This time the vehicle that pulled next to Jules was an enormous black SUV with darkly tinted windows. He could’ve sworn he’d seen them before—were they circling the block? He half expected the window to pull down and the driver to gesture to him in an unspokenAre you leaving soonmessage, even though he wasn’t sitting in the driver’s seat. He purposely looked away, out the other window.
“Do you think Mr. Devonshire gave that money to his son as some kind of, I don’t know,bribe, like,Take this money and go live somewhere far, far away from me?” Jules asked Harper.
“He said it was a gift,” the lawyer repeated because of course he had to. Bribes were illegal—or at least they were back all those years ago. These days, however, who could know? “Taxes were paid.”
“Got it,” Jules said as the SUV finally pulled away. What was next on his list? “Ooh, security cameras. The system in the house. Is it still functional?”
“As far as I know, yes,” Harper said.
“The cameras looked older,” Jules said. “Which is not a problem. I was just wondering if you had a sense of when the system was installed. I’m guessing... fifteen, twenty years ago...?”
“I honestly have no idea.”
“So it was before you started handling Mr. Devonshire’s finances...?” Jules asked.
“Again, how does this pertain?—”
“Just dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s,” Jules said cheerfully.
Harper cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, I’m approaching my destination.”
“Just a few more questions,” Jules said, channeling Sam who would go point-blank at thiswe’re done heremoment. “You’ve said that Mr. Devonshire’s naming Emily Johnson as his heir was a surprise to you, that you believed he’d leave his entire legacy to his son. Why, may I ask, would Mr. Devonshire leave anything to a son who not only threatened him, but who—as you imply—embezzled or flat-out stole millions of dollars from him?”
The silence extended for so long, Jules thought for a moment that Harper might have hung up. But then the lawyer cleared his throat and spoke.
“You’re still a young man, Mr. Cassidy,” he said. “As we age, as death approaches, we soften. Was Milt a disappointment to his father? Yes, insomany ways. But he was Mr. Devonshire’s only son. I’m sorry, I really must go. Let my office know if you have any further questions.”
“Thank you—” Jules said, but the lawyer had already ended the call. Way to not really answer that last question, Ernie, but okay. And Jules hadn’t had a chance to mention that Gavin LaCrosse was no longer a potential source of information, due to his no longer being alive.
Except maybe he’d left that out intentionally—every passing conversation with Harper made him squint at the man harder and harder. Although the idea that Harper had somehow engineered LaCrosse’s heart attack was an enormous stretch. He was sketchy, butmurdersketchy?
His own words to Sam from earlier echoed.This is not that kind of case.
It really wasn’t. Except... No.
The idea that Harper and Wig-Milt were somehow working together didn’t sit right, either. Especially since Wig-Milt seemed even less murder-sketchy than the lawyer.
And then there was that five million dollars. Jules was going to internallywowabout that for a while. What did it say about Wig-Milt, that he hadn’t burned through it in the eleven years since Daddy-Milt signed the check?
Not bad for a fuck-up.
Unless, of course, hehadburned through it and, like Sam had suggested, come back for more, but gotten turned down.
Except he had the money—a great deal of it—to pay their hefty retainer.
And the fact that the son had said repeatedly, and truly seemed to be sincere, that he had enough?
That was admirable, too, in a country where billionaires were constantly pushing to get more, more, more.
Jules saved the recording, and got out of the car, half to stretch his legs and half to see if Sam wanted help carrying the grocery bags. Not because they were heavy—seventeen boxes of Cocoa Puffs just didn’t weigh that much, but they could be unwieldy, particularly in this dry, blustery SoCal wind.
But there Sam was, hustling through the crosswalk just before the light changed again. His purchases—probably more like four boxes of cereal, which was still a lot in Cocoa Puff math—fit into two bags that he carried, one in each hand.
“We get a date to talk to Ernie?” he asked Jules as he approached the car.
“Better than that,” Jules said. “It was Harper himself calling me back. He’s busy until Wednesday, so I asked himsome of our more pressing questions—got his responses on tape.”
“Way to go rogue.” Sam handed one of the bags to Jules as he dug in his pocket for the car fob that would pop open the trunk.
