Afterward, she lay curled against his chest, listening to his heartbeat steady and slow. "Terry?"
"Hmm?"
"What Toby said tonight..."
Terry's arm tightened around her. "Kids say things. They don't always understand the implications."
Terry was quiet for so long that Sandra thought he might have fallen asleep. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough with emotion.
"Maybe we should start talking about the future. Really talking about it."
Sandra pressed her lips to his chest, tasting salt and warmth. "I'd like that."
"I love you, Sandra. Completely. And I love watching you with my kids, seeing how natural you are with them. But I need you to be sure about what forever looks like with us."
"I'm sure about loving you," Sandra whispered. "I'm sure about loving them. The details we can figure out together."
The following morning, Sandra slipped out of bed early, dressing quietly in the gray pre-dawn light. Terry stirred as she leaned down to kiss him goodbye, his eyes heavy with sleep.
"Be careful today," he murmured, catching her hand.
"Always am," she whispered back.
As she drove home through the awakening countryside, Sandra thought about Toby's innocent question and Emma's knowing smile. She thought about Terry's careful words about the future, and the way he'd held her through the night. Most of all, she thought about the fact that for the first time in her adult life, the idea of marriage seemed real.
The farmland rolled past her windows in the growing light, peaceful and timeless, and Sandra felt a contentment she'd never known was possible settling deep in her bones.
36
Terry walked into the DTF bullpen. "I need everything you can dig up on Harry Blackwood. And I mean everything."
Pete rolled his chair over from his desk, coffee cup in hand. "Harry or Harrison?"
"The son, Harry." Terry pulled out one of Sandra's contracts and pointed at the signature line. "Sandra's been reviewing contracts for some of her clients, and something's not adding up. Payment discrepancies, billing irregularities, contracts that are way more complex than they need to be for simple electrical work."
“Okay…” Pete began, confusion knitting his brow. “Is there more? Why us? DTF?”
“She went to Lia McFarlane, the forensic accountant. There’s a suspicion of money laundering.”
Jeremy looked down at the papers. "Money laundering?"
"That's what we need to consider. If it is money laundering… for who? We have expensive designer drugs show up on the Shore and a businessman who might be laundering money."
Jeremy began pulling up databases on his computer. “He's never been on our radar before. Blackwood Luxury Custom Homes has always been run out of their Virginia Beach office. Itwas only last year that they opened a small office in Baytown to help with all the new construction going on over on this side of the bay.”
"I want to know everything—finances, associates, background, social media, parking tickets. If he's running money through his father's construction business, there'll be traces."
Jeremy's fingers flew across the keyboard. "Call Bobby over here. He’s the best deputy who handles the background work.”
Terry made a quick call to Colt, who walked to their bullpen with his deputy in tow. Terry quickly filled them in on what he wanted to investigate and why. With Colt’s approval, Bobby headed back to his computer and began searching.
Jeremy said, “I have the basics. Harrison Blackwood II, known as Harry. Age twenty-nine. No driving record. Graduated from UVA seven years ago with a business degree, then went back to earn an MBA from there three years ago."
"What about criminal history?"
Jeremy pulled up arrest records. "Here we go. Drug possession charge from his junior year at UVA. Cocaine. Charges were mysteriously dropped three weeks later."
"Daddy's lawyers?" Pete suggested.
