Weston

by Dale Mayer

  “Possibly,” Weston said cheerfully, “but it’s better to have too much information than not enough.”

  “So says you,” the detective said. “It’s a fine line. Sometimes too much information clouds everything.”

  Weston had to agree.

  Just then came a knock on the door, and it was pushed open, as a middle-aged woman stepped inside. “I’m Roseanne,” she said. “The legal assistant.” She stopped, took one look and gasped. “Oh my,” she said, “all these files.” She bent down to straighten them up and then stopped and looked at the detective. “May I?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. We’ll have the forensic techs come back and take another look at this.”

  She frowned, noting some of the names and the open drawers.

  Weston stepped forward and asked, “Did you utilize the files in this cabinet much?”

  “No,” she said. “Actually, we’ve been going digital, and we rarely used the paper files. Besides, that cabinet is old past clients.”

  “How old?”

  “Well, last year anyway,” she said. “Once we’ve crossed over a year, we digitized any completed cases and got rid of the paper copies.”

  “So, these are all files from the last year that you haven’t had a chance to digitize yet?”

  “Yes,” she said, “that’s it exactly.”

  Chapter 15

  Daniela found it hard to settle after Weston left. Her mind was a little more than upset with everything going on, but this was more about what was upset inside herself. She was absolutely delighted to get confirmation that Sari was Weston’s. That was good news. She wished to God that Angel wasn’t the mother, but no amount of wishing would change that. And it wouldn’t give Daniela her daughter either.

  She was a mother in all but blood, but, for her, that was enough because she knew getting pregnant wasn’t an option either. That was also why she was terrified of losing Sari.

  Daniela decided she needed to spend some time out and about, instead of sitting at home, moping. She finished up a bit of work she had to do and then dressed Sari and took her to a popular play center. There they spent an hour and a half, toddling around with a couple other mothers. It was an enjoyable break from the norm of her crazy world and allowed her to step back from the heavy emotions. When she got a text from Weston, asking where she was, she called him instead.

  “Hey,” she said, “I’m at a play center with Sari. She’s with two other little girls right now.”

  “Oh, great idea,” he said. “Does she get along with other kids?”

  He clearly asked the question out of a natural curiosity, so she didn’t take offense. He hadn’t been around little kids enough to know.

  “She gets along famously with them.” Looking at the other mothers, who were currently laughing and joking, she asked, “What are you up to?”

  “Well, the lawyer’s office was broken into,” he said, “so we’re here with the legal assistant, going over some of the cases, looking for something that may have triggered this kind of destruction.”

  “Good Lord,” she said. “Is that the world you live in?”

  “Very often, yes,” he said. “I was just wondering if you wanted to go out for lunch.”

  “That would be lovely. I gather you haven’t eaten?”

  “No,” he said. “I figured I might be too late, since it’s past noon, but I thought I’d check.”

  “It’s not too late,” she said. “I’d love to. Where do you want to meet?” He mentioned a popular restaurant close by. “Perfect. Is fifteen minutes okay?”

  “That works for me,” he said cheerfully. After they hung up, she picked up Sari and said goodbye to the other moms.

  Outside, Sari started talking. “Doggy, doggy.”

  “Yes,” Daniela said. “We’ll go see doggy.” Then she frowned because, of course, Shambhala wouldn’t be allowed in the restaurant. She wondered if Weston had even considered that. It was one thing to be a single guy and all of a sudden have a dog, but to have a dog, a daughter and the daughter’s mother around would require some major adjustments, and she wondered if he was prepared.

  But it was his problem, and one thing she did understand was that he was good at solving problems.

  As they headed toward the restaurant, she pulled up to the side of his rental truck to see Shambhala barking at them through the window. She held up Sari, who put her face and her palms against the glass, chattering away at Shambhala, who was wagging her tail frantically on the other side.

  At that moment Weston stepped into sight. “I hope she’ll be okay for an hour, but you’re not making it easy on us.”

  Daniela rolled her eyes at him. “I couldn’t get Sari past her. You know that.”

  “Good point,” he said. He reached out his hands, and Sari surprised them both by reaching her arms back toward him. He swung her up into his arms. “Let’s go eat, and then we’ll come back and visit the doggy.”

  She cried out, “Doggy, doggy,” over his shoulders.

  As they went inside, he said, “Does she talk about anything else?”

  “She does but not very often,” Daniela said. “She’s not behind or anything, but a first child is often a little bit slower to do some things than kids with older siblings in the home.”

  “She can be as slow as she wants to be,” he said. “I’m not bothered.”

  And honestly he didn’t appear to be, and that was very reassuring too. She smiled as they sat down at a table, specifically chosen where they could look out and see Shambhala still in the truck.

  “You’ve taken on quite a few encumbrances all of a sudden,” she pointed out.

  He looked at her in surprise, then glanced down at his daughter and back over at the dog. He gave a wide shoulder shrug. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m actually enjoying it.”

  “Sure, but it’s not something that you just enjoy and then stop.”

  He looked at her gently. “I’m not planning on running away.”

  “I get that.” She felt awkward, but she didn’t quite know what else to say, so she focused on the menu instead. “Everything sounds delicious.”

  He smiled. “Get whatever you want.”

  She looked at him, not sure if he was treating her or if she was paying. If she was paying, the budget definitely came into play.

  When the waitress came back, he ordered a burger and fries, then looked at Daniela. “What will Sari eat?”

  Daniela ordered chicken fingers and fries and then a salad for herself. “Sari and I can share,” she said.

  He chuckled at that. “Meaning, you get to clean up her leftovers?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not too sure too many mothers out there don’t,” she confessed.

  “You can have food just for yourself too, you know?”

  “I’m happy this way.” From his frown she wasn’t sure he believed her, but he didn’t make an issue of it. When the food arrived, the salad was way better than she had expected. And she did share it with Sari because Sari loved salads. She wasn’t a big eater anyway, so, by the time she’d had several bites of salad, a couple chicken fingers and fries, she was more than done and wanted to go back to the doggy. When Daniela was done with her salad, she put down her fork.

  “What are your plans for this afternoon? Do you have a babysitter?” Weston asked suddenly.

  She frowned at him and looked down at Sari. “Why?”

  “I’d like to take you out for dinner,” he said. “A real date.”

  Immediately heat flushed through her. She smiled and knew her cheeks were turning pink. “Well, that would be very nice,” she said, “but I’m not too sure if it’s a good idea.”

  “It might not be, or maybe it is,” he said, “but we’ll never know if we don’t try. Do you have a babysitter?”

  “My sister sometimes will take Sari.”

  “Will you call her and see if that’s an option?”

  “She’s never looked after her in the evening
before,” Daniela said, chewing on her bottom lip.

  “We could take Sari over there and then pick her up after dinner,” he said, “or your sister could come to the house.”

  Daniela pulled out her phone and sent her sister a text. When the response came back. neither a yes nor no but a why, she sighed, and said, “She wants to know why.”

  “Of course she does,” he said. “So tell her.”

  She looked at him for a moment.

  Weston said, “Unless you’re ashamed of me.”

  “Of course I’m not,” she said, frowning. She texted back that Weston had invited her out on a date.

  Her phone rang, and she rolled her eyes at Weston. “This is why you don’t tell my sister these things. She always wants more details.” She answered the phone. “Hello, sis.”

  “Is that a good idea?” her sister demanded. Daniela reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, then said, “That’s one of the reasons we would like to go out on a date. So we can figure out if it’s a good idea,” she said gently.

  A humming sound came on the other end of the phone. “What time?”

  She looked at Weston. “What time?”

  “Seven?” he said. “I’ll make reservations at a local restaurant, if that’s okay with you.”

  “That sounds lovely,” she said to Weston, but to her sister she added, “So seven to nine?”

  At that, Davida said, “Fine, I’ll come over and be there at quarter to seven.”

  “Good enough,” she said. “And thanks, sis.”

  “I just want to see this guy again,” Davida said. “I’m not sure about him.” Then she hung up.

  With a heavy sigh Daniela faced Weston. “She’s agreed to seven to nine.”

  “Perfect,” he said. “Do you have a favorite restaurant?”

  She thought about it, then shook her head. “I didn’t go out much with Charlie.”

  “Good,” he said. “We’ll find someplace new.”

  She chuckled. “Is it that easy?”

  “It’s definitely that easy,” he said with a smile.

  She shrugged and said, “Well then, you pick a place, and I’ll be happy to go.”

  “Is there any food in particular that you don’t like?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “I eat seafood and basically everything really.”

  “Good to know,” he said.

  She smiled at him. “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure,” he said, then looked at his watch. “I’ll pay the bill, and then I’ll leave you two to head off and do whatever you do on a girls’ afternoon.”

  As he stood, pulling money from his wallet, he checked the bill, then leaned over and kissed Sari on the cheek, making her giggle. Then he leaned over and kissed Daniela on the cheek as well. “I’ll be home well in advance of our date tonight.” And, with that, he was gone.

  She stared after him, bemused as he headed to the vehicle. He was greeted excitedly by Shambhala and then drove away. She looked back at Sari to see her staring at her wide-eyed, her fingers on her cheek where she’d been kissed.

  Daniela leaned forward and whispered, “I know, right?” Then she reached up and touched the spot on her own cheek where she’d received a matching kiss. “Pretty darn special.”

  And Sari chortled in glee.

  Weston didn’t really have plans, but just so much was going on that he needed to stir up some more information before this slipped away and became a cold case. He knew he was really pushing it, and he trusted the detective to do what he could, but obviously they were short-staffed. He headed back to the lawyer’s office, surprised to see forensics there already. He went to the other businesses and introduced himself, then explained why he was there and asked if they had known the lawyer.

  One woman at the front desk of an insurance company nodded. “He was a great guy,” she said warmly. “We were really devastated to learn of his death.”

  “You didn’t hear anything I presume?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. I don’t remember seeing him this week at all. Some days we don’t. He’s busy, arriving early and nearly always leaving well after I do,” she said.

  He nodded and smiled, then asked a few more questions, but there didn’t seem to be anything to add. He went up and down all the businesses in the block and got largely the same report: that the lawyer was a good guy and that nobody had any idea why someone would have shot him.

  Now to come back to this whole Grant and Ginger thing. He realized he may need to have another talk with Grant—or whoever he was. It was possible he was Gregory, but Weston really had no idea. He was a little on the fence about it. He headed back into the vehicle with Shambhala, letting her up first, noting again how well she jumped, at least for now.

  He checked the time and found it was only two-thirty, so he headed down the road out to the homestead. He pulled off the side of the road at the site of the accident, and, with Shambhala on a leash, he hiked down to where the crash site was. The wrecked vehicle was still there, and he suspected that budgetary limitations may have prevented it from being hauled out. They had taken the two bodies from the vehicle, but that was it.

  Shambhala barked and jumped around at the bottom, but she didn’t seem to exhibit any signs that this was where she’d been tossed or where her owners had died. It was in complete contrast to their first visit. Maybe the dog had figured out that her beloved owner was gone now, and she was okay to move on. Animals did adjust faster than humans …

  He walked around the crushed-in truck. It had flipped and rolled several times and had landed on its wheels, at an angle, so it was tilted upward, not quite sideways, but lodged in between a couple rocks at a forty-five-degree angle. The hood was crushed flat, and the bed was pretty damaged with the sides caved in.

  He couldn’t tell from the damage on the vehicle if there’d been any foul play. And, of course, on a stretch of road like this, it was pretty easy for accidents to happen, so it was totally within reason that it had been an accident, just as it appeared. But who was to say for sure? It was just one more in a pile of unknowns he had no answers for.

  He got a door open and peered inside. Almost nothing was left, since a fire had scorched the interior as well. He stared at the cliff up above. Looking at Shambhala, he muttered, “Be pretty hard to survive that. Plus with the fire afterward.”

  He shook his head and started the slow climb back up. Just as he neared the steepest part of the climb, a single gunshot rang out. He ducked, reacting by instinct and pulling Shambhala with him back behind the brush. He swore softly as the dog curled up close to his side, whimpering. He hugged her close. “I know. We never wanted to hear that again, did we?”

  Her tail thumped in response, but she kept her trembling body against him.

  “But here we are, girl, so we’ll have to deal with it. Let’s hope they don’t get a chance for a second shot.”

  He waited for a long moment to see if anybody would come looking for them. When he heard no movement, he picked up a rock and threw it down closer to the vehicle, causing a few other rocks to move down. Instantly a second shot was fired. Swearing, he pulled out his phone and sent Badger a message, then sent Detective Kruger a message as well. When the detective texted back, Weston was told to stay undercover, and the detective was on the way.

  Weston snorted at that. “I could be dead before you get here,” he snapped as he peered through the brush, trying to see who the shooter was. The shots came from the other side of the road, toward Grant’s homestead, but that didn’t mean it was him. Or Gregory. Weston hadn’t seen a vehicle when he drove up, and they were still a good many miles away from the cabin, so there was no logical reason to assume it was one of the twins. Neither would have known Weston was even driving out this way. Unless, of course, one of them had been tracking him.

  He frowned at that. It was one thing for his military buddies to have access to tracking equipment, but it was not common for someone like Grant. Then ag
ain, Weston didn’t know what his history was, and maybe he needed to check that. He sent another text to Badger, asking if anybody in Grant’s family had a military or law enforcement background. He couldn’t be sure it was him shooting, but the only way the shooter would know Weston was here was if his vehicle had been tracked. Badger said he’d look into it but also told Weston to check for a tracker when he got back to his vehicle.

  He sent back a simple text. You think?

  It was interesting that Badger didn’t have any expectation of him doing anything but getting safely back to his truck because that was what they did. Survive.

  Chapter 16

  Daniela couldn’t keep the smile off her face for the rest of the afternoon. Back home, she had a shower, washed her hair and couldn’t believe how excited she was at the thought of going out on a date. She went through half-a-dozen outfits in her closet before finally settling on a simple dress and heels. It was nice and summery, and she could wear it with a sweater or even a nice jacket to head off the evening’s chill. Satisfied with that, she hung it up on the outside of the closet, and, with her hair wrapped in a towel, and Sari at her feet, playing with her scarves, Daniela set about doing a quick facial mask. When her phone rang, her face was covered in gunk, but she laughed and picked up the phone anyway. “Hello?”

  “I want my daughter back,” Angel said.

  “She’s my daughter,” Daniela said calmly, though inside, her heart slammed against her ribs. “It’s all legal and aboveboard, Angel. You don’t get any callbacks on this one.”

  “You say it’s all legal,” she said, “but I know my brother. He was a lousy lawyer. I’m sure he missed something.”

  “I don’t think so. Did you kill your brother because he wouldn’t help you get Sari back?”

  Nothing but silence came on the other end of the phone. Then Angel snapped, “You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “No, maybe not, but I’ll defend my daughter to the death,” she said. “Just remember. She’s my daughter, not yours. You gave up all rights to her.” She didn’t know where her bravado came from; she just knew how important it was that she maintain it.