Page 65 of Honor ’N’ Duty

Chapter Twenty

Kade checked the rearview mirror again. They’d driven out of Laia’s neighborhood and were now flying south on Route 71 back to Manasquan.

Smoke had long since lain down in his kennel and gone to sleep. Beside him, Laia fidgeted with the book in her hands. She’d wanted to read it right then and there, but he’d insisted on putting some space between them and the duplex ASAP.

“Pull over, please.”

“We’ll be home in fifteen minutes.”

“I can’t wait a minute longer. I get sick reading in a car, and I need to see what’s in this book that’s so important it got my husband killed.”

How could a guy say no to that?

Kade took the next exit and turned off the highway onto a side road, not stopping until he found what he was looking for—a dark, deserted linen supply warehouse. Before parking, he drove around to the backside of the building to the employee parking lot.

“Can’t you just park anywhere?”

“I want to make sure there’s no overnight skeleton crew.” All the rear doors to the building were closed. No signs of employee vehicles, only company vans and trucks.

He parked in the farthest corner, in the darkest section of the lot but with the front bumper facing out so he could see anyone coming. They both unbuckled their seat belts. To avoid night blindness, he clicked on the same flashlight with the red filter he’d used earlier.

Laia tore off the plastic bag and dropped it to the floor at her feet. When she opened the cover, he aimed the light on the first page. It wasn’t what he expected. The only numbers he could identify with any degree of certainty were the deposit dates and dollar amounts. “This is your expertise. Tell me what I’m looking at.” Because most of the entries looked like undecipherable code.

She flipped to the next page, then the next. In all, he counted at least twenty pages of entries, each filled with his brother’s borderline illegible scrawl.

“See these?” She ran her finger down a column filled with numbers. “These are account numbers.” She did the same with the next column over. “These are country codes, most of which are in the United States. I don’t recognize any of the company names.”

Neither did he. No surprise there. “Probably shell companies. Drug dealers use them to mask their identities and to hide their money. What about these letters?” He pointed to another column and one line in particular with the letters VA.

Laia shook her head. “I don’t know. They don’t look like country codes or any bank code I’ve ever seen before.” She turned the page. “There are more of them. BA, KA, IA, SCP. They all have check marks next to them. I don’t know what that means, either.”

With each flip of the page, she ran her finger down the column with the running tally. “My god,” she breathed. “Josh laundered over a hundred million dollars for these people.” She flipped to the last page and dragged her finger down to the date column of the final entry.

Over the ledger, their eyes met. The last entry—for $20 million—was made the day before Josh was murdered. There was no checkmark beside the number, but there was a two-letter code: OA.

Kade swallowed the lump in his throat. Looking at his brother’s handwriting was weird enough. He still had difficulty believing Josh had gotten so neck-deep in with a drug cartel, but there it was in black and white.

Laia flipped through the rest of the ledger, the remaining pages of which were blank. But sticking out from a pocket on the inside of the back cover was an envelope. He tugged it out, again staring at his brother’s jagged scrawl. The letter was addressed to Laia.

Their gazes met as he handed her the letter. Technically, it was evidence, but he had a feeling whatever was inside was personal.

She took the envelope but didn’t open it right away. For several seconds, she stared at it. Finally, she slid her finger beneath the flap and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. Slowly, she unfolded it. In the blood-red glow of the flashlight, more of Josh’s handwriting stared up at them.

“Laia,” she began reading out loud. “If you’re reading this, I’m either in really big trouble…” Her voice trembled, and she blinked rapidly. “Or dead.” She covered her mouth with her hand, shaking her head. Letting her hand drop, she handed him the letter. Her eyes glistened. “I can’t. You read it. Please.”

As he took the letter, his throat threatened to close up on him. This was a letter from the grave. Josh had known something might happen to him, and he’d been right. He focused the flashlight on the letter.

“I’m sorry for what happened between us,” Kade began. “I never should have asked you to marry me. I see that now. You were never in love with me, but I was so in love with you that I didn’t care. I used our unborn child to keep you, and it was wrong.”

A sob from Laia had Kade stopping, and he looked up to see tears leaking from her eyes and streaming unchecked down her face.

“Give this ledger to Kade,” he continued. “He’ll know what to do with it, and he’ll take care of you and Rosa. Maybe he’s what you need—what you’ve always needed. Deep down I knew that. I just didn’t want to admit it to anyone, especially myself. Kade’s a good man, the best man I’ve ever known, and I never should have said otherwise.”

A big, fat, burning tear rolled down his cheek. He hadn’t known Josh had felt that way about him. Hearing it now, this way—in a letter written by a dead man—had the equivalent effect of cracking open his chest, tearing out his heart, and squeezing it until there was no blood left inside.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, not knowing if he could keep reading.

Laia’s soft touch on his cheek opened up the floodgates. At no time in his entire life had this ever happened. Tears rolled freely down his face. Mercifully, she took back the letter and the flashlight.