FireWind held up a hand as if to stop a possible tirade. Margot glared at him. “I am not saying you were wrong, Racer. We can’t assume that Cadence knew Merry Promotions’ connection to Stella Mae Ragel’s death, because we haven’t released that information to the press. If her husband set up the business arrangements, she might not even have known she owned the business. It happens. We need a subpoena for Merry Promotions. We need to work this by the book.”
“Or,” I said, “Hugo was blackmailing Cadence about her past life in return for money poured into the business, money Hugo took out. Like money laundering.”
“Hugo is our linchpin,” Rick said, dropping to a chair and pulling his laptop to him. “He knew everyone.”
JoJo muttered, “We told Goode there would be no interference in her client’s life. We signed papers drawn up by a very expensive, very astute, very unhappy lawyer.”
“But if Luther Merriweather had figured out that his devoted wife was in the process of a legal separation and wanted to point a finger at his bride, what better way than to use her business. I’ll contact Goode,” FireWind said, “and find out if Mrs. Merriweather knew she owned the business that provided promotional merchandise for her lover. And I’ll ask if the blackmail against her client involved money poured into the business. Jones, facilitate subpoenas into the company’s financial records and Hugo’s financial records. The rest of you, gear up. We need to raid Merry Promotions before anyone can destroy any evidence.”
* * *
* * *
As we changed clothes, and checked weapons, ammo, null pens, comms equipment, psy-meters, and vests, JoJo created a timeline on Luther Merriweather’s travel, based on his business credit card expenses. Luther was in Nashville the week the T-shirt box was delivered to the horse farm owned by Stella Mae, and Nashville was only a short drive away. But Luther was a big guy, six feet, two inches, two hundred forty pounds. We had video of the delivery and the person was shorter, stout, and the body mechanics looked female. Luther Merriweather did not deliver anything to Stella Mae’s farm.
However, Hugo Ames, the blackmailer, was smaller, knew about Cadence’s and Stella’s past lives, and he lived close enough to Stella’s to have made the delivery.
Jo also checked into Cadence’s whereabouts that week. Mrs. Merriweather was in Atlanta with two friends from her church, attending a play and a concert and shopping. She flew both ways and spent a fortune. It was possible for her to drive to Tennessee and make a delivery, but it was extremely unlikely.
T. Laine initiated a background check on witches in the Merriweather family history and, according to all publicly listed (and some private) witch bloodline sites, there was nothing. As she put it, on paper Luther was a plain old vanilla human and so was his wife, Cadence.
JoJo worked like a fiend while we geared up and found proof that Hugo had been part of the commune, though not part of the poly marriage. And Hugo’s mom was a single mother. He took her last name. The Ames family had produced a line of witch blood, until the 1850s when it died out. Had it come back in some strange manner in Hugo?
When I was as ready as I could be, I stopped by the conference room and Jo handed me a burner cell. “Turn on your church-speak, country hick chick, call Merry Promotions, and ask to speak to Hugo. See if you can find where he is today.”
I turned the small flip phone over in my hands and thought how I would handle this call. Why did it have to be in church-speak? Was church-speak becoming a crutch for me? Would Margot or Goode use a crutch when there might be another way? I had been undercover once for a few minutes. I was more than a churchwoman.
JoJo slid a scrap of paper across the conference desk to me. On it was a phone number and the words Merry Promotions.
I dialed the number. A woman answered with the words, “Merry Promotions, how can I help you?”
I remembered how the lawyer Goode had spoken and took a slow breath, lowered my voice, and said, “This is Maggie Jones, Loretta Hopkins’ business manager. Put Hugo on.”
“I’m sorry. Mr. Ames isn’t in today,” the woman on the other end said cautiously.
“What? Where’s Hugo?” I demanded. “He was supposed to meet me an hour ago. He isn’t