him for something after the move. Like she blamed him for it or something. I took him, Jenny, Honey, Marcie, and the baby, Megan, and left. Pauline had just gotten bad with all the kids. I don’t think she could handle not having her mom around to tell her what to do with the kids. And she made it clear she didn’t want the baby. They were too much work for her.” He shook his head like he couldn’t imagine it.
“Helen’s body was found, Luther. Buried in the center of your back barn, wrapped up in a pink and orange quilt she’d been sewing. We believe she died before you made it back that day. We need you to help us figure out what happened to Helen.”
He let out a slew of curses, then jerked toward the nearby juniper bushes, where he promptly lost the contents of his stomach. When he was finished, he looked back at Miranda.
“Well, who killed her, then?”
22
Clint admired how well the FBI worked together. There didn’t seem to be too much friction between any of them—at least, not any that interfered with their effectiveness as a team.
Well, other than that between Miranda’s friend Jac and the other Agent Jones. Now, there was something going on between them. He had no doubt about that.
Miranda was having a good time irritating Knight. Clint smiled, remembering the girl she used to be. She’d drive him crazy, too. Anything to get a rise out of him. She had always been…playful. He’d needed that joy back then.
He’d missed that. She was probably the best friend he’d ever had. She’d been the first person he’d called when his wife had lost the battle with the cancer they’d discovered too late in her pregnancy to stop it from taking her. Miranda had flown home to be with him those first few days. That’s all he truly remembered while trying to bury his wife and just get through with the baby.
Miranda had guided him through making the arrangements. Miranda had sat up with his daughter for hours when he’d finally given in to the need for sleep.
He would never be able to repay her for what she’d done for him.
He even liked Knight, though the man seemed like a real hard-ass.
Clint had learned when working for the WSP that your strength rested in your team. He wasn’t particularly close to anyone at the DCI. He didn’t plan to be. He had a few colleagues he preferred to work with, but those were few and far between. Same as it had been at the WSP.
Not trusting the men at your back was another lesson he’d learned at the WSP. Cronyism had been the name of the game at the post he’d been assigned to. No doubt it was still how things were done.
Otherwise, that fool Hollace would have been long gone by now.
At least, he’d given them the first step.
Clint had looked for Luther Beise from the moment Helen Caudrell’s body had been found. There had been walls thrown up in front of him almost from the very beginning. He couldn’t explain it yet. He would with time.
He almost suspected someone in the WSP or the DCI had been doing what they could to divert him.
It wouldn’t surprise him. There were three men who would no doubt have a good time doing just that. Clint didn’t think he was paranoid. But those three men had gone through the academy with his stepfather—and they hadn’t been too pleased when Clint had arrested Clive.
Even though Clive had nearly killed Perci Masterson that day.
No doubt they were part of the reason he’d been unable to find Luther Beise. The man hadn’t been hidden all that well. Just over state lines. The searches he’d had run for that information should have turned up the possibilities. That they hadn’t—that concerned him.
Clint was making notes. Taking leads.
His position with the DCI was for that very reason.
There was corruption at the higher levels. It was his job to ferret that out. Without letting anyone know exactly what he was doing.
He’d been with the internal affairs division of the WSP for eight months now. Six months longer than he’d officially been with the DCI. He was there as a joint favor between Weatherby and the head of the DCI. After he found the corruption he’d been assigned to dig out, he didn’t know what the future held for him. He’d probably continue with the WSP.
Maybe.
A part of him was thinking of just