by K. A. Tucker
I bite my tongue against the urge to cuss him out for mentioning my wife’s name. “I was looking for someone. But that’s beside the point. I was there, sittin’ in my car and watchin’ the whole show go down. Surprised you didn’t notice me.”
Mantis throws a towel around his waist to cover his nakedness. “Then you know that guy is right where he deserves to be.”
“And the money? Is that right where it deserves to be?” Under your mattress?
He chuckles softly, but there’s an edge to the sound. “You’re mistaken. There was no cash in the trunk.”
“That’s not what I saw.”
“Good luck proving that.”
Cocky bastard. I grab my backpack and march out before I do something I’ll regret, like hit the guy.
I have my answer.
CHAPTER 32
Noah
“That last hair I was nurturing?” Rolans points to his shiny, bald head. “Gone, since you left us. But don’t worry, we’ve got a shit-ton of mind-numbing work, piling up for you. Best of three on who gets him first.” He’s poised for a round of rock-paper-scissors with Maxwell, standing next to him.
Despite my purpose for being here, I can’t help but chuckle. When Silas first suggested I apply for a job at the DA’s office, I figured it’d be all stiff lawyers and miserable government workers who hate their lives and their jobs. It’s far from that. These two may be pushing their midforties, but they act like a couple of frat boys.
It does feel comforting to be here. Even my cramped cubicle doesn’t look so mundane. Someone has tidied it and set a Twix candy bar by my keyboard. Cory, my manager, likely. She knows I love them.
If only I could sit down in my chair and go back to the way things were.
“I’m actually not here to work.”
Maxwell is subdued as he shakes my hand, the guarded look on his face telling me he remembers why I’ve been gone in the first place. “You just missed Silas. He left for court five minutes ago.” His gaze settles on Gracie, forcing me to make quick introductions.
“Actually, Maxwell, I’m here to talk to you, too.”
“Me?” He looks genuinely surprised.
I swallow against my growing anxiety. How exactly is the right way to bring this up? “Yes, sir. It’s about a—”
“Forget something?” Rolans’s voice booms, cutting me off. I turn to find Silas making his way toward us, his limp more noticeable than usual, his face looking gaunt.
“A file.” Silas’s gray eyes—lined with deep, dark bags—are locked on me. “Noah . . . you’re back.”
“Yes, sir. I got home late last night.”
His gaze shifts behind me and my stomach instantly tightens. “Silas, this is Gracie. I mean, Grace.”
“I had a feeling it was . . .” He holds out a weathered hand. “Goodness, you have grown a lot since I saw you last.”
“It’s definitely been a while,” Gracie says warily, and I know she’s picking through her memories, trying to place him as she accepts the greeting.
“I hope my nephew is showing you around town?”
“If the DA’s office counts as sightseeing?”
“Knowing him, it probably does.” Silas chuckles. To anyone else, it sounds normal. But I can hear the strain. “Noah, can I see you in my office for a moment?”
“But, I thought you had court—”
“Maxwell, would you show Grace to the staff lounge? I’m sure she’d love a coffee or a cold drink.”
Shit. The last thing I want to do is leave Gracie alone with Maxwell, given her tendency to be, well, her. “I’ll be there in a minute.” I shoot her a warning look—one that I hope says to keep quiet until I get there.
She spears me with one of her own—I’m not sure what it means—before she lets Maxwell lead her away.
“So?” Silas leads me into his office and shuts the door. “Good trip to Tucson?”
“For what it was.”
“How’s Dina? Did you get her settled?”
“Yes, sir. In a good place.”
“I’m glad,” he says through a sip of his coffee as he rounds his desk. “And you’ve made a new friend?”
“It’s not like that.”
“I hope it’s exactly like that, Noah. Why else did you bring Abe’s daughter back to Austin with you?” Silas doesn’t have to yell to let me know he’s disappointed in me for not listening to him, and even though I have good reason, I hate disappointing him.
Where do I even start? “Dina knows things, Silas. About Abe and what really happened.”
“Dina is a drug addict.”
“She is, but—”
“You can’t trust what she thinks she remembers from fourteen years ago. Her brains have been scrambled.”
“No, Silas. I mean, yes, maybe. But if you heard what happened to her, you’d know there’s a lot more going on here.”
“For God’s sake!” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I went down this road fourteen years ago and let me tell you, it leads to nothing but pain and suffering. It killed Carmel Wilkes! Day by day, ate her up until her body said enough! And Dina Wilkes?” He waves a hand as if nothing more needs to be said. “Hell, even your mother was never the same again. Look . . . I know you want to believe this, Noah, but you can’t do this to yourself. You can’t do this to that poor girl out there. She has been through enough!”
“But what if there’s evidence—”
“I saw all the evidence myself! I lost days of sleep, scouring over every piece, looking for anything that could point to another explanation. Abraham Wilkes was guilty, guilty, guilty!” He punctuates each “guilty” with a finger-jab to his desk.
“Or you only know what they wanted you to know!” I match his raised voice as I parrot my mother’s words. “Silas, Mom called the feds the night she killed herself. She told them that it was all a lie and that Dwayne Mantis killed Abe!”
“How . . . how do you know that?” Unease fills Silas’s face.
“Because the damn feds were in Tucson, looking to talk to Dina, and they found me. I heard the voice message. It was her, Silas.”
“She was drunk and suicidal. She didn’t—”
“Abe had a video that someone didn’t want getting out.”
He pauses, and I swear, his face pales two shades. “A video?”
“Yes. Of a police bust.”
He checks his watch. “Okay, start talking, and fast.”
* * *
Silas eyes the decanter of scotch he keeps in the corner of his bookshelf. For a minute, he looks ready to pour himself a glass. “I always figured Dina up and ran in the night like that because she knew Abe was guilty.”
Relief overwhelms me. My uncle hasn’t dismissed it as crazy talk by an addict. Yet. “Whoever did this ruined her life. And Gracie’s.”
“And Dina couldn’t tell you anything about this man who broke into her house?”
“No. Other than that he was scary. And she has no idea where this video went. But I was talking to Jenson and—”
“You’ve told your friends about this?” His face twists with horror. “Are you insane?”
“Jenson’s not going to say anything. And listen! If this guy who threatened her was a cop, or had an in with the cops, then the video must not have turned up from the search. Dina told them about it, so they would have been looking for it, right?”
“There was no video file entered into evidence from the search,” he confirms.
“That means it’s still out there.”
“Fourteen years later?” His expression is grim as he turns away from me to stare listlessly out the window. “I’m guessing it’s long gone.”
“What are we going to do, Silas?”
“What can we do? We have none of the original case evidence, no video, and nothing except the claims of the heroin-addict wife and the incoherent ramblings of a suicidal, drunk woman. Where did you find this money and gun holster, by the way? It wasn’t in the safe.”
&
nbsp; I tell him about Fulcher and the secret compartment in the pantry.
“A five-thousand-dollar gun safe and she’s burrowing under the floorboards like a damn gopher.” He shakes his head, then sighs. “I’m not about to hang your mother out to dry. She’s not here to defend herself if some of this lands on her.”
“Neither is Abe.”
He points a finger in warning. “She did not do this to him, Noah.”
“Then why does she have a bag full of money that has to be from a drug bust and Abe’s gun holster—which Dina swears Abe left with on the night he died? She knew there had been a setup and she didn’t do anything about it! And the only reason for that is because she had something to do with it.” It’s time I stop denying that reality, time that I stop protecting her. Gracie is right—Abe deserves better from me. And my mother . . . well, maybe she deserves whatever comes with the truth.
Silas takes a deep breath, his own agitation having risen. “Maybe she only found out recently. Maybe someone threatened her, had something on her. Or maybe she had to accept that knowing something and being able to prove it are two entirely different things. I have no idea, Noah, but I won’t risk moving a guilty label off one innocent dead person, only to stick it onto another innocent dead person, especially given that the latter is my sister. And that’s exactly what will happen here. How do we know the person responsible for Abe’s death didn’t hand her that bag of money and that gun holster?”
“We don’t, but—”
“Corruption, followed by murder and a cover-up in the APD? Do you know what this would do to the department’s reputation if it got out? We can’t throw these kinds of accusations around, based on speculation.”
“This isn’t speculation! Mom knew about it!”
“But she couldn’t prove it; she said so herself. ‘I don’t know how he did it.’ You can’t put Mantis’s feet to the fire based on that, when your own mother is the one with evidence against her!” He snorts derisively. “And here we are, about to give Canning his own monument in part for the wins that Mantis himself delivered.”
“So it’s better to let people go on thinking Abe was guilty? All because of some stupid statue?”
“George Canning put his heart and soul into this city. The job damn near killed him! I don’t want all the good he did getting tarnished, any more than I want your mother’s name dragged through the mud.”
His words from last week trigger a thought. I hesitate for only a second before I ask, “What if Canning knew about it?”
Silas glares at me. “George Canning is a good and honorable man. He would have hung Mantis by his trunk of a neck in a city square had Mantis jeopardized those busts with a case of sticky fingers and Canning found out. Don’t you even suggest something different.” He rubs furiously at his eyes. “I have to think about this. Give me time, Noah. Stop talking to other people about it and give me some damn time.” Silas is cursing. He curses only when he’s rattled.
“Well, I only have the day before Agent Klein comes at me again.” I tell him about the threat of a homicide investigation.
By the time I’m done, he’s staring at me with a gaping jaw. “You punched an FBI agent?”
“You had to be there . . .” I mutter, feeling my cheeks flare with shame.
Silas shakes his head. “He was trying to scare you. He could never make a case against you. Not for homicide, anyway. But don’t say another word to him until he’s formally hauled you in for questioning and you have a good lawyer.”
We sit in defeated silence. There’s no quick thinking this time, no formulating a plan. Silas seems as lost as I feel.
“What am I supposed to tell Gracie?”
“Nothing. I warned you not to say anything in the first place.”
“I hadn’t planned on it. Things just got out of hand, quickly. And she’s not going to back down until her father’s name is cleared.”
“Well, she had better learn patience because if this is true, and Mantis killed Abe to protect himself from being busted for corruption . . . what do you think he’ll do to avoid getting nailed with murder?”
A chill runs down my spine. “Gracie doesn’t have anything on him.”
“Let’s make sure he doesn’t think otherwise, because word gets around, fast. So go, show Grace around the city, take her shopping, hang out by your pool . . . do whatever a twenty-five-year-old guy needs to do to keep a pretty girl occupied on things that pretty girls should be occupied with.”
I want to tell him that Gracie’s not the type to throw on a bikini and lie out in the sun to get away from her troubles. But I simply nod.
He frowns. “What were you two coming here for, anyway? You knew I had court this morning.”
In my rush to tell Silas everything, I realize that I forgot to mention Maxwell’s connection. But something tells me that Silas will forbid me from stepping within a hundred feet of his ADA. And if I can’t talk to Maxwell, then I’m stuck wondering, and thinking the worst about yet another person in my life. I’d rather plead forgiveness than ask permission as far as Maxwell goes. “I wanted to check the database for arrest records for Betsy, if you don’t mind,” I say instead. “It’d be good for both Dina and Gracie if we could find her. And it’ll keep Gracie occupied.”
“Go on ahead.” He glances at the clock on the wall. “Listen, I have to run to court to fight a case I actually do have evidence for.” He ushers me out of his office, pulling the door shut behind him.
“We’ll talk soon.”
“Yes, sir.”
I watch him hobble away, messenger bag hanging from one hand, an apple in the other.
His shoulders slumped as if by a great weight.
CHAPTER 33
Grace
“So, where y’all from?” Maxwell asks with his thick Texas croon. Awful stereotype or not, I can’t help but picture him going home to trade in his poorly fitting suit for a pair of dusty cowboy boots and a wide-brimmed hat.
“Originally from here, but I moved to Arizona.”
“You known Marshall a while then?” He pours himself a cup from the fresh pot of coffee, his shaggy black hair falling across his forehead messily.
It’s taking everything in me not to blurt out who I am and demand answers about why my father scribbled this guy’s name on a newspaper clipping fourteen years ago. “You could say that.”
“When’d you two start dating?”
“We’re not dating.” I take my time, sipping at my can of Coke as my eyes roam the small staff lounge. It’s nothing fancy—a common area along the west side of the building, overlooking the parking lot, with small café-style tables and chairs scattered throughout and a cherry-red kitchenette along another wall.
A tall, lanky guy strolls in then, mug in hand, to distract Maxwell. “Did I hear something percolating?”
“In your five years here, have you ever made a pot of coffee?” Maxwell shakes his head, but he’s smiling when he turns to me. “Darlin’, why don’t you just grab a seat anywhere.”
I bite my tongue about the “darlin’ ” and find an empty chair that puts my back to them and occupy myself with my phone. No calls from the rehab center to tell me that my mom escaped yet. That’s a good sign.
“You done with those depositions yet?” Maxwell asks.
“When am I supposed to do those?” the other guy whines. “I’ve been reviewing surveillance video feed for Rolans since yesterday. My eyes are starting to bleed.”
“Best of three says who you work for today.”
I glance over my shoulder in time to see them with their hands out in front of them, making hand signs for rock-paper-scissors. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumble under my breath. This Maxwell guy isn’t exactly the mastermind criminal I was envisioning.
“Tell Rolans he’s shit outta luck! I’ll check in on you soon.” Maxwell wanders over to me, chuckling as he sits his bulky body down across from me. “Gracie, right?”
“Grace.”
“So, tell me . . .” He lowers his voice and it’s like that boisterous bubble around him has been popped by a needle. “How’s Noah doin’, really?”
“His mother shot herself, so . . .” I’d say Noah is holding up miraculously well, but I don’t have a comparison point.
“Right.” His brow furrows deeply. “Did you know Jackie?”
“A long time ago.”
He dumps two packs of sugar into his coffee and I watch him stir, much like any typical man—rushed, the metal spoon clanging noisily against the porcelain sides.
“Were y’all neighbors?”
“No. My dad and Jackie were partners a long time ago.”
“So your daddy’s a cop! Is he workin’ out of Arizona?”
A segue, if I ever did hear one. “He died fourteen years ago. He was shot by a drug dealer, here in Austin.” I take a sip of my Coke, watching Maxwell’s large gray-blue eyes as they skate over my face. I sense a glimmer of recognition there.
“What’d you say his name was?”
Noah can’t get mad at me for answering a simple question. “Abraham Wilkes.”
I get another intimidating, bulgy-eyed look. I’ll bet he uses those in court with great success. And then Maxwell leans back in his chair, muttering a “no shit” under his breath as he tests his coffee.
“Did you know him?”
“Know him? No. I talked to him once, though.”
“What about?” I ask as innocently as I’m capable, hiding my cringe as he adds another sugar to his coffee.
“A case. He had evidence he thought would help me.” He takes a long sip, and a part of me thinks he’s weighing his words, deciding what he should tell me. “I started out as a public defender, and I ended up on this case where this guy got busted with a trunk full of drugs. He was goin’ away for a long time.”
My heart starts racing. “When was this?”
He frowns. “It would have been . . . ’03? Yeah, that’s right. Spring of ’03. I remember because I was picking up my wife’s engagement ring from the jewelry shop when Wilkes called. I proposed to her over Easter brunch. You should have seen her face when she opened the plastic egg that I—”