until my rush of emotion stilled. “She didn’t want to be followed. I gave you her number. Track her down, and ask her these questions. I need to get on the road. I want to see my son, and tell my mother of Cal’s death.”

  Erica shook her head. “Not happening.”

  “Kate’s a free woman. You can’t keep her from her family. She has every right to go to Florida.” Cedar spoke at a reasonable conversational level, but his tone held a bucket of provocation.

  Erica’s head moved back and forth like an old-fashioned oscillating fan. “No way. It’s called obstruction of justice, Counselor.”

  Nathan’s deadpanned expression held no promise that Erica’s response was an overstated knee jerk. The realization they might hold me here, not let me leave, came as a backhanded slap of surprise.

  “Surely you can understand Kate’s desire to be with her family after such a shock. Seeing her cousin murdered and stuffed into the trunk of a car…” Cedar squeezed me to his side. “She’s devastated.”

  Nathan slid his laptop around to face me. Pushed play and started a video of Beth and me entering the Twisty Sisters boutique, browsing, pushing through the back door and into the alley. Me rubbing Beth’s back, then our walk to the gray SUV. Finding keys. Beth driving away. The SUV’s tag number. Me walking alone down the alley. A close up of my hands as I threw her phone receiver into the bucket of ice.

  “Stores have security cameras,” Nathan said. “Inside and out.”

  I drew a deep breath.

  Cedar bolted upright, even his hair looked an inch taller. I could feel his attempt to throw furtive glances my way.

  Nathan removed a stack of photos from his notorious red file. The last time he’d pulled eight-by-tens from that folder, a black hole had opened, sucked me down, and destroyed my brand new post-divorce picture-perfect life.

  He lined seven photos side by side on the table.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Nathan sensed Kate’s angst as soon as he played the video. He pulled out the photos and the color drained from her face. Then she rubbed her hand over her chest, a subtle gesture of soothing a quickening heartbeat.

  He picked up the first photograph in the line of seven. “Do you recognize this man?” He pointed at a guy bellied up to a bar surrounded by his buddies.

  Kate leaned across the table and studied the face, taking her time. “I don’t think so.” Her face remained neutral. No change in pupil size. No shortness of breath. No flicker of recognition.

  Nathan switched to another image of the same man. “How about him?” The photographer had snapped the same tall stringy-haired guy striding down a sidewalk.

  Kate compared the two photographs. She pointed to the second shot, then tapped the middle guy in the group photo. “These two seem to be the same guy, and he resembles the man who was driving Cal’s boat.”

  Erica adopted an amiable expression that she didn’t completely pull-off. “Yeah, they’re brothers. The deadbeat straddling the barstool’s the oldest.”

  Kate’s eyes rounded, “Did he kill Calvin?”

  “Doubt it. He was a weekend blow user, but not in the Cabral army.” Erica reverted to her deadpan cop cadence. Nathan assumed she’d tried on her nice voice and it pinched.

  “What do you mean, was?” Kate said. “Is he dead, too.”

  Nathan removed a photograph from the bottom of his red file and placed it in front of Kate.

  Revulsion rolled over her face and turned her skin a putrid green. She raised her hand to her mouth, motioned Cedar off the bench seat, and ran to the kitchen sink. She spat, then washed her mouth with water. She grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge and swallowed a tentative sip.

  Nathan, accustomed to viewing all the sordid and inventive ways man used to murder, had no physical reaction to the partial face and one-armed torso he’d just shown Kate; a repercussion of twelve years witnessing the remains of Taliban and ISIS captives.

  Four dead bodies had surfaced in the last forty-eight hours: Calvin in the trunk of a sports car, another gunshot victim left in the bed of a pickup on Sapelo Island, a male drowning victim with suspect wounds to the head, and a drug overdose dumped in the ocean, all washing ashore within a mile of one another. The fish had only left two fingers on one of the DB’s hands, but two fingers had been enough to run prints. “Do you know him?” Nathan held up the photo.

  “How am I supposed to tell?” Kate leaned against the counter, gripped her Coke with both hands and downed a healthy sip.

  “This is a ridiculous, sadistic lack of concern for my client’s mental welfare.” Cedar waved a hand toward the photos. “She’s been through enough trauma today.” He walked to Kate and mumbled close to her ear. She held his gaze and nodded.

  For an ordinary citizen, Nathan would agree with the attorney, but if Kate were cold-blooded enough to order the hit on this guy, her visceral signs would be close to nil. They weren’t.

  Nathan opened his laptop, scrolled through screens until he landed on a driver’s license headshot. He joined Kate and Cedar at the counter and positioned the screen so he’d have a clear view of Kate’s face when she looked. “Was this the man you observed diving under your dock?”

  Her forehead creased, then a rapid blink. Her confusion appeared genuine. “I can’t say for sure.” She encircled her skull with her hands. “The guy wore head gear—like a miner’s light.” She drew the computer closer. “But I know this guy.”

  “How?” Nathan asked.

  “It’s Jacob.” Her gaze found Cedar. “Joseph Lafferty’s son.”

  Kate dropped back a step. “Is this the dead man with half a face?” She turned the sickly gray color of three-day-old snow, stumbled to a barstool, and sat.

  “Joseph Lafferty?” Erica’s pupils shrunk to pinpoints. “Isn’t he your property manager? The old guy that’s on a two-month leave of absence?”

  “Four weeks.” Kate’s eyes had the medicated haze worn by the very confused, too many stimuli, too fast. Jacob Lafferty’s death had come as a shock.

  “You saw Jacob Lafferty, in the flesh, in the dive boat on Sunday.” Nathan prompted.

  Kate snapped to attention as if his statement rebooted her brain. “I didn’t recognize him then.”

  “He didn’t say anything to you?” he asked.

  “No. And he was careful to keep his back turned. Even when Owen asked him a question.” Her delivery wasn’t smooth enough to be a well-thought out lie. But she was a trained dealmaker and mentally agile enough to deflect.

  Cedar squeezed Kate’s shoulder. Nathan couldn’t tell if the gesture was one of comfort or an unspoken message to keep quiet.

  She met Nathan’s gaze straight on. Her jaw was relaxed, her fist open, but the subtle eye shimmer a giveaway. Or not. Hard to tell. She was what he referred to as a grandmaster. Kate had an innate ability to mask inner turmoil and was a challenge to read. Nathan admired the skill. He’d spent years honing his own to near perfection, but in his case, it had meant life or death.

  “Was Jacob a friend?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know him well. The last time I saw him, we were kids.” As soon as the statement left her lips, trembling fingers covered her mouth. Her calm dissolved into walleyed panic. “I need to leave for Florida.” She turned to Cedar. “I want to go now.”

  Why had knowing Jacob as a child caused the sudden frenzy? Kate was a conflicted pain in his neck. One minute he was positive she knew more than she was telling, the next he was convinced she was an innocent pawn in someone’s elaborate game.

  Erica shook her head. “You’re not going to Florida.”

  “I want to see my son.” Fear rolled off Kate’s body and settled like the rancid s
tink of meat. She faced Erica. “You remember Jacob?”

  “Yeah,” Erica said. “I remember the little snot-nose.”

  That was news to Nathan. “Were Jacob Lafferty and Calvin friends?”

  Kate inhaled a long, lingering breath. A stall tactic.

  Nathan could almost feel the heat searing Kate’s brain as she scrambled over one answer, then another, searching for the perfect response.

  “When they were kids,” she said. “I’m not sure about recently.”

  Erica studied the photo like an art student slobbering over an Ansel Adams original. “They were thick as thieves all the way through high school.”

  Cedar laid his hand on Kate’s shoulders but she shrugged him off and walked to the window.

  Erica tapped her phone. “Need you to look at one more DB.”

  “DB?”

  “Dead body.” Erica handed Kate her phone.

  “I’m not looking at anything gruesome.” Kate kept her back turned.

  Erica shoved the phone closer. “Just tell me if you know this person. He didn’t drown, so the fish didn’t gnaw on him.”

  Gripping the sink with one hand, Kate accepted the phone. ‘No. I’ve never seen him.”

  “You sure about that?” Erica raised a doubting eyebrow.

  Kate looked from Parsi to Erica. “He wasn’t on the dive boat.”

  “How about yesterday in Savannah?” Erica said.

  “If I’d seen him yesterday, your guy in the gray Explorer would have put it in his report.”

  Silence enveloped the room like an invisible shield.

  Erica locked her jaw and tapped the counter with a fingernail, as if counting to a predetermined number that might keep her from blowing an internal fuse.

  Nathan closed his computer. “If you’ve got a tail, the guy’s not one of ours. But we’ll check it out.” An uneasy feeling slithered up his back. If Kate was under someone’s watch, he’d missed something. He made a decision to reassign two men at the evening briefing.