When the Bough Breaks (Rose Gardner Investigations #6) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,63
a whole lot of other avenues we can go down first,” Dermot said. “Like pursuing what happened to the electrician who was killed two nights ago. He worked for Mike on multiple projects. They definitely knew each other.”
I nodded. I wasn’t surprised. I also wasn’t surprised Joe hadn’t told me.
“From the outside, your brother-in-law looks squeaky clean, which is likely one of the reasons Hardshaw picked him, if he’s really workin’ for them. He’s less likely to draw attention from the authorities.”
“I heard”—I couldn’t tell him it was from Mason—“that he did some work for Sonder Tech, a company out of Dallas. They sought out my landscaping company to do work for them soon afterward, which seems like a strange coincidence. Do you know anything about that?”
He rubbed his chin in thought. “Any connection between Sonder Tech and Hardshaw is a loose one.”
“The owner is friends with Tony Roberts, one of the Hardshaw Three.”
I told him about visiting Sonder Tech the day before, and Stewart’s reaction to my suggestion that the bushes had been poisoned—seemingly genuine shock—and then about the incident with Calista (leaving out the mortifying parts). “Jed sent Witt to follow her and see who she was going to meet, but by the time he got there, Calista was already gone.”
“Has Jed done any more diggin’?”
“Last I heard, he’s concentrating on goin’ through Mike’s books.”
His brow shot up. “You got ahold of Mike’s books?”
“We had a little help. Neely Kate says they haven’t found anything useful yet, but it looks like he was gettin’ cash payments and usin’ them to pay off bills. He wasn’t very careful.”
“Probably figured no one would look.” He rested his hand on the table. “What do you want me to do?”
“That’s not why I asked you here, Dermot. I was hoping for information from the criminal underworld, and you’ve already been helpful.”
“Two innocent kids are missin’ due to the idiocy of their father,” Dermot said, his voice hard. “If I can do something, I will.”
A lump formed in my throat, the contrast between James’s reaction and Dermot’s as profound as night and day. But something else occurred to me, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Dermot was everything Fenton County needed—level-headed, firm but empathetic, direct. James had not been any of those things lately. Was Dermot hoping to usurp his position in the underworld? Was he using me to do it?
Was that such a bad thing after all?
I took a drink of my now-cold coffee, then said, “I want to keep Jed, Neely Kate, and Witt out of any kind of investigation. Joe’s watchin’ this too closely. You’ll need to be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
I knew that from plenty of firsthand experience. “We need to find out more about Mark Erickson. Calista’s connected to Sonder Tech and Mark, so we need to find out what she knows.” I held his gaze. “But we can’t take goin’ to see Carmichael off the table.”
His lips pursed, but he nodded. “Agreed.”
“And if I go to see him, I’ll need backup.”
His face softened. “There’s no need for you to go. I’ll handle it if it comes to that.”
“They’re my niece and nephew.” My chest tightened. “Maybe we’re goin’ about this wrong. Maybe we need to go to him first.”
“A day’s not bound to make much of a difference,” he said.
“Tell that to those scared-to-death kids,” I said, my voice breaking.
“Okay,” he said, “you’ve got a point. But I’m not sure you’re in any condition to be facin’ Denny Carmichael.”
He had a point too—Denny Carmichael wasn’t likely to forget he thought I owed him a favor. I didn’t want to let him use my niece and nephew as pawns, and yet…
“I may not have a choice, Dermot.”
His lips twisted into a grim smile. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Leaning forward, his gaze lowered to my stomach. “How far along are you? Thirty-seven? Thirty-eight weeks?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“The baby’s head down and engaged?”
I would have found his questions invasive, but he was a nurse practitioner and he’d done surgery on a boy’s leg on this very table. “Down but not engaged. No dilation or effacement but plenty of Braxton Hicks contractions that have sent me to the ER twice. I felt like a fool.”
His gaze softened. “My wife had plenty of those with her second pregnancy. We went three times for false labor before she made me start checking for dilation myself.”
My mouth parted in shock. “You have a wife and kids?”
His eyes shuttered, leaving him emotionless. “Not anymore.”