by Lynn, Janice
“Mmmm, that’s better. Although not your top-rated kiss.” She ran her hand across his cheek, then pushed past him to go into the building. “Come on, boys. We’ve got work to do.”
Chapter Nineteen
Having an ex-lover who worked for upper level military came in handy. Real handy. A call to Steve and Jessie got information Colin said he needed and put Steve in contact with the man Colin’s informant told him to contact. Steve promised to call soon with the rest of the information he couldn’t immediately access and to let them know how his meeting with the contact went.
“This guy is your ex?” Colin asked, shaking his head when Jessie hung up her cell phone.
“Yes. Nice guy, good se—” she stopped, grinned sheepishly. “We decided just being friends was best a week or so before I met you.”
“Right.” Colin exchanged a look with Dan, who’d spent the last two hours going over what Colin had uncovered on Senator Bill Thomas over the past few years, and in particular over the past few months. Fortunately, his unfriendly attitude loosened up a little after Colin told him about the emails and the connection to the story Colin had been working on during the time Karen died. A trail Colin admitted he’d dropped without realizing. A trail an anonymous email put him back on.
“You’ve got to turn yourself in,” Dan advised. “Right now, you won’t be held for anything more than questioning. It’s been less than twelve hours. You can say you’ve been here, at the boys home and had no way of knowing the police were looking for you. Jessie and I will follow-up on what you’ve discovered and figure out if there’s a connection to what’s going on at Wolf.”
Jessie gave Dan a disbelieving look. “What’s he supposed to do? March into the police station and say he heard the news over the ten o-clock news and is turning himself in? I don’t think so.”
“Whatever, but the longer he’s ‘missing’ the worse things look.”
“Not that I’m seriously considering this, but what about my car? It’s been parked at Wolf all day. Why would I leave it there?”
Dan shrugged. “Most believable explanation is that you left with a woman.”
Jessie and Colin’s eyes met. As much as she didn’t want to believe it, Dan was right. Colin couldn’t keep hiding. Not if he ever wanted his life back. “You did leave with a woman. Me. Except for my drive to San Padre, we’ve been together.”
Colin’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I’ll be locked up. Perhaps for a long time.”
Jessie took his hand. “I’d never allow that to happen.”
“You might not be able to stop it from happening. Once I’m behind bars, figuring out the truth will become almost impossible.”
“We know the truth. You’re innocent.”
“There have been a lot of innocent men to pay for crimes they didn’t commit.”
“And a lot of guilty ones to walk free,” Dan said from where he watched them. Jessie shot him a silencing look. Surely by now he believed in Colin’s innocence. And if not, he’d never betray her trust. Not Dan.
“If you run, you’ll look guilty as hell in front of any jury you go before,” Dan added, not paying any heed whatsoever to Jessie’s warning glance to let her handle this. “I’ll go over this information, see what I can come up with. Steve Jernigan has more inside military connections than the pentagon. If there’s foul play on those contracts, he’ll get the needed proof. In the mean time, the police have issued a warrant to bring you in for questioning on Tamara’s disappearance. It’s plausible you’ve been with Jessie, but with every minute that passes that plausibility dwindles.”
Colin nodded, turning his head as the computer beeped to indicate a new email. From the bogus Yahoo account.
He opened the email. Jessie read the information along with him. Maxwell Arnold paid the lease on Tamara and Jessie’s apartment. Several large deposits had been made into Tamara’s account recently. Deposits that could be traced to Maxwell.
“Why would Maxwell pay your rent?” Colin turned suspicious eyes onto Jessie.
“I don’t know. The apartment was Tamara’s. I sort of moved in on her when she was having financial problems.” Jessie’s gaze dropped to the screen, to the amount of the deposits. “Apparently not that much of a financial problem.”
Dan’s cell phone rang. He answered, and Jessie could tell by his face that the news wasn’t good.
Dan had put in a call to his buddy on the L.A.P.D. to let him know the second anything happened on the case. He’d made the request under the guise of looking out for his partner’s little sister who worked at Wolf and happened to room with the missing woman.
He closed his cell phone. “Tamara’s been found.”
“Her body?” Jessie gulped, praying her friend was okay.
“No, she’s fine other than a few bruises. Apparently she was found in one of Wolf’s empty studios. She’d been knocked unconscious, tied and gagged, and left for dead inside a packing crate. When she came to she gnawed through the gag and screamed bloody murder until someone heard her.”
“Oh my God,” Jessie’s hand covered her mouth, trying to imagine the terror Tamara must have gone through. “Did she say who hit her?”
Dan nodded, a gloomy expression on his face. “She told the police Colin Crandall did.”
* * *
Three days later exhaustion racked Colin’s body as he leaned back in the chair across from Maxwell Arnold’s desk.
Spending two nights in jail did that to a man.
He felt like he hadn’t slept in weeks.
Jessie’s ex came through. Took the information Colin uncovered, the data his informant sent, and the ex-military man used his vast resources to fill in the missing blanks and apply pressure to the right people to get tongues wagging.
Military contracts were being fixed and Senator Bill Thomas was getting huge kickbacks on the process. Kickbacks he’d do anything to protect. Between the account numbers and the data Steve uncovered, along with Colin’s research on the man, the prosecution would have a strong case. Hopefully Senator Thomas wouldn’t weasel out of his wrong doings the way he had when Colin uncovered his illegal campaign contributions.
Senator Thomas had been arrested earlier in the day. As had Tamara Harrison, although Tamara would be released later in the day. Tamara swore that she really thought Colin had been who’d hit her because she’d smelled his cologne before being hit. Only she admitted the fragrance was much stronger than Colin usually wore his. Apparently, Maxwell hired her to spy on Jessie, but as best as the police could tell that was Tamara’s only crime, and she couldn’t be held for that.
Apparently if you had the money of God, or Senator Bill Thomas, you could buy your way onto most any board of directors and the senator had bought himself an anonymous position on Wolf’s. Which was the connection that Colin pulled up during his impromptu online search. Already the senator had been applying pressure through other board members. It was no wonder Maxwell wanted to get rid of Colin. Being rid of him would get the senator off his back.
Only Colin’s contract was airtight. Maxwell’s plan to get rid of Colin backfired when J.P. and Jessie turned a show that was supposed to fail into a huge success.
Maxwell hadn’t committed any crimes per se other than spying on Jessie and turning a blind eye to all the problems plaguing first Colin’s show and then Causing A Commotion. It was unclear if Maxwell had anything to do with the problems, but the police were reviewing all the evidence. Colin suspected Maxwell had been behind each and every one. Which made him want to strangle the man for risking Jessie’s life.
Maxwell may have failed to be arrested, but the arrogant man would be punished all the same. With Marian’s father at her side, Wolf’s board almost unanimously voted in Marian Rosewood Arnold to replace her fired husband as Wolf’s president.
Now Colin sat in Maxwell’s old office and waited for the lovely woman to finish explaining to him why she’d insisted he meet with her and arranged for her limousine to pick him u
p from the jail. Because of the media hoopla, Marian’s limousine provided a quick getaway and he’d accepted.
“Although I hope you’ll choose to stay at Wolf, I’m releasing you from your contract.” She smiled with a graciousness and intelligence Maxwell never had. “You’ll be free to renegotiate your terms or to leave Wolf if that’s what you so choose.”
“You’re releasing me from my contract?” Surely he hadn’t heard right?
“Yes, if that’s what you wish.” Marian sighed, then gave a rueful look. “I was the one who insisted upon the terms of your original contract. At the time, I thought I was protecting you.”
“Protecting me?” His contract had provided him with a certain level of security within Wolf. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I accidentally overheard a conversation between Senator Thomas and Paul Martin that has always bothered me.” She looked away, almost guiltily. “I’m not sure if it can ever be proven, but I think he had Karen Bennett killed and planned for you to spend the rest of your days taking the blame.”
Colin’s head spun. Spun from longing to remember the night Karen died, remember more than just the hell he’d awakened to. But he had zero recall of anything from his second drink until the next morning. Nothing at all.
Had Karen been murdered while he was passed out?
Sure, he’d briefly considered it, but there was no evidence of anyone having broken into his apartment. No evidence of foul play except from Karen herself. Had someone else injected her?
“Why?”
“To destroy you and everything you cared about.”
Everything he cared about. Jessie. She’d been drugged and electrocuted. He’d put her in danger, just like he’d put Karen in danger. By Maxwell? Or Senator Bill Thomas?
“I thought you should know about the conversation. It was only enough to raise my suspicions when I heard about Karen’s death, but I knew you were innocent. I stepped in to make sure you were guaranteed a job at Wolf until you could get on your feet.” She shook her head. “Of course, I assumed you’d get on your feet.”
Instead, he’d wallowed in self-pity and been afraid to live for fear of getting hurt again. Afraid of the bottle. Afraid of losing control. Afraid of taking chances.
Jessie could have died just from being associated with him.
He was more afraid of taking a chance with her life than any of the above.
“If you want out of your contract, I’ll have Wolf’s lawyers draw up the papers resolving it. You’ve been manipulated enough over the past few years. I won’t be a party to more.”
“It was you.”
A dark black brow that was pencil thin and perfectly shaped rose. “Pardon?”
“The yahoo account. It was you. Ever since you overheard that conversation, you’ve been watching Senator Thomas, having him investigated.”
Marian’s expression held perfectly still, then her lips lifted. “I always did say you were a great investigative journalist, Colin. Wolf would be wise to woo you back to work in that capacity.” She smiled shrewdly and Colin knew Marian would accomplish great things at Wolf. “Particularly in regards to a continued investigation of Senator Thomas’ dealings.”
A million questions ran through his mind, but hell if a single one came out of his mouth. Not until he thought of the ramifications of his walking away from the show.
“If I leave, what will happen to Causing A Commotion? Jessie? You wanted her away from Wolf.”
“The last ditch efforts of a desperate woman who believed she could save her marriage.” Marian shrugged. “You know that old saying, the show must go on. It will. Either we’ll find a replacement or Miss Davidson will go on by herself. The network will leave that up to Miss Davidson and J.P.”
“You’ll keep him on?” After J.P. going to so much trouble to get him out of the building, Colin felt a loyalty to the older man. He didn’t want to see him given a raw deal.
“Of course. He’s a brilliant producer. Any network would be lucky to have him.”
“Yes,” Colin admitted. J.P. did know what the public craved. Jessie.
“I’m sorry about Maxwell.”
Marian’s smile faded. “That makes two of us, but there comes a point in time when cutting one’s losses and moving on is best.”
“You’ll be okay?”
“My lawyer says I have enough on Maxwell that he will accept my settlement offer for a relatively quiet divorce.”
“He’s a fool.”
She laughed. “Aren’t all men?”
Colin thought about that a moment. “Yeah, I suppose we are.”
He certainly had been. Blindly foolish.
And now that Marian had planted the suspicion, he had to know the truth. Had Karen been murdered, and he’d been so caught up in guilt that he’d failed to see the truth? He owed it to her to clear her name, to place guilt where it belonged.
Senator Bill Thomas.
* * *
Jessie paced across her living room. The living room she’d shared with Tamara. Her spying roomie who’d begged for forgiveness. A forgiveness Jessie had given. After all, she understood Tamara’s desperation to not be a failure in her family’s eyes, and she hadn’t told Maxwell anything harmful. Just reports on Jessie’s social life, which was pretty much non-existent.
How had things gotten so complicated?
Things were complicated. Colin was in jail. Colin was out of jail. Now he was missing. Tamara was supposedly missing. Found and arrested. She was a spy for Maxwell. Now she’d gone home to visit her parents and re-evaluate her dreams. Senator Bill Thomas was in jail. Now he was out on bail. It all made Jessie’s head hurt.
She’d been there when they released Colin. Not that it had done her much good. The press had been in a frenzy, and she hadn’t gotten to talk to him. A chauffeured limousine whisked him off without his ever acknowledging her presence. Had he even known she’d been there?
“You’ve got to quit pacing,” Jill scolded from the sofa. “You’re wearing a hole in the rug.”
Jessie frowned at her sister. Jill tried to convince Jessie to go to her and Rob’s house, but Jessie refused. She wanted to be home when Colin called. Or came by. Surely, he’d come by.
Where was he?
“Maybe I should call him.” She reached for her purse, planning to use her cell he’d returned to her prior to their going back to Wolf to pick up his car. A police cruiser had pulled up before they’d even had time to properly say goodbye.
Jill placed her hand over Jessie’s. “No. You’re not calling him.”
Jessie sighed. “I know you don’t like him, but you would if you knew the man I know.”
“He used you to get himself out of jail.”
“Colin knew nothing about my relationship with Steve.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but close enough. “Or that he had connections inside the company in question.” At least, she didn’t think he did. “Anyway, I contacted Steve on my own. Colin never asked me to.”
That much was completely true. Without ever questioning her, Steve said he’d check into the information she gave, and he had. Turning up enough evidence Senator Thomas should be put under the prison. Instead, the guy posted bail and was probably home relaxing in his Jacuzzi.
“Fine, Colin didn’t have ulterior motives.” Jill didn’t look like she believed it. Jessie always trusted her sister’s instincts, but not this time.
Where was he? It had been hours and hours since he’d left the jail.
“I can’t believe he hasn’t called. Where can he be?”
“Who owned the limo that hauled him off?”
Jessie shrugged. A woman was inside. She’d caught a glimpse of her hosed legs. Nothing more.
A knock rapped at her front door.
She jumped, practically ran to the door and flung it open. “Colin!”
“You don’t even have the chain on,” he scolded, looking angry. And exhausted. “What if I was here to hurt you? Use your head, Jessie. Be
safe.”
Jessie frowned. “Yes, it’s good to see you, too.” It was. So good she wanted to throw her arms around him and kiss him silly. But he looked like he’d topple over if she so much as placed the lightest popper on his cheek.
“It’s good to see you.” He didn’t sound as if he meant it. Bad vibes reverberated from him.
“Come in,” she motioned into the living room, hoping it was just fatigue and the stress from the past few days causing the strange look in his eyes.
Colin took one glance at Jill and bristled. “I didn’t realize you had company. I’ll come back later.”
Jessie placed her hands on her hips. “You don’t have to leave because my sister is here.”
“We need to talk. In private. I’ll come back later.”
“Fine.” Jill stood, glaring at Colin. “But I just want you to know that if you hurt my sister I’ll track you down, chop you in to shrimp-sized bits, and feed you to Shammoo.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Colin’s brow rose, and Jessie admitted Jill’s threat did seem odd. She supposed being fed to a killer whale was an unpleasant way to go, all things considered.
“I don’t trust him,” Jill warned, lingering in the doorway.
“I know, but I do. It’ll be okay, Jill. I promise. Go home, give Rob a kiss, and tell him what a lucky man he is.”
Jill sighed. “When did you grow up and me miss it?”
Jessie shrugged. “Be careful on your way home, and I’ll call you later.” They hugged, and she closed the door, turning to Colin. “Now, what’s taken so long that you couldn’t even call to let me know you were okay? And who was the woman in the limo?”