Red Tide

by Peg Brantley

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out his amber friend. He had taken a drastic cut in the amount of oxy support he gave himself, but maybe his timing could be better. No, dammit. No time like the present. He shook just two more little green pills, rather than his normal five, into his hand. Instead of washing them down with water, he reached for the Macallan bottle and poured a generous amount into a crystal tumbler. Maybe a different kind of amber will help calm my nerves.

  Nick opened his briefcase and pulled a folder out of it. He had no hope of getting to the attorney’s office in time for his appointment. He let them know about the traffic situation, and asked them to please hold his appointment if possible. They assured him his appointment took priority.

  His memories spun back to the days when he’d been heady with the opportunity to make his own mark in the Bureau, and in life. All he wanted was to work in the field, to make a difference. Too many people, including his wife, wanted him to move up to the more prestigious administrative positions. Nick had been offered several, and he’d declined each time. Eventually, the offers stopped.

  Sandra had liked his bank account, but it chafed her that Nick didn’t move in the Country Club set. When it became clear she would rather party than settle-in with him for an evening at home, he let her go, at first, just to the parties. Later, after she had a string of wild affairs with losers having fun on his dime with his wife, he made it more permanent. Sandra’s lifestyle and moral ambiguity notwithstanding, she had never wanted kids. So why did she keep Kylie? And why did she keep her a secret from me?

  He didn’t have to wait long to get the answers.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “We understand, Agent Grant, that you want to confirm for yourself that Kylie Bellamy is your biological daughter. However, for the sake of expediency, let us presume for the remainder of our meeting that she is.”

  Nick had divested himself of his jacket. His tie hung loose around his neck. He couldn’t stop sweating. “Fine. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?” Nick dug his fingers into the back of his neck to try to ease the tension. He watched as an assistant filled his water glass for the third time.

  Edward Lockwood, partner in Mills, Lockwood and Sterling, laid his Mont Blanc pen on the desk. “Are you not feeling well, Agent? Perhaps we should reschedule.”

  “I don’t have time to reschedule. I’m working on a case and I need to get back to Colorado.” He swallowed, forced his body to relax and his eyes to meet Lockwood’s. “Just tell me what you have to tell me.”

  The attorney consulted his file and cleared his throat. “Very well.” He handed Nick some documents. “At the time of the dissolution of your marriage, Sandra was involved with another man. An extremely wealthy man, even by your standards. Ms. Bellamy, as evidenced by the affidavit you’re holding, was pregnant, and determined her wisest course of action was to present her pregnancy to her lover, assert that the child belonged to him, and remarry. That is what she did.”

  “And why did she believe the child was mine?”

  “To put it delicately, our client asserted that you were the only man she didn’t take precautions with when intimate.”

  Nick struggled to control his voice. “And her reason for stating so now? For the affidavit? For all of this?”

  “When Ms. Bellamy’s late husband died, he left everything to his wife with a provision it would all to pass to Kylie upon Sandra’s death. Ms. Bellamy learned of her inoperable....” Lockwood consulted his file. “Her diagnosis of inoperable glioblastoma occurred a little more than a year ago, and shortly after that time she requested we make arrangements for her estate, and Kylie. She said that you, better than anyone, knew what it meant to live an authentic life even with a great deal of money at your disposal.”

  Nick’s look of incredulity must have struck a chord because Lockwood paused for a long moment.

  He continued. “Agent Grant, I understand how your history with Ms. Bellamy—Sandra—could leave you disillusioned about her motives, but people do change, especially when faced with the end of their life. Sandra loved Kylie in her own way. She wanted the little girl to be cared for, and for all of her questions to be answered.”

  “Questions?”

  “Your daughter—assuming she is your daughter—is a very observant child. She has been asking questions about her paternity. Her mother didn’t feel equipped to answer them.”

  Nick doubled over in pain and fought the need to vomit. The room spun.

  Lockwood issued a directive to someone to call nine-one-one. Nick thought, This is not what I had in mind when I woke up this morning.

  Three hours later, IV in place and clothes neatly hung, Nick looked around his private room. Not bad for a hospital. He had no intention of staying, even if he was sick. Maybe especially if I’m sick. He kicked one leg out of bed.

  “Whoa there, Buddy.” A nurse the size of a linebacker marched up to his bedside. “You’re not ready to go anywhere yet.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I need to—”

  Another voice, a baritone with authority, joined the conversation. “No, you need to listen to me. You can self-destruct if you want, but you won’t do it with my blessing.” The man’s face reflected a combination of compassion and determination. His lab coat and his demeanor identified him as a doctor. He impaled Nick with a glare from fierce, coal-black eyes.

  Nick pulled his leg back under the bedding.

  “Today is going to be the worst day in your life. Shit happens.” The doctor pulled a chair from a corner of the room, planted it at Nick’s bedside, and sat with the gracefulness of an athlete. “Now, do I have your attention?”

  Nick answered with a squint.

  “Good. I appreciate an appreciative audience.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “I’m the man who’s going to save your sorry ass.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have a drug addiction. That’s not a good thing in anyone. It’s especially not a good thing in an FBI agent.”

  “I’m handling it.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why you’re here. You were trying to kick by yourself. Not smart.”

  Nick sucked in some hospital air. It didn’t help his mood. “What is the ‘shit’ that’s happened?”

  “Well, Kemo Sabe, you had the decidedly mixed luck of coming apart at the seams in an attorney’s office. An attorney who, as a reminder, does not represent you.”

  Nick didn’t like what he was hearing. The lousy mood he had been in a few minutes ago took a nosedive.

  “Edward Lockwood recognized the signs of withdrawal, having had two former associates at his law firm go through them. As such he was obligated to notify Virginia Child Protective Services and, well, combine that with the completely bizarre timing of a raid by the DEA on a doctor’s office in New York who had your prescription information sitting on his desk along with an FBI contact number and you can see how people got curious.”

  The FBI. Terrific.

  “Your employer is sending a representative here now, I imagine to inform you that you’ll be taking an unrequested leave. So you see, Son, you might as well lie back and relax. You’re not going anywhere for the time being.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Jamie put the final touches on a loan request that really didn’t need any. The borrower could have bought the assets of the bank twice over, but considered this a way to give back to the local community. Jamie smiled. Margaret Pomeroy was building a home for her aging parents on some land she owned along Sopris Creek near Snowmass. In addition to the jobs her construction business created, the money her late husband had left her supplemented any number of local non-profit agencies. Margaret Pomeroy didn’t need to hunt for ways to give back to the community, but she did it anyway, and with grace.

  She hit Send on her computer and the loan application made its way to the underwriter. Mrs. Pomeroy did not have to substantiate her income, assets, or debt for the ru
bber stamp loan approval waiting at the other end. Still, Jamie had made sure the submission could stand up to a third-party audit.

  Earlier, Jamie had filled out the necessary paperwork to take out a loan against her 401(k) for fifteen thousand dollars. The money should be transferred into her account tomorrow and she’d be able to help her sister. She’d also have to tell Jax this couldn’t happen again. Phil Sussman might ruin his financial future and he might ruin Jax’s financial future, but no way would she let him ruin hers. She had to be solvent to provide some sort of long-term security for both herself and Jax should the need arise, and right now it looked like the need would surely arise.

  Her extension rang and she answered it while clearing her desk.

  “Hey, Jamie.”

  “Teague. Are you back in town?”

  “No such luck. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  Jamie’s face heated up, and other places on her body responded as well. She remained silent.

  “It’s going to be a few more days before I can get back to Aspen Falls. Will you wait for me?”

  “Probably.”

  Laughter filled her ear and made her almost giddy. “If I have to fight someone off, I will, you know. I’m pretty sure I’ve proven myself.”

  “You have. I suppose I can always make room for a knight in shining armor.”

  “Not a knight, Jamie. Your knight.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Save Thursday night for me? I have to be in Denver for some meetings over the weekend, but I don’t want to wait to see you again.”

  Jamie hadn’t felt this good about a man—or herself—for as long as she could remember. It tickled her with a strange, wonderful, and altogether foreign feeling. She liked it.

  “Call me Wednesday and we’ll work out the details.”

  “I’ll do that. I have to run. Hope you’ll think about me between now and Thursday. If you think about me only a fraction of how many times I’ll think about you, Jamie Taylor, thoughts of me will fill your days.”

  Jamie kept her hand on the phone several seconds after the call ended, somehow extending the connection. She hadn’t felt so special, so treasured, in a very long time. Teague had dropped into her life at a point when she had pretty much decided it would be her and her dogs for the rest of her days. That future wouldn’t have been a bad thing, but the possibility of real love sounded so much better.

  Her desk readied for the next day, she checked her calendar to see what she’d scheduled for the first thing in the morning. A loan committee meeting at eight followed by a meeting with a young man interested in a small business loan for an art gallery. Jamie shook her head. Unless he possessed something special and a lot of staying power, it would be a tough sell. Art galleries were a nickel a dozen between Aspen and Aspen Falls.

  She shrugged on her coat, drew the strap of her purse over her shoulder, and said goodbye to the staff. They’d be there until the six o’clock closing time.

  A cold gray sky oozed between the mountains that framed Aspen Falls. It wouldn’t be unheard of for Aspen Falls to get snow this early. Jamie thought about the windows she needed to re-calk and the firewood she needed to order. She walked toward her SUV, mentally calculating both timing and expense.

  Her key chain pulled up in front of her like a compass, she pushed the button to unlock the doors. That’s when she looked up and saw him leaning against the driver’s side.

  Andrew pushed himself off the vehicle and braced his feet. “Hello, Jamison.” He smiled and placed his hands in his pockets.

  Jamie stopped. “I can’t believe you’re still here. After the other night, I thought you’d hightail it back to your new wife, new digs and new life.”

  “I’m sorry about all of that, I really am. Things just got out of control.” He cocked his head to one side. “You know, that seems to happen to me a lot where you’re concerned. You’re a bad influence on my manners, Jamie Stanton... oh, excuse me... Jamie Taylor.”

  “What do you want now?”

  “All I’m looking for is for a little help from you. If someone should call you about my character, you just need to tell him what an upstanding guy I am. That’s all.”

  Jamie squared herself and moved within striking distance of the man who had bruised her heart and sliced her body. “You’d better pray no one calls. The best you can hope for is that I’ll tell them we haven’t been together in years, that people change and life goes on. The only reason I won’t tell them what a bastard you really are is that I suspect your new wife is a good person, and maybe you treat her a whole lot different then you ever treated me.

  “So here’s the deal, Andrew. You leave now, never to show up in my life again, and I’ll be ambiguous. I won’t lie, but I won’t volunteer the fact that you’re an ass. However, if you’re still here in five minutes, I’ll let them know exactly what I think of you. Your best bet is to leave now. As long as their questions are generalities, I’ll respond in the same manner.”

  “And if they ask you something specific?”

  Jamie shook her head. “You’d better hope they don’t.”

  “You know what I can do to you.”

  “I’m not the same wide-eyed little girl you controlled all those years ago. You’d best be thinking about what I can do to you.”

  Andrew popped out a laugh. “Are you threatening me?” The broken laugh turned into a snicker. He finally pointed a finger at her and walked toward the back of the vehicle. “You’d better do as I’ve asked. If you don’t, you’ll have a lot more to deal with than a little bit of vandalism to a shed, and I’ll enjoy myself a lot more.”

  “Bring it on.” Jamie felt good saying the words, even if she did urge them out just above a whisper.

  Chapter Forty

  Jax sat in her car, watching the lunchtime crowd as they sat on benches and at tables scattered around the square. They seemed to be living their lives in some weird parallel universe. They looked fresh and optimistic as they turned their faces to the sun. A few actually were talking on their cell phones, and others were texting, but they all seemed relaxed and happy. In her current state of mind, they all looked to her like unsuspecting victims.

  Ever since she’d received the call yesterday afternoon, she had lived in a tense sort of alien atmosphere, her effectiveness diminished. Fear and anger and hope and resentment burrowed under her skin and dug in. She needed to flush them out and think. She tried to understand what had led her to this point, and who might be behind the offer of the money. Two hundred thousand dollars would represent a lot of breathing space for her and Phil. It wouldn’t make everything better, but it would lighten the load. What did two hundred thousand dollars represent to the man behind the offer? Someone knows my financial situation, someone who has a lot of money and wants me to delay the toxicology tests. But why only delay? Why not outright falsification?

  Delays happen all the time due to human error and technology breakdowns. But could she live with herself if she knowingly caused one? Why am I even considering this? Jax reached for her ceramic mug filled with coffee from The Coffee Pod, situated her purse straps over her shoulder and shoved herself out of her car. Her office and lab had been state of the art eight years ago, but budget constraints had not allowed them to upgrade to current technology.

  Still, it was better than the basement storage closet the county had converted when she’d first begun her career. Jax would never forget the old and second-hand equipment she was expected to use to provide fast and accurate information. Seven years out of date rated far better than twenty.

  The forensic anthropologist from Denver was still working in part of her lab. The man was as quiet as the remains he worked on, and Jax easily forgot he had set up shop in a third of her space. He would probably be wrapping up the intense physical work in the next few days. The bodies were intact, and they had a select pool of possible victims to work with.

  Jax and her assistant had managed to do three autopsies. The auto
psies had taken longer than usual because of the state of decomp, and her assistant had balked at the continued detail Jax insisted on. She wouldn’t let up on the examination or cut corners. If anything, she made sure they were more meticulous.

  Thirteen of the bodies had been interred for over a decade, and four of them had been placed in the cold earth within the last six months. It made her lab a very busy place. They would be ready to send out the tissue samples to determine any toxins late this afternoon. The CBI in Denver would make the toxicity tests a priority, and they would have the results back in less than a week, rather than the month the tests usually took.

  Jax realized she’d answered part of her questions. There would be no delaying anything from her office, for any reason. Now, she needed to talk to someone and brainstorm the possibilities. Jamie. With a little bit of shame, Jax realized she hadn’t even considered talking to Jamie about this until she herself had decided to do the right thing. Jamie’s passion for justice might be part of what had rubbed off, ultimately, on Jax. Whatever the reason, she’d give Jamie a call after she finished up the last autopsy, seen the tissue samples safely off, and schedule some time so they could talk.

  The afternoon passed in that kind of amazing time warp in which a person is so intent on a project they forget all about the clock. When she and her assistant finished the last autopsy, it was after five. They carefully and respectfully placed the remains back in the refrigeration unit.

  “You go ahead and hit the road,” Jax said. “I’ll finish cleaning up here, and then I’ll get the paperwork ready. The CBI courier from Aspen won’t be here for another hour.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” The young college student backed to the door as if afraid Jax might change her mind.

  “Doc?”

  “Yes, Oliver?”

  “I’m proud of the work we did here. I’m glad you made us—me—do it right.”