He did so slowly, as if he needed every second to prepare for what might lay ahead. Jonah knew people. From the moment he had met Collin Rutherford at the fund-raiser, he had known Collin would be the weak link if he was involved in the murder scheme.
“The man next to April is Jonah Wolfe. He’s a private detective.”
“We’ve met,” Collin said. “What’s this about, Mark?”
Jonah lounged against the back of the sofa. “It’s about the money you stole from the mayor’s campaign fund, Collin. It’s about killing David Dean to cover it up.”
Rutherford blanched. “I don’t...don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jonah rose from the sofa. “I’m pretty sure you do. Does the name Action Advertising mean anything to you?”
When Rutherford didn’t answer, April stood up, too. “How about the Alamo Bank in Houston?”
Rutherford swallowed and started shaking, his eyes darting back and forth between Jonah, April and the mayor—the instant before he bolted.
He was out the door and racing through the office at breakneck speed, shoving people out of the way, knocking over chairs, stumbling, righting himself, determined to reach the glass front door and escape.
Jonah tackled him just before he got there, the two of them crashing into a table, sending campaign brochures flying. Jonah swung a punch that sent Rutherford careening backward, sprawling on the floor.
Grabbing the front of Rutherford’s shirt, Jonah hauled him to his feet and hit him again, snapping his head back, a blossom of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. He groaned as he teetered back and forth, still standing. The fight had gone out of him, and his brief struggle was over.
The mayor’s two bodyguards ran up and dragged Collin’s hands behind his back, slid on a plastic cable tie and cinched it tight, slamming him down on a chair.
“Cops are on the way,” one of them said.
“You’d be smart to cooperate,” Jonah said. “It’ll go easier on you. That includes giving the police the names of the other people involved in David Dean’s murder.”
Collin whimpered and started crying, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
April ran up beside him, took in Jonah’s skinned knuckles and the pulse thrumming in the side of his neck. “Are you okay?”
Jonah drew her against him, an arm around her waist. “I’m good. We’re almost there, baby.”
She looked up at him but didn’t pull away. “You think he’ll tell them the truth about what happened?”
“Rydell is going to call for an audit and it’s going to prove Rutherford embezzled funds. He knows that. He also knows the longer he waits to come clean, the worse it’s going to be. Rutherford’s going to roll over on whoever helped him and he’s going to do it soon.”
The police arrived within minutes. The call had come from the mayor of Dallas, after all. Rutherford was settled in the back of a patrol car and hauled off to the police station with twenty people in the office watching.
Jonah wondered how long it would take him to incriminate Peggy Watt.
CHAPTER TWELVE
YOUHADTObe smart to be a good private detective. That didn’t mean you were always right. It took less than twenty-four hours for Collin Rutherford to confess to embezzling money from Mayor Rydell’s reelection campaign fund.
The surprise came when he copped to the murder, but refused to give the name of whoever helped him. If there actually was one.
“I did it,” Rutherford said. “No one else was involved. I made sure I didn’t leave any DNA or fingerprints in the car or anywhere else. I muffled the shot with a pillow then walked back to Jacobsen Street. I tossed the pillow into a dumpster and hailed a cab to take me home. No one else was involved but me.”
“What about the men who tried to kill Ms. Vale?” one of the detectives asked. “Two attempts were made on her life. We need their names.”
“I found them in a bar in Old East Dallas.” It was one of the meanest areas in town. “I paid them cash. I don’t know their names.”
No amount of questioning was able to shake him.
Hell, maybe he was telling the truth.
The good news was, the threat to April’s life was over. With the embezzlement and murder out in the open, there was no reason to kill her. At best, it had been a last-ditch, desperate effort to keep her from pushing the investigation, and it had failed.
