“You think . . .”
He let his voice trail off, but he knew where her mind was going. Somebody had deliberately arranged for him to receive the information because they wanted him to come down to New Orleans and investigate the man responsible for Sam’s death—which would mean that he would meet Stephanie Swift.
“Which meant they knew investigating John Reynard would lead you to me,” she murmured, then added, “It’s someone whoknows there’s something . . . strange about the children from the clinic,” she said. She looked at him. “How, exactly, did you find out about Arthur Polaski?”
“I got a call from a contact at the New Orleans PD, Ike Broussard.
“You think he’s working with Lewis Martinson?”
“I’ll be surprised if it’s that simple.”
“The NOPD aren’t known for their integrity.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
“We could talk to Broussard and look up Martinson. Unless you want to go poking around in Houma.”
She thought about that. “I think that would be dangerous because Martinson already knows we’re likely to come to Houma.”
“Agreed.”
“And I wouldn’t have any more contact with Broussard.”
“You could be right about that.”
They stopped to pick up lunch at a fast-food restaurant, then returned to the bed and breakfast where Craig booted up his computer and looked up Lewis Martinson. There were several people with that name, but none of them was a lawyer in Washington, DC.
“Now what?” Stephanie asked.
“I’m thinking.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ike Broussard swiped his shirt sleeve across his forehead and sat for a moment in his unmarked, postponing the moment of reckoning. He’d taken some money from a lawyer in Washington, DC. to make sure a guy named Craig Branson got some information about a cold case. Now he was realizing that he could have put his balls in a wringer.
He’d thought John Reynard would never know who had given Branson the information. But somehow it had gotten back to him, and now Ike was in deep shit.
Finally he opened the car door and hoisted his two-hundred-fifty-pound bulk to the cracked sidewalk.
He didn’t count it as a good sign that Reynard had asked to meet him at one of his warehouses.
He buttoned his sports jacket over his bulging middle, then decided it looked better unbuttoned.
Glancing up at the red brick building, he saw that a couple of video cameras were tracking his approach to the warehouse door. So if he didn’t come out of here alive, would Reynard destroy the tapes?
Trying to look confident, he walked through the door, which led directly onto a dimly lit space half the size of a football fieldstacked with boxes. But there were no men working the forklifts that sat along the left wall. He looked upward, locating the metal balcony on the other side of the room. Up there was an office where he’d been told to meet Reynard.
His footsteps echoed on the cement floor as he crossed the room, then clanged on the metal stairs. At the top, he looked toward the lighted office.
Two bodyguards were in the waiting area. They gave him a knowing look as he knocked on the door to the inner office.
“Come in,” Reynard called out.
His heart was pounding as he went in,
“Close the door.”
