by Amy Gamet
He thought of the boy’s tense shoulders, the distrustful look in his eye.
I’m going to win you over. You just wait and see.
9
Moto sat across from his brother in a diner straight out of the 1950s, the bright morning sun shining in an unwelcome beam across his face. He’d slept for shit last night, his warm and fuzzy thoughts of Wyatt dissolving into the ether as his mind dreamed of Davina sharing his childhood bed. Now, he was grouchy and unusually petulant. “She’s late. How many murder trials has she handled in her career?”
Ben pushed his plate of half-eaten eggs away. “A lot. She was an assistant district attorney in Houston for eight years.”
“Has she ever defended anyone?”
“I’m her first.”
Moto shook his head. He had to be joking. There was no way an inexperienced litigator could handle this case. “Can you get someone else? Someone with a track record?”
“I can’t afford a lawyer with a track record. Besides, she’s a friend.”
The waitress appeared and refilled their coffee before disappearing into the diner. Moto drank the scalding-hot liquid. “Then I’ll pay for it.”
“No, thanks, little brother.”
“You have a bargain-basement lawyer who’s never defended anyone accused of murder. This is your life we’re talking about.”
“As long as that electronic trail leads right to my door, it won’t make a damn bit of difference who’s defending me. The proof is in the pudding, and right now the pudding says I’m guilty as sin.”
“Are you?”
“Stop fucking asking me that. No. You think I’d kill a federal agent?”
“Everyone is capable of murder, given the right motivation. Depends what he had on you.”
“I was selling real estate, for God’s sake.”
“Millions of dollars’ worth to anonymous buyers. You should have known better. You think you suddenly became a hotshot Realtor overnight? You think your fortune changed just like that?”
Ben’s stare hardened over the rim of his coffee cup. “Not everyone gets things handed to them on a silver platter.”
The bell over the diner entrance jingled and a petite brunette entered, her hair pulled back in a low ponytail and her suit two sizes two big. She crossed to their table. “I’m sorry I’m late. Are you ready?”
Moto held out his hand. “Zach Sato. I’m Ben’s brother.”
“Laney Devereux. I don’t shake hands.”
Moto eyed Ben, but he was already getting up. This woman wasn’t much for social graces. Moto took out his wallet and dropped several bills on the table. “How far are the cliffs from here?”
“About twenty minutes,” said Laney. “I’ll drive. We can talk in the car.” She led the way to a minivan. Ben took the passenger seat, and Moto opened the rear sliding door to a pink booster seat covered in crumbs. Laney didn’t miss a beat, reaching for the booster and tossing it into the back of the van. “Sorry about the goldfish.”
Moto frowned, flicking Goldfish crackers and crumbs onto the floor before sitting down. “Tell me about the crime scene.” Ben had already filled him in over breakfast, but he was interested in hearing her take, too.
“Eighty-five-foot cliffs down to the water and rocks below. Body was found floating in the lake a hundred yards away.” The car swerved sharply, slamming Moto into the door. Laney drove like her house was on fire, deftly passing pickup trucks and eighteen-wheelers. “Injuries consistent with a fall from that height. A fractured cranium, compound fracture of the leg. But the fall and the water didn’t kill him. Coroner says he died from asphyxia. No water in the lungs.”
Moto wondered how skilled the coroner was and made a mental note to have Logan investigate. “Strangulation?”
“Possibly. No ligature marks, but some bruising around the neck, along with severe bruising of his torso and face that are inconsistent with a fall and several hours old at the time of death.”
Moto liked her succinct retelling. “He was beat up.”
“Badly. Speaking of which, you both appear to have been in a fight.”
It was Ben who answered. “We had a few things to settle with each other.”
“I take it that’s over with? Because walking around with evidence of a beating doesn’t help me convince anyone you aren’t the physical type.” She eyed Moto pointedly in the rearview mirror.
“Sorry,” he said contritely.
Ben shifted in his seat. “Won’t happen again.”
“Shit, this is our turn.” She darted across two empty lanes of traffic and took the exit ramp at high speed.
Moto gripped the overhead handle to steady himself. “You always drive like this?”
“No. Sometimes I go fast.” She took a winding two-lane road up the side of a hill, his stomach swirling with each curve. The sun shone brightly. “Hand me my glasses,” she said.
Ben opened the glove box and retrieved them. Moto frowned. Just how often had he been in this car? Ben said Laney was a friend, but exactly what kind of friend was she?
The car bumped over a pothole, and Moto hit his head on the roof. He was grateful when she reached the top of the hill and pulled to a stop in the dirt, a cloud of dust rising up around the vehicle. “Here we go,” she said, hopping out of the car.
Moto climbed out of the backseat. The air was muggy again, a trio of gulls flying overhead as he surveyed the scene. It was a beautiful view, a bright blue lake and hundreds of miles of land stretching out to the horizon. Moving to the edge of the cliff, he looked down. Just as Laney described, a straight drop ended on jagged rocks and water. “Any evidence gathered up here?”
“Blood on the rock by the car, matches our victim. Tire tracks, multiple sets, none of which match Ben’s car. Basically, we’ve got a whole lot of nothing to prove he was here.”
Ben walked to the edge and stood beside Moto. “And nothing to prove I wasn’t.”
Laney put her hands on her hips. “Except the fact that you wanted him dead. He was a federal officer asking serious questions about your illegal activity.”
“I didn’t want him dead! I didn’t do anything wrong. I sold commercial real estate within the confines of the law. It was just business.”
She scoffed. “Save the bullshit for court. You told me yourself you thought something shady was going on, remember?”
Ben cocked his head. “No.”
“You really shouldn’t drink so much. Whether you wanted him dead or not, you had reason to want him dead. It’s damning as all hell, whether you knew it or not. You’ve got motive coming out of your pores.”
Moto looked from one to the other. They seemed a little too familiar to simply be lawyer and client.
Ben’s phone rang. “It’s Ricky Lorenzo, my contact from DeRegina’s office.”
“Put it on speakerphone,” said Laney.
He did. “Hello?”
“Glad to see you made bail. How are you feeling?”
“Other than being framed for a crime I didn’t commit? Fine.”
“We have some business to discuss. Meet me at the usual place in an hour.”
“No can do. I’m being charged with murder, man. I need to take care of myself for a while.”
“But we have work to do.”
“Sorry, but you’ll have to find yourself another real estate agent. I can recommend someone.”
Ricky’s tone suddenly changed. “That won’t be happening. This is business as usual, do you understand me? I need the waterfront deal finalized by Tuesday.”
“Tuesday! That closing isn’t scheduled for three weeks from now—”
“Tuesday, no later, and you handle the deal yourself, or being charged with murder will be the least of your problems. You understand me?” The line went dead.
Laney raised an eyebrow at Ben. “Looks like your real estate days aren’t over just yet, sweet cheeks.”
Moto’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He had a text from Logan. His brow furrowed
. “One of DeRegina’s largest companies, an import/export business over in Savannah, got raided by the DEA yesterday.”
Laney peered over his shoulder at the screen. “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”
Ben cursed under his breath. “Could be distribution for drugs. Savannah’s a big port town, just like Houston. Was the place that got raided at the port?”
Moto texted Logan, the answer coming back seconds later. “Yes.”
“Then that’s it,” said Ben. “DeRegina could have been running his whole operation out of there. With Savannah gone, he needs a way to bring drugs into the country. Shit, he’s probably got cargo out on the Atlantic right now, just waiting to dock.”
Moto shook his head. “I don’t follow.”
“The property Ricky Lorenzo is so desperate to close on is a warehouse at the Port of Houston. With Savannah out of the picture…”
Laney’s jaw dropped. “All of DeRegina’s drugs have to come into Houston.”
Ben nodded. “They’re going to move the whole operation right into our town.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “And I’m going to help them do it.”
“I’m calling in HERO Force.” Moto dialed his phone.
Ben held his palms up. “I can’t afford—”
“We can’t do this alone.” This was his family. Ben was in danger, backed tight against a wall. All Moto’s anger and resentment paled in comparison to the need he felt to fight alongside Ben. “I’ve got your back, brother.”
10
Moto drove along the tree-lined street where he grew up, sunshine dappling the windshield and contrasting with his mood. He was preoccupied with concern for his brother and had a foreboding feeling there was danger ahead. Ben was involved with one of the most notorious drug dealers in the country, and his freedom was on the line.
It was up to Moto to prove Ben’s innocence, and he was up against one hell of an adversary. Whoever had left the face evidence on Ben’s computer knew exactly what they were doing, and it was going to take Moto’s best work to prove it had been planted. Work he was now ready to begin.
As he rounded a corner, Davina’s house came into view, Wyatt just visible in the backyard, and his plans to get to work immediately changed. He pulled into the driveway with more than a little trepidation. He wanted to get to know the boy, but Wyatt clearly played a strong offense, and Moto had never been good with kids to begin with.
He got out and walked around the house. Wyatt threw a ball to Piggy, the little dog racing back and forth across the lawn excitedly. Moto was struck by how tall the boy was, nearly grown, not yet a man but certainly not a child. He’d already missed so much, and an unfamiliar ache settled into his bones. “I used to do the same thing with my dog in this yard,” he said, noting the sudden twist of Wyatt’s neck, the way his shoulders shifted higher in Moto’s presence. “A golden retriever named Muffin. Sweet old thing. She used to drop tennis balls on my pillow first thing in the morning, wanting to play.”
“My mom told me about her. She said the dog used to eat her shoes.”
Moto chuckled. “All the time. Only your mother’s. Nobody else’s.”
They stood in silence for a while, Wyatt throwing the ball and Piggy going after it, as possible conversation topics flew through Moto’s head, each one discarded as lousier than the one before it. How was he going to make any headway when he couldn’t even talk to his son comfortably?
Wyatt took the ball from the dog and threw it again. “Is Uncle Ben going to go to jail?”
Ah, so he was concerned. “Not if I can help it.”
“Can you?”
“I think so.”
“But you’re not sure.”
“No. I’m not sure.”
The dog returned and barked at Wyatt’s feet. Wyatt took the ball and threw it farther this time, behind a hedgerow separating Davina’s yard from the neighbors’. “Mrs. Bloom still live over there?”
“She died. It’s a couple from Pakistan now.”
Moto grunted. “She used to make me cookies. Nothing stays the same.”
“You can’t expect it to. Not when you’ve been gone as long as you have.”
“Fair enough.”
“Were you ever going to come back?”
The tone of Wyatt’s voice told Moto the boy had been waiting to meet his father, and a wave of guilt crested over him. “I had no reason to.”
“Your brother is here.”
“We didn’t get along so good.”
“And my mom.”
They shared a look. He needed to tread carefully here. “I didn’t come here hoping to walk back into a relationship with your mother. I came here because I was asked to help. But your mom meant a lot to me, Wyatt. I loved her.”
“Then why did you leave?”
He moved toward a bench his mother had long ago placed nearby, its feet now buried beneath a layer of turf. He sat down, wanting to answer the question truthfully and not entirely certain what that actually was. “I was scared.”
Piggy approached Moto, dropping the ball at his feet, and Moto threw it. “My parents had just died. Your grandparents.” They would never meet his son, and he ached for the relationship that never would be. “Your mom and I had a fight, an argument. I was upset. All I wanted to do was leave.”
The dog returned, and he patted its curly black fur before tossing the ball again. “I was angry with everyone. Ben, your mother, myself most of all. I’d planned on joining the Navy after graduation, and it was easy to move up my plan a few months. Get my GED and disappear, rather than deal with the flaming shit my life became after they died.”
“You said you loved her. That’s not flaming shit.”
“It is when you think she loves someone else.”
Wyatt crossed to the bench, and for a moment Moto thought he might sit down. “Uncle Ben.”
Moto nodded.
The boy looked at the bench, and Moto scooted over. Still the boy stood. “It wasn’t like that between them.”
“No?”
“No. They’re just friends. He takes me to baseball games. Brings me to bring your kid to work day.”
It was all Moto could do to nod, jealousy ripping through him. What he wouldn’t do to have been the one to be there for his son, to toss him the ball, to teach him things a father teaches his boy. But for the first time, he felt the slightest twinge of gratitude that it had been Ben who was here with Wyatt. Ben who had loved him as his own.
Better Ben than someone else.
“What about your mom?” he croaked, his voice betraying his emotions. “Was she seeing anyone while you were growing up?” He knew he sounded like a desperate lover, but he truly wanted to know if there’d been others in the role of father over the years. Who had been here for Wyatt when he himself had not?
Wyatt looked uncomfortable. “She goes on dates.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “From an app.”
“A dating app?”
The dog lay down in the grass, clearly tired out and panting. “Uh-huh.”
“Anybody you liked?”
He shrugged. “I never met any of them.” He sat down on the bench beside him.
Moto felt like he had a butterfly perched on his finger, ready to fly away. He played it as casually as he could, not looking directly at the boy. “So nothing serious.”
“No. What about you?”
“Me?”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Were you ever?”
“No.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Not really. I go out sometimes.”
“Then why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
Moto shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t go out with any of them for too long.”
“Why not?”
“I guess I don’t like them that much.”
“But you like my mom.”
Now Moto looked at him. “I don’t know abo
ut that.”
Wyatt smirked. “You look at her like you like her.”
“Oh yeah? How so?”
“You stare at her.”
Moto bumped Wyatt’s shoulder with his own. “Maybe she had something in her teeth.”
Wyatt smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“No? Maybe she farted and I was too nice to say something.”
The boy laughed out loud. “No.” He looked at Moto conspiratorially. “She does fart, though, but don’t tell her I said that.”
Moto laughed, too. They sat in silence for a minute, the work he had to do suddenly weighing on his mind. HERO Force would be here soon, and he wanted to make some headway before they arrived. “You like computers?”
“Yeah.”
“You any good with them?”
“I went to coding camp, and I troubleshoot stuff when my mom needs help.”
“Good enough. I have to go through your uncle Ben’s computer and prove the evidence on there is made up. You want to watch?”
Wyatt’s eyes lit. “Yeah.”
“Come on.” They walked toward the house.
“Hey, Zach?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you came back.”
Moto grinned. “Me, too, Wyatt.” He patted the boy’s back, then squeezed his shoulder. “Me, too.”
11
Davina took a sip of her wine and opened the dishwasher. She was exhausted, defeated, and downright worried about all three men in her life—Wyatt, Ben, and Zach. It was weird to have the last one here at all. She’d waited a long time for him to be back in the picture.
Dinner had been strange, with Wyatt and Zach seeming to have reached some tacit understanding. They were thick as thieves, those two, working on Ben’s computer, Zach giving a running lecture on computers and files and encryption and God knows what else. She wasn't sure what to make of it. She wanted them to get along, no question about it, but she wasn't used to sharing her son.