Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) - Karen Rose Page 0,194

so, then said, “Liza is here, just so you know.”

Jeff was silent a moment, then cackled. “She’s there? In your bed? Dammit, Liza.”

“What?” Liza asked.

“I lost the bet. Shit. Zoya’s going to make me pay, too. Thanks a lot, Liza.”

She narrowed her eyes at the phone. “You bet on me and Tom?”

“What?” Tom burst out. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Apparently Jeff has been betting on if we’d get together,” Liza said dryly, then patted Tom’s arm. “Are you awake now?”

“It wasn’t if,” Jeff said, still cackling. “It was when. I said it would be after Tom solved the case. Zoya figured before. I guess I don’t mind paying up, though.” He snickered. “Go, Liza.”

Tom was shaking his head, utterly nonplussed. “You bet on me and Liza?”

“Keep up, honey,” Liza said lightly.

Jeff laughed louder. “Oh my God. Am I the first to know? Oh, please say I can tell.”

Liza met Tom’s eyes. Are we keeping this a secret? she wanted to ask.

His eyes narrowed at her and then at the phone. “Of course you can tell. This isn’t a secret.”

“Good.” Jeff sounded serious now. “I wouldn’t have told if you’d said no. I’m getting better at not being an asshole.”

“I know,” Tom said gently, then yawned. “What do you have?”

“I found Craig Hickman.”

Tom blinked. “I thought you were going to text me.”

“I was, but this might be important. His new name is Zachary Goodman. He’s a reporter for a local paper in Richmond, Virginia, and teaches English at the high school. I’m going to tell you how I found him first, because that explains what he knows.”

Tom pulled his tablet to his lap, ready to take notes. “Whenever you’re ready, kid.”

“So. You remember that Hickman was beaten severely after he helped expose Pastor’s crimes in his old L.A. church, right? That was after Pastor and his family disappeared. The L.A. church was left in shambles, with parishioners having screaming fights and flinging threats at each other.”

“Those who wanted Pastor to stay versus those who wanted him gone,” Tom said. “I know.”

“Some of those were death threats, but Hickman kept digging. All of what I’m telling you came from Erica Mann. She’s the L.A. reporter who wrote most of the newspaper articles back when the scandal first broke thirty years ago. The two have kept in touch all this time. I contacted her after we texted yesterday and asked her point-blank if she could get a message to Hickman. She was quiet for a long time, then said she’d forward him a message with my contact info but couldn’t guarantee he’d answer it. But he did. He called me right before I called you.”

“What did Mr. Hickman tell you?” Liza asked.

“That he’d been contacted twelve years ago by Erica Mann. She’d received an e-mail from a woman who wished to make him reparations. Hickman was interested only because he wanted to know who was looking for him. He’s . . . really paranoid, even now. So he contacted the woman using an untraceable phone. He actually took the train to New York City to make the call because he didn’t trust that they couldn’t find him and he didn’t want his family involved. He recognized her voice right away, even after all those years. It was Pastor’s wife.”

Tom glanced at Liza with a frown. “Why did she want to find him?”

“She said she felt terrible for the wrongs done to his family. I mean, this was twenty years later, so Hickman wasn’t interested in her apologies and told her so. She said she understood, and that she wanted to offer him reparations in the amount of—wait for it—a million bucks.”

Liza gasped. “Oh my God.”

Tom whistled softly. “Wow. Did he take it?”

“No, but he didn’t turn her down right away. He talked to his parents first. Hickman didn’t want it for himself. He figured it was blood money, but his folks had lost everything, so he offered it to them. They didn’t want it, either. So Hickman contacted her back and said no, but that if she was truly serious about reparations, she’d donate the cash to an L.A. charity for the homeless, for drug addicts, or for LGBTQ youth. All were groups that Pastor preached against.”

“Did she?” Liza asked.

“She did. About three days later, there was an announcement that one of the LGBTQ youth shelters in L.A. had received an anonymous million-dollar donation. Hickman didn’t know what had made her contact him or if she’d actually changed, but he was