“It’s a letter dated in September from Larkin, and it’s inquiring if Robertson is interested in resuming talks about selling his land for the casino. He says he can assure him that things will turn out differently this time. He’s willing to offer the same contingencies as Mr. McCarren did with the first deal.” I turned and held the letter up for the video. I was sure I looked like a grinning fool because the timing was right. Nate Turner had called me mid-November about the threats he’d been receiving, and he was killed in January. We just had to figure out Nate’s exact involvement.
“We’ll be taking this letter as evidence, Mr. Broadman,” Dorchester told him. “We’ll be sure to get a copy back to you.”
“Mr. Robertson didn’t mention this to you at all? Not even in passing?” I asked the attorney. It seemed to me that Robertson had placed a lot of confidence in the younger man. It was odd that he wouldn’t have told him, even if he planned on ignoring the letter.
“Not a word, which feels strange to me,” Broadman replied earnestly. “But, there’s the evidence that it happened. That’s clearly McCarren letterhead.”
The rest of the box was anticlimactic compared to the cash and the smoking gun of a letter. We replaced the items back where we found them and Dorchester filmed us putting the box back and locking it away before handing over the bank’s key to Divers, who looked nervous about being on camera. He resembled a lizard by the way he kept licking his lips and stared at it with bulging eyes.
We shook Broadman’s hand then headed to the sheriff’s department to copy and enter the letter into evidence before we headed to Cincinnati.
The conference room buzzed with excitement when the task force learned about the letter.
“Hot damn!” Weston said loudly.
“It’s about time,” Harris added. “Let’s get this all wrapped up in a pretty bow for the DA.”
“We need to find our killer first,” I told them, trying to project a little levity into the situation. Yes, we were getting somewhere, but there were a few missing pieces, and we still didn’t know who pulled the trigger. “Do any of the players at McCarren have military backgrounds or connections?” I asked. Our killer knew what the fuck he was doing, which didn’t necessarily equal ex-military, but sometimes special forces turned to mercenary work once they returned to civilian life.
“Other than our ghost, Jonathon Silver,” Weston asked. “Let’s not forget his appearance was awfully damn convenient.”
“We haven’t ruled him out,” I explained. “It’s better that he thinks we believe every word that comes out of his mouth. He’ll cooperate more that way,” I said with a wicked smile. “He has an alibi for the night of Nate’s homicide, by the way, so let’s look to see if any of the men employed by McCarren could be co-conspirators. Like Michael Larkin,” I told the group.
“I’ve got backgrounds,” Detective Allyson Drake said. It was the first time in a few weeks she’d joined us, but she was finished with her latest undercover bust and was looking to stay busy until her next assignment came in.
“You have the floor, Detective,” I told her and took a seat.
Drake typed a few things on her laptop, and an image popped up on the whiteboard behind her. “This is Drew McCarren,” she said. The man wasn’t what I was expecting, although I couldn’t pinpoint why. He had a sexy silver fox thing going for him, except his dark eyes resembled those of a shark. McCarren gave the appearance of being cold, ruthless, and dead on the inside. Drake rattled off his age, income, and a few of the things he was accused of doing, although no arrests had been made.
Detective Drake hit a key, and a different image popped up. “This is Michael Larkin, the man who Robertson disliked the most,” she said. “Former Marine…”
“No such thing,” Harris said, pushing back his sleeve to reveal his globe and anchor tattoo with the dates of his service. “A Marine until you die.”
“Michael Larkinisa Marine,” Drake amended. “He served for twenty-two years before he resigned. He has a degree in urban planning and development as well as an architectural degree. He’s the lead man on all projects at McCarren. He’s not on anyone’s radar that I can see.”
She went through the money guy Tommy Thompson pretty quickly because there wasn’t anything there that raised the hair on the back of our necks. When she put up a photo of Rick Spizer, I sat up a little straighter, as did everyone else in the room.
“Former Green Beret.” You could feel the energy pulsating through the room when she made the announcement. He was involved somehow, and we knew it.
“Let’s get on that warrant to wire Jonathon Silver and set up a meeting between the two men,” I told the room.
I didn’t trust Jonathon Silver, but I had no choice but to use him to try and get to the truth. I’d wire him up, send him undercover, and give him enough rope to hang himself. If he were responsible for his brother’s death, I wouldn’t stop until I proved it.
MY DAY STARTED OUTsimilar as the day before, minus the confrontation with the mayor and my half-attempt at an apology to Emory. I seldom ran consecutive days, preferring to do yoga or work my pole in between runs to let my body recover. Not even my tried-and-true yoga helped me shake the anxiety I felt over Emory’s presence in our lives.
Buddy eagerly waited in the kitchen next to his leash that hung from a hook on the wall when he saw that I was putting on my bright running clothes and shoes. That day’s ensemble was lime green and navy. I liked the color combo and remarked that I’d like to have it in a pair of underwear. There was no one there to hear my comment except the pets, and they didn’t look impressed.
Like the day before, I ran into Emory. He had been out running too, wearing a somber charcoal gray jogging suit and had his hair up in a man-bun. He entered the park on the outskirts of town from the opposite side that I did. I always stopped and stretched at the gazebo since it was the midway mark for my run. It seemed that we were of the same mind, or did he read my mind? I narrowed my eyes in speculation.
“I can’t read your damn mind, Josh.” He propped his heel on the back of the bench so that his leg was extended out in front of him. He bent over his leg and reached for his toes, stretching his hamstrings.
“You just did,” I told him suspiciously.
“It didn’t take psychic ability to know what you were thinking,” he said, switching legs. “Did anyone ever tell you not to play poker?”
“Yes, but then I took all his money and that of his parents too.” I laughed at the memory of shock on their faces.
“Good to know,” Emory said with a nod of his head. He noticed that my eyes kept straying to his man-bun and chuckled. “Not a fan, huh?”
