“Tavish, what did you do?” Ellis asks.
Tavish looks shocked that Ellis would immediately blame him. “Not me, hon. I was being helpful.”
“He actually was, but Jackson’s feeling a bit shy,” Leland says as he looks in disgust at the shirt I’m wearing.
“When you all are done with your cryptic nonsense, we have shit happening,” Cassel says.
Leland waves him on. “Sorry, please, go ahead.”
Instead of Cassel piping up, Henry does. “One of my detectives has informed me that Patel is looking deeper into you after hearing about Raul’s death… and is trying to figure out where you currently are.”
“We all used IDs that weren’t our own to get here, but that doesn’t mean the cameras won’t flag something if she gets some higher-up help on this,” Cassel says. “As for me, I haven’t found as much as I wanted. The problem I’m running into is that the Barlow family has so much real estate that it’s hard to pinpoint what is essential or where the people who need help might be located. The Barlow family acquired the real estate from desperate people borrowing money from them, thinking it would keep their business afloat until they realized that once you borrow from the Barlows, you’re not coming back from it. The Barlows typically take over their business and then force them to work off the debt in whatever way they see fit.”
“If you can find this much about them, why can’t the police do anything?” Ellis asks.
“Because they’re phenomenal at covering up their tracks,” Cassel explains. “While the police might also know or assume the same things we do, they are forced by law to acquire everything in a legal manner. Obviously, they’re not breaking into a birthday party while donning discount bin Disney outfits and stealing what they want. This is an organization that has made sure everything they’ve done looks extremely legitimate.But don’t worry, I’m going to keep digging until I figure out exactly what’s happening. Now on to our final issue.”
“There’s more?” I grumble, really thinking this is plenty.
Cassel turns to Leland. “Our fun stalker has flown back, and this morning his GPS showed that he was wandering around your house.”
“He likely knows we’re still here and is looking for shit to use against me,” Leland says.
“Exactly. I’m afraid he’s looking for a way to gain control over you… or fuck you over or… who knows. I think we need to head home where you can deal with him as best as you can. And I’ll continue to dig into things to see where I can get with it.”
“What about the innocent people in their control, though?” Everly asks Cassel, who looks sympathetic.
“It’s not easy to leave people behind. And while I know Lucas was an absolute asshole, he did teach us that sometimes you have to ignore someone begging for help to save others from falling back into it.”
“He taught me that the hard way,” Micah says. “When I was a teenager, there was a young woman who was being drugged and prostituted… he told me not to even interact with her, but I couldn’t stop. Every night she was right there and was the only one offering me a kind word. The longer I was around her, the more I wanted to do everything I could to save her… so one night, I took her away. I pulled her from that hell… Isavedher. You should have heard her thanks… but they knew something was up and got paranoid, so they moved away the others I could have saved and hid them somewhere I never found them. And the woman? She couldn’t take the drug withdrawals… she crawled back to them, and they shot her in the head. If I’d listened to Lucas, I could have saved them all.”
Leland winces, and I realize that he likely went through a similar experience.
Micah takes a deep breath. “And the whole time, Lucas just stood back and let me make that fuckup. Once it was all over and I was surrounded by the blood of those I failed to save, he looked down at me and went, ‘What did I tell you to do?’ I remember answering that he told me to ignore them… but I did the opposite. I thought I could at least save one… who I also failed to save. And when he asked me at what cost, I had to comprehend that even if I’d managed to save her, I would have only saved one at the cost of all of their lives… I never made that mistake again.”
“But with Raul dead… will we lose our leads?” Everly asks.
“We might, but I’ll find them again,” Cassel assures him. “I have a pretty good grasp on it, I promise.”
Everly nods. “Okay. Let’s go, then. Let’s head back and see what we can do.”
TWENTY-THREE
LELAND
I see that I have two missed calls when the plane lands. One is from Lucas, the other is from Patel. Neither is a person I really want to talk to. Instead, I send Waylon a text that we’ve arrived, but we’re stopping at our agency first with the plan of showing our face to Patel so she doesn’t think we’re off murdering Raul.
Me: I saw you called. We’re running to the agency, do you need something?
Patel: I’ll see you there.
Me: Really… you don’t need to.
Patel: I’ll be there within an hour.
Me: Bring chocolate.
Me: No! Cookies.
