But he and Mace had work to do, going through the invoices S&J had obtained from the Army on the weapons stolen a year ago and comparing that to the list of weapons seized from the warehouse. He glanced at Scout, saw that she was already on her laptop, probably ferreting out further connections between Crane and Newtown.
“Let’s get to it,” he said to Mace. With both ex-Delta and ex-Ranger operatives on the payroll, S&J had close contacts with the military and maintained good relations with most of the branches. He gestured to the hard copies of the reports. Though he had electronic copies, he preferred working from paper. “Take a look.”
Mace settled on the dumpy sofa, squared one leg over the other, and read, turning the pages in seconds. His speed-reading abilities were well known among S&J operatives.
“You two have stumbled on one of the biggest robberies in Army history.” Mace’s low whistle echoed Nicco’s own fury. The weapons represented millions of dollars, and even more, they spelled suffering and death for untold numbers of people.
“It’s a massive haul,” Mace continued, his eyes cold. “These weapons get out and we’ll be counting bodies in the thousands, the tens of thousands.”
Nicco didn’t have to hear the numbers spelled out. He bit his inner cheek as he thought of the misery these guns would inflict upon innocents. The death toll of the military weapons getting into the wrong hands could be astronomical.
Scout looked up from her laptop. “Nicco told me a little about the People’s Militia. You think they’re behind the theft of the weapons?”
“Oh, yeah.” Mace’s features twisted with grief and anger. “The Army has their weapons back, but the militia members who took them are still out there. This stops here. Now.”
Nicco couldn’t agree more.
* * *
Scout figured that she could get in a good four hours of work before having to get dressed for the night’s doings. Her lips curled in disgust at the idea of having to attend a party to honor Patrice Newtown.
While Nicco and Mace continued to pore over Army invoices, Scout got to work on finding definitive proof that Newtown had been involved with Crane.
Her thoughts strayed back to her background search on Newtown and the discovery of her sister’s name, Irene Kruise. The name had struck a chord then as it did now. Scout silently berated herself. If she hadn’t been so rattled by the attempts on her life, she’d have made the connection sooner.
Wanting to verify it, she entered Kruise’s name in a search engine. The computer brought up a grisly story of murder and corruption.
Three years ago, Irene and Alfred Kruise had been convicted of the murders of a federal prosecutor, his wife, and two US Marshals, as well as three counts of attempted murder. They were currently serving twenty-five-year consecutive sentences on each charge.
Now Scout knew why the Kruise name was so familiar. Shelley Rabb had been hired to protect the son of the murdered prosecutor and, in doing so, had met Caleb Judd, the boy’s uncle. The three of them had nearly been killed by the Kruises. The story had a happy ending, bringing Shelley, Caleb and his nephew together.
A tingling awareness told Scout she was on to something. She called Nicco’s attention to what she’d discovered about Newtown. “She’s Irene Kruise’s sister.”
His expression turned dark. “Maybe murder runs in the family.”
Scout wasn’t surprised that he was familiar with Kruise’s name. From what Shelley had told her, everyone at S&J knew of the murderous husband-and-wife team.
Okay. So Newtown had some bad apples on her family tree. So did a lot of people. That in itself didn’t make her a criminal.
Scout followed the links of Newtown’s charity’s website. Though her computer skills were no match for Shelley’s, Scout was knowledgeable enough to navigate her way through the various sites. ISPs crossed paths with other internet service providers for similarly based charities. In addition, the charity supposedly had over a hundred employees, but she could find tax records for only two.
The rest were only ghosts, officially on the books but with little to nothing to show. A small payment here, an approved credit card there, but a paltry presence for the numbers and amounts that should have existed.
Scout scanned the list of the Board of Directors. Among the names of other city leaders was that of Gerald Daniels.
Daniels. Her publisher. Her boss. Still, it didn’t mean more than that Daniels served on the charity’s board. She thought of the picture she’d seen at Daniels’s office and redirected her efforts. A few taps of the keyboard and she struck gold at the website of the Georgia Tech football team.
Gerald Daniels had held the coveted position of quarterback while Leonard Crane played left tackle. A definite link between the two men, yet Daniels had never mentioned knowing the other man. It would have been natural for him to say something when news broke of Crane’s death, like “Yeah, I knew him back in the day.” But he’d said nothing.
“Take a look at this.” She showed the website to Nicco.
“A definite link.” He filled in the background for Mace, who nodded.
“Why? Why keep it a secret?” Scout asked, giving voice to her thoughts. What other secrets was Daniels keeping?
“Only one reason I can think of,” Nicco said. “He didn’t want the connection between him and Crane made known.”
She searched for a reasonable explanation for Daniels’s behavior and found only one: Daniels, the publisher of the city’s biggest paper, was involved in the plot with Crane and Newtown. And that meant he was also involved in her parents’ deaths.
She went over the last few days. Crane’s summons, the promise that he’d tell her why her parents had been killed, his own murder before she could meet with him a second time.
The stolen weapons, weapons that would have to be moved when they were sold. That meant transportation, which is where the sanitation union came in. With Crane in on the scheme, there were hundreds of trucks available.
“And Newtown and Daniels? What’s in it for them?”
“Money,” Nicco and Mace answered together.
With the sale of the weapons, both Newtown and Daniels would move into the ranks of billionaires. But was there ever truly enough for people who lived as they did?
Scout thought of the players. Crane, Newtown, and Daniels each brought something to the table: Crane provided the transportation, Newtown, the charity to funnel funds, and Daniels, the power to keep the press busy with trivial matters like social events and away from real news that might interfere with the trio’s gunrunning and murder.
Scout, Nicco and Mace hashed it out together.
“I almost feel sorry for Leonard Crane,” she said. “He was a pawn.”
“And, like a pawn,” Nicco said, “he was sacrificed when the time was right.”
Scout drew herself up, stretched after being hunched over the computer. “We’re going to get the evidence that proves that Newtown and Daniels are dirty right up to their salon-styled hair.”
Nicco grinned. “That’s my girl.”
For a moment, she forgot the angry words they’d thrown at each other and her hurt at his refusal to understand why the investigation was so important to her. All she heard was the warm approval in his voice.
“Can you see Patrice Newtown in lockup?” She laughed at the image.
Any trace of laughter vanished, though, at what the woman had done. It was one thing to play hardball in business, another to use a charity as a blind to cover her criminal activities, including trafficking stolen weapons and murder.
Working in conjunction with the militia, Newtown and Daniels were operating an empire built on greed, corruption and murder. An empire Scout planned to topple. “She’s going down,” Scout said with quiet determination. “She’s going down hard.”
Before Nicco and Mace could react, Scout r
eceived a call. The name on the display showed it was from Daniels.
“Scout, I owe you an apology for earlier,” he said. “I wonder if you could meet me at my house in a half hour. There are some things I need to tell you.”
Was he going to confess?
“I can do that. See you then.”
She related Daniels’s part of the conversation to Nicco and Mace.
Predictably, Nicco shook his head. “No way are you going to his place.”
“Wrong. No way am I not going.” She winced at the hard note in her voice and worked to soften it. “This is our chance to learn the truth. I have to go.” She waited for his reaction. Would he understand? Or would he try to force her to the sidelines as he had that morning?
Nicco looked like he wanted to argue, then nodded abruptly. “We go together,” he said, and waited a beat. “Or not at all.”
She lifted her gaze to his, saw the rock-hard determination that matched her own in his eyes. “Together.”
He turned to Mace. “Keep working the inventory.”
“You got it.”
Outside, when Nicco started for his truck, she shook her head. “He’s expecting me to come alone. That means I drive.”
They stopped by her house so she could pick up the tickets for the night’s gala. Tension filled the car as she drove out of the city. It ratcheted up several more notches when Nicco objected to her going inside Daniels’s home by herself.
“He’s more likely to talk with me alone,” she said. “We want proof he’s involved. If this is how we get it, then I have to do this.”
The highway twisted and turned, a lazy river, flanked by lush fields where leggy thoroughbreds frolicked, each worth ten times more than the home where she’d grown up. The rich are different from you and me. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s words were never more true.
Money had been never a priority for Scout. Family and faith came first. Always had. Always would.
She had no problem with those who worked hard and earned what they had. It was those who stole, who embezzled, who threatened and murdered to get their riches that had her hackles rising.
The road had narrowed now, a further sign of wealth. It signaled to one and all that this was a private drive leading to a very private house. She ignored the crushed oyster shell driveway flanked by lush flower beds, which she knew from previous visits led to a fountain at the front entrance. She steered the car to the back of the estate and pulled to a stop.
Nicco rolled out of the car in one smooth motion. “I should go with you,” he said before she drove away.
“We’ve been over this. And if things go wrong...I’m going to need you on the outside where you can move freely. I’ll call you in a half hour. If I don’t...” She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.
“Nicco...” She let her eyes say what her lips couldn’t. “Be safe.”
EIGHTEEN
Nicco wiped his hands against his cargo pants as he squinted to see through the darkening shadows.
The Daniels estate sprawled over hundreds of acres. Famed for its antebellum origins, it had the reputation of being a showplace. He wished he had an idea of the layout of the grounds, of spots where snipers might be placed, of security measures.
With the Rangers, he’d often relied on HUMINT. Human intelligence was considered the most reliable by the military. While analysts could speculate and hypothesize what might happen in any given situation, having someone on the ground was far preferable.
But he didn’t have that advantage now.
He had performed countless missions, his hands dry, his heartbeat steady. Now his palms were wet, his heart racing. He could smell his own stink, the stink of fear. It oozed from every pore. For a man who had fought and, yes, killed for his country, fearless in the most dire circumstances, it was a rude awakening to discover that he was as human as the next.
He’d failed to protect Ruth when she’d needed him. What made him think he’d do any better the second time around? He thought of Scout and her unflinching courage. It was one of the reasons he loved her as he did. It also terrified him. Because he loved her.
She knew him inside and out. She knew about the scars he would always bear because of Ruth and the two men who’d died on his watch. With quiet understanding, she saw beyond all the barriers he’d put up to the raw wounds beneath and then ignored them to offer him grace.
He’d shared his deepest secrets with her, some he hadn’t even confided in his family. He rationalized that with the thought that he didn’t want to burden his parents and his brothers and sisters with the pain he bore, but the honest part of his brain mocked the lie.
It was Scout, and only Scout. Scout who saw through his carefully constructed defenses. Scout who, with only a touch, managed to soothe away long-held pain. Scout who gave of herself so easily that she wasn’t even aware of it.
He’d let her down when he ordered her off the case. He wouldn’t let her down again.
* * *
Gerald Daniels looked down at where Scout was bound to a chair.
Despite her best efforts to mask her suspicions, he’d seen through her. Less than five minutes after she’d been escorted into the walnut paneled library, he had ordered two men, the same two who had attacked Nicco and Scout in the alley, to tape her to a chair.
“Back at the office, I was afraid you’d put it together. I saw it in your face. You saw the picture. Me and Lennie. I should’ve gotten rid of it years ago, but that was the game where we won the state championship.
“You knew what it meant.”
She gave up the pretense of not understanding the picture’s significance. “You and Crane. I didn’t want to believe that you were involved, but you were in it the whole time.”
“Of course I was. I like you, Scout. Always have. That was why I tried to warn you, to make you see sense and give up the story. But you were as stubborn as always.”
“You tried to have me killed.”
“If I’d wanted you dead, you’d be dead already.” The bald statement was given without any apology. “The shooting, the beams falling, the thugs trying to take you out—Crane was responsible for those. He never could do anything right. I sent the letters to you to warn you away. Why didn’t you listen? We could have avoided all this if you had paid attention, but, no, you had to keep investigating.”
Scout felt disgust settle in the place of disbelief. “You have to know you won’t get away with this.” She winced at the hackneyed words. She was a writer. Couldn’t she come up with something more original?
Apparently Daniels thought so as well for he made a tsking sound. “That’s pathetic.”
Inwardly, she agreed, but she kept her chin raised. “I’m not the only one who knows about you.”
“Who else have you told?”
She didn’t answer that. “Why don’t you let me go and we’ll go to the authorities together?” It was a desperate ploy, one she didn’t expect to work. She was stalling. Daniels knew it, too.
“Your material needs work.” His laugh was full of derision. “I knew a Girl Scout like you wouldn’t back off. I gave you fair warning, and you chose to ignore it.”
“How can you do this?”
For the first time, regret moved into Daniels’s eyes. “I have to look out for number one.”
Scout stared at him. The callousness of the statement shouldn’t have shocked her, but it did. She’d been deceived in the worst way possible. Keep him talking.
“Why? Why all this? Why throw away everything?”
“The oldest reason in history. Money. Lots and lots of money.”
“You have more money than you’ll ever spend.”
“There’s never enough money.”
“When did it happen? Deciding to chuck everything you ever believed in and become someone you don’t even recognize?”
>
“You’re a fool. You know that, right?”
“A fool because I wanted the truth? Isn’t that the paper’s motto?”
“A naive fool,” Daniels continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “Truth can be shaped. It can be finessed to say whatever I want it to say. It can even be bought. The way I see it, I can buy myself a whole lot of truth with one sweet operation.”
Instead of feeling triumphant or even satisfied that her suspicions about Daniels had been confirmed, she felt only an unbearable sadness. She looked at him now and saw a man betrayed by his own weakness.
“The way I see it, you sold your soul. And for what? Money you don’t need?”
“Survival. The paper’s bleeding money. Why do you think I haven’t hired any new reporters in over a year?”
She knew the paper was losing money. She also knew he had more than enough funds to keep the paper afloat, but she played along. “If things are so bad, how are you keeping it going?”
“A nice big cash influx from a private party.”
That made sense when she remembered one of his maxims: never use your own money when you could use someone else’s. Despite his wealth, Daniels was notoriously cheap, both in his personal and professional life. The office joke was that he would steal the bark from a dog if he could find a way.
“Let me guess who that private party is. Patrice Newtown.”
Consternation darkened his eyes. “Like you say, you’re guessing.”
“Am I? Those papers I brought you? They told the story. From there, it didn’t take much to figure out that Newtown was in cahoots with Crane. The only one I wasn’t sure about was you.”
“Now you know.”
“Now I know.” But there was no triumph in her words, only regret.
“Then there’s Christine.” The plaintive note in Daniels’s tone snagged Scout’s attention.
“What about her?” Scout had met Daniels’s wife, Christine, at a Christmas party and thought her a nice if ineffectual woman.
“Christine’s an addict. Has been for years. I tried my best to get her into a rehab program, but couldn’t find one that didn’t make my skin crawl. Newtown’s connections let me get her into a first-class place.”
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