by Vicki Hinze
“Sissy,” Gabby said. “Suicide is rarely a family member’s fault. Usually, the person feels overwhelmed and too weary of battles to fight anymore. You can’t let what he did affect you this way.”
“But it’s a mortal sin.” Her eyes stretched wide, owl-like. “I can’t bury him in consecrated ground. The children and I may not be welcome at St. Mary’s.”
“Of course, you will,” Candace said. “You’ve been a member since you were born and Father McDowell knows it.” Candace sipped from her cup. “Where did this happen, dear?”
“I don’t know.” Sissy stilled, shocked by that realization. “Jackson told me he’d found Carl, but I don’t know where. Oh, my God. How can I not know where it happened?”
“It’s okay. It’s the shock. It happens to everyone.” Gabby hoped she sounded reassuring. “Jackson will tell you again. Mayor Faulkner is here. I’m sure he knows.”
“Ronald. Yes, he’ll know.” She looked at Gabby. “Have you shown anyone else Carl’s notebook? He noticed it missing the morning Hurricane Darla made landfall. I have to know that it wasn’t my fault he killed himself, Gabby. That nothing in that notebook made him do it.”
Notebook. What notebook? Obviously, one Sissy had given Gabby that she was supposed to know she had. “No, I haven’t shown it to anyone else,” she said, certain it was true since she didn’t know where it was herself.
Sissy slumped in relief. “Thank God.” She smoothed her hair, as if the strokes soothed her. “I didn’t think so, since the storm hit so soon after I gave it to you. But I had to be sure.”
“Not a soul,” Gabby said emphatically.
She smiled. And it seemed so odd to see a smile in her tearstained face that Gabby instinctively looked at Candace, who was casting an equally suspicious look at Sissy.
They talked for another half hour, and then Sissy’s son came home, so Gabby and Candace left to give the family some privacy.
When Gabby walked back into the living room, the vaguely familiar man was gone. The man from the bank was sitting on the sofa petting a beagle, seeming wooden and out of place.
Faulkner saw them out and they got back into Candace’s black Porsche. When Gabby closed the door, Candace turned in her seat and looked Gabby right in the eye. “Do you remember anything about the notebook?”
Gabby felt trapped, but decided to answer. “No. Nothing.”
“I didn’t think so.” Candace pursed her lips and cranked the engine. “Sissy said she gave it to you just before the storm.” She shifted into first and pulled away from the curb. “The day before, your Jeep broke down on the road to Abernathy’s cabin. The dealer towed it in and I picked you up.”
“Did we go straight home?”
The notebook wasn’t at Gabby’s house; after finding the passports and licenses, she’d ripped the place up from stem to stern searching for her real past but found nothing except her memory box, which was pitifully close to empty and very depressing because it was. Carl Blake’s notebook had to be in her courtroom.
Candace stomped the brakes and made a U-turn in the middle of University Avenue. Gabby’s shoulder thumped against the door. “What are you doing? Geez, Candace, you’re driving like a maniac.”
“I was not. I was just turning around.”
“At fifty miles per hour?”
“Oh, stop. It wasn’t.”
“Well, do you mind telling me—before you turn me into roadkill—where you’re going?”
Candace looked at her as if she were slow on the uptake. “The courthouse. Obviously, you left the notebook there if it’s not at your house.”
“I never said it wasn’t at my house.”
“Gabby, get real, okay?” Candace rolled her gaze and hit the brakes hard to swing into the courthouse parking garage. “You had no memory, darling. If the blessed thing was in your house, you’d have found it.” She whipped into Gabby’s parking slot and stopped. “Or are you going to tell me you didn’t look?”
“No.” Gabby got out and fished her keys from her purse, not at all comfortable that she had become so predictable to Candace. “I’m not.”
Cardel Boudreaux drove into the judge’s parking area at the courthouse. After he verified that the black Porsche parked there was Candace Burke’s, he drove out onto the street, stopped curbside, and dialed the phone.
When he got what appeared to be a fax line, he punched in the chairman’s code number. He didn’t like reporting directly to a client—the buffer of his boss doing the conversing made him far more comfortable—but for double his fee, he had agreed to lose the buffer and take on the extra risk of direct contact with the head of the Consortium.
“Yes?” The man answered.
“She’s at the courthouse. Sissy Blake asked her about the notebook. She said she hasn’t shown it to anyone else.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I do.” Cardel fingered the blinker stem. “She got it the day before Darla hit and she’s been sick ever since. This is the first time she’s been to the courthouse.” He should tell the chairman that he’d bugged Candace’s car and Gabby didn’t remember the notebook, but that could diminish the danger to the Consortium and jeopardize Cardel’s doubled fee, so he kept that tidbit of info to himself. “It’s the final possible link to you or anyone outside of Carnel Cove.”
“Sever it.” The chairman paused and then added, “I have serious doubts it’s authentic, but I want that notebook in my hands by dawn.”
“Yes, sir.” Cardel hung up. If everything went as planned, Cardel would have it just as soon as Gabby and Candace returned to Candace’s car.
They’d never leave the parking lot alive.
“Find anything?” Candace walked up the center aisle to the gap between the prosecutor’s and defender’s tables.
“Nothing.” Gabby propped her hands on her hips and blew out an exhausted breath.
“Mind if I call in reinforcements?”
Gabby would call anyone short of the devil to find that notebook. “Who?”
Candace pulled out her cell phone. “She who knows all in Carnel Cove, dear heart.”
She who knows all? Gabby lifted her arms. “Who the heck does that mean?”
“Miranda, darling.” Candace smiled. “If it’s going on in or near the Cove, Miranda Coffield knows it or can find it out.”
If that were the case, Gabby should ask her who’s heading the Consortium, where that second Warrior was, who killed Judge Abernathy and William Powell, and a dozen other important questions. Miranda was informed, but how could she know this? Gabby couldn’t imagine, but Candace had insight she lacked because the woman never praised lightly.
“Hey, it’s me,” Candace said into the phone. “Listen, Gabby and I are at the courthouse. Are there secret compartments, safes, false walls, or anything where someone could hide something here?” She paused. “No, not the whole courthouse. In the courtrooms.” Candace listened and then looked at Gabby. “Is this Courtroom A or B?”
“B.” Now what exactly should Gabby think of this?
A few minutes passed. “Thanks, Miranda.” Candace winked and shut off the phone. “There’s a cubby under the bench.”
“You’re kidding.” Gabby couldn’t believe it.
“Does this look like the face of a woman who’s kidding?”
It didn’t. Candace looked dead serious. “How did Miranda know this?”
“She pulled the original plans, from when they built the courthouse. It’s on the plan.” Candace walked over to the front of the bench. “Miranda can do anything with a computer, Gabby. Anything at all. I thought I’d already mentioned that.”
“You did.” Gabby ran her fingers along the outside of the bench. “But you know, she’s so good it’s almost scary.”
“In the wrong hands, she could be scary. But Miranda is one woman you don’t have to worry about. She’s straight as an arrow all the way.”
Finding nothing, Gabby moved on, let her fingertips glide along the woo
d under the kneehole in the bench. On the far right, she bumped into a lever. “This could be it.” She pushed it, not surprised she’d missed it before. It was hidden under a lip. A wooden panel about two feet wide slid open, revealing a small cubby. “Oh, yes!” She shot Candace a glance and then pulled out a black leather notebook. “Got it.”
“Yeah, yeah. What’s stuffed inside?” Candace stretched across the bench to see.
Gabby unfolded the papers, scanned them. “Judge Powell’s test results.” Remembering doing the tests, she looked over at Candace. “I ran them in your lab, didn’t I? You let me in.”
Candace nodded.
The Consortium. The notebook is the evidence. “Oh, God. We’ve got to get this to Max.” Gabby ran around the front of the bench, grabbed Candace by the arm, and they ran out of the courtroom.
Clearing the elevator, Gabby felt dread drag at her belly. “Candace?” She didn’t know how to tell her this. How did you tell a woman who had put her life on the line to save others that she was in serious jeopardy of going to jail?
“Give it to me straight, Gabby.” Candace watched the elevator light above their heads mark off the floors. “Honey, you’ve had that tone in your voice exactly twice. Once, when you told Elizabeth and me that you couldn’t tell us anything other than what you already had but you believed us—about William being murdered. The second time, when you told Max you loved him. I figure that was bad news to you, considering how hell-bent you are on not loving anyone. So both times, that tone carried bad news. It’s a reasonable assumption this time’s no different.”
“Unfortunately, you’re right. It appears Logan Industries is up to its armpits in all this subterfuge, Candace. There’s no way around it.”
Candace pursed her lips, stared off to the wall for a second, but kept right on walking. “Sweep out the clutter, then.”
“That’s it?” Gabby lifted a hand. “That’s all you have to say about it?”
“What do you expect me to say about it, Gabby?” She shrugged. “I don’t know a thing about medical research. I figured the DOD would keep everyone in line—we are on full-monitoring status. If it didn’t, and they didn’t catch it, how could I?” Candace hitched her purse strap back up over her shoulder. “Am I happy about it? No. But I’m a realist and a practical woman. I’ll nail the son of a bitch who did this to me to the jailhouse wall—after I break him financially.” She stepped out of the elevator and paused at the door to the parking area. “Do you know who at Logan Industries is corrupt?”
“Not exactly,” Gabby admitted. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Well, find out, will you?” Candace frowned and stepped into the garage. “Like I said, you sweep out the clutter. I’ll pray I don’t find my assets in the dustbin or my backside in jail.”
Candace pressed her keyless entry button and they walked from the door toward the car. Gabby automatically checked to make sure the area was secure—the two-story parking garage had always given her the heebie-jeebies. No one else was in sight, and no other cars were on level one. The place was deserted.
Halfway to the car, the hair on her neck stood straight up. “Wait.” Gabby looked around, heard a car pull away from the curb outside. “Run, Candace!”
They ran toward the street, cleared the corner, and were down two buildings when Candace slowed down. “What the hell is going on?”
Gabby pulled her. “Just move!”
The car exploded.
Chapter Thirty-six
Max didn’t recognize the car pulling into the drive.
It stopped near the Jeep, and Gabby got out. “Thanks for the lift, Bobby.”
Bobby wore a deputy’s uniform, but drove an unmarked white sedan. In the front seat beside him sat Candace. She looked shaken.
Gabby didn’t. Perplexed, Max waited on the front porch for Gabby to reach him.
She lifted up on her toes, smacked a kiss to his lips, and then turned and waved good-bye.
Max looped an arm around her waist. “What happened to Candace’s car?”
“It blew up.”
Surprise streaked up Max’s back. “What?”
“It exploded, Max.”
“What do you mean, it exploded?”
“All I know is it was intentional. Someone put a bomb in it—no idea who; I didn’t see anyone. It’s a miracle we weren’t killed.”
“Candace’s car exploded curbside at Sissy Blake’s house?” Max followed her across the porch. “And Sissy’s house was deserted?”
“No, not at Sissy’s. A self-respecting weed wouldn’t dare grow in her grass, much less a car dare to explode near her home.”
Clearly lost, Max held up his arms. “Where were you, then?”
“At the courthouse, looking for the evidence Sissy said I had.” She waved him off. “I’ll get to that later. Candace and I were walking from the elevator to her car. I heard this car pulling away from the curb, and all these alarms went off inside my head. I don’t know why. I didn’t think, I just acted. I told Candace to run. She took off toward the car. I jerked her around, and pointed her outside. We ran. The car blew up. And that’s all I know.” Gabby walked inside and went straight to the kitchen. Reaching up into the cabinet above the stove, she pulled out a bottle of bourbon and poured herself a stiff drink, then kicked it back. Her hands were trembling. She poured herself another.
Max stilled her hand on the counter and hugged her to him. “Thank God you’re safe.”
She slumped against him and held on tight, amazed at how much safer she felt just being with him. She’d rather have him as her husband, but if he wouldn’t and refused to be, then having him as a partner would be a decent consolation. Not great, but decent. Somehow she just knew she was fed up with going it alone.
She stepped away and drank her second drink in a single swallow.
“Slow down on the juice, Cinderella,” Max said. “Otherwise, you’ll miss the ball.”
She glared at him, plopped the glass on the counter. But seeing no condemnation in his eyes faded her anger and piqued her curiosity. “What ball?”
“We’ve got art.” He picked up a stack of papers from the kitchen table. “Intel came through with connections to the July fourth infestations.”
“Finally, some good news.” She skirted around him, bumped into him and snagged herself a kiss, then sat down in a chair at the table. “Show me.”
He put a photo of the Global Warrior she had killed in her garage in front of her. “Jaris Adahan left a cruise ship in Mexico and entered customs in Texas under an alias. But the photo is definitely his.”
He was wearing a hat with a U.S. flag pinned to its brim. Seeing it on him ticked her off. “He got the cotton crops, then?”
Max nodded. “We connected him through the contaminated fruit shipment.”
“How?”
“On a hunch, your favorite trainee checked out the customs inspector in the photo with Adahan. He was dirty, Gabby. When the Justice Department brought him in, he started talking.”
“I knew Gibson had potential.” Gabby smiled. “What’s the market done on cotton?” That could lead to a human connection between the incidents.
“Egyptian cotton prices have tripled.”
She pulled Carl Blake’s notebook out of her purse. “We can verify who made the most money on those stock transactions. This could help tie them to the Consortium and give us a connection to the Global Warriors. Maybe.”
“What is it?”
“Carl Blake’s notebook,” she said. “I haven’t yet read it, but if it contains what I think it does, we’ll know who was running the Consortium, and I’m betting we can see who made out like bandits on the trades. That could tell us the identities of the other Consortium members.”
“Sounds promising.”
“What else do you have there?” He passed her a photo of Sebastian Cabot, the drunk driver who had killed Judge Abernathy’s wife and son and then killed himself in California. “Which customs site is this from?” sh
e asked.
“Canada to U.S.—within proximity for the grape louse infestation. Dr. Richardson says the timing is consistent and there were empty pâté tins in Cabot’s wreckage. A lot of them.”
Gabby frowned, not making that connection.
“The louse needed a host. Pâté was a natural choice.”
She nodded. “So Intel’s tagged the infestations as biological attacks.”
He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat back down. “Based on testimony and what they’ve uncovered so far, Intel feels confident that this Consortium is a group of Carnel Cove businessmen who manipulate major events through third parties—like the Global Warriors—to serve its financial interests, just like Erickson said. They think Faulkner is the head of it, Gabby. And I have to say that he looks very guilty. He’s done everything short of issuing Stan Mullin a direct order to resume the pesticide spraying.”
“Nothing happens in the Cove without Faulkner knowing it.” She looked down at Carl Blake’s notebook and flashes of memories stormed through her mind, fast and furious, and explicitly clear. “Oh, God.”
“What?” Max reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Gabby, what is it?”
“Carl’s journal. It tells it all. About the Consortium, Faulkner, about Judge Abernathy suspending the Warrior sentences in return for the Consortium dealing with Sebastian Cabot for killing his wife and son. About them making sure Dr. Marcus Swift was hired to run Logan Industries by keeping out all other potential applicants. About Swift recruiting Erickson so he could steal the patent on the Z-4027 vaccine and pesticide. It’s all there, Max. All of it. Including Carl’s suspicion that Judge Powell had been murdered.”
Yet something didn’t feel right. Something felt very wrong.
“What’s not connecting, Gabby?”
Not at all surprised Max had picked up on it, she looked up at him. “Faulkner being the Consortium director.”
“You said yourself nothing happens here without him knowing it, and we know they had strategy sessions at the cabin. He made everyone’s business his business. It fits.”