Distortion (Moonlighters Series) (21 page)
Holly nodded. “I know.”
“He’s not even here and he’s hurting our kids. It was bad enough when it was just me who was crushed, but now Zach and Abe . . . How did he think he’d keep getting away with it?”
Holly had the grace to stay quiet.
Soon Juliet saw Michael’s Caprice pulling into the parking lot. “There they are. Call them and tell them which apartment.”
When Michael had positioned his car to watch Miller’s apartment, Holly called him. “Can you take it from here? Juliet needs to leave.” She listened to Michael for a moment, then said to Juliet, “He wants to talk to you.” She put it on speaker. “She’s on.”
“Juliet,” Michael said, “I got a call from Sid Griffin who owns Griffin Security. He gave me the address of the place he wired for Bob.”
Juliet sucked in a breath. “What is it?”
“It’s 542 Court Boulevard, in King’s Point subdivision. I just went by there. It’s a gated house on North Bay.”
“A
house
?” she asked. “Why would he have
another
house?”
“No idea. We can’t get in until Sid gets back to town and gives us the codes, and he’ll have to scan your eye and fingerprints and put them in the computer instead of Bob’s. Apparently, it’s locked down like Fort Knox.”
“Why?”
“We’ll find out soon.”
When Juliet hung up, she wiped her tears and pulled out of
the parking lot. Somehow she’d have to swing by that address. She had to see what other secrets Bob had kept from her.
Zach had little to say when Juliet checked him out of school. His eyes were puffy, his nose red, and he didn’t meet her eyes as the two of them walked out to the car.
Juliet climbed into the driver’s seat just as Zach opened the van’s sliding door—where Holly was already sitting. She looked up from her camera screen. “Hey, kiddo. You can sit up front with your mom.”
He didn’t answer, just got into the front next to Juliet and slammed the door, eyes straight ahead.
During the entire trip to Holly’s house to drop her off, he just stared silently out the window. When they were finally alone, Juliet set her hands on the steering wheel. “Son, tell me what you’re thinking.”
His face turned crimson and twisted. “I’m thinking that they’re telling lies about Dad, and you don’t care. He was murdered, and you’re back to work like nothing even happened.”
“That’s not true, Zach. I’m working on finding everyone involved in killing him.”
“Great,” he said. “You’re still helping them make Dad out to be a criminal. It’s not right.”
“Honey, I’m trying to protect you and Abe, trying to get to the bottom of this so we can be safe and go back to our house.”
“How can they accuse him of stuff when he isn’t here to defend himself? He was a good man.”
She sat there a moment as he smeared the tears across his
face. “Zach, your dad wasn’t honest with me about things. We already talked about this. You know he had secrets.”
“I don’t want to hear that.”
“Then why were you googling him?”
Zach wiped a tear rolling down his face. “Because I thought they’d be saying things about the dude who shot him. I wanted to see what you were keeping from me. I didn’t expect them to accuse him of things.”
“I know, Zach. The whole thing is like a nightmare.”
“Whatever you’re doing, I want you to stop. I don’t want you looking for more reasons for people to talk about Dad. Why can’t we just remember him the way we knew him?”
The tragedy of Bob’s choices cut through her. “I wish we could, honey. But we’re in it, and I don’t know a way out of it. Your dad exposed us to danger, and somehow I have to get us out.”
“My dad would never hurt people with drugs or anything else! He took care of people! He saved lives! They’re getting everything wrong.” He wept for a moment, wiping his face on his sleeves. Finally, he looked at her. “What else haven’t you told me?”
She stared at him, wanting to say there was nothing else. But what about tomorrow, or the next day, when the local media’s investigative teams went snooping for dirt in what could be the year’s biggest local story? Zach was sure to see that too.
“There is something else.”
“What?” he asked.
“Your dad . . . he had a girlfriend.”
“I heard you say that to the FBI people. But it’s not true!” He paused. “Who was she?”
“Somebody who worked in his office. Her name is Amber. And she had a baby.”
His mouth fell open. “A baby?”
She nodded. Zach had known where babies came from for years, so she watched his face, heartbroken, as he puzzled it together. “Did she have a husband?”
Juliet shook her head. “No.”
“Then Dad . . . ?”
Juliet nodded. “He’s nine months old.”
“A boy? Like . . . my stepbrother?”
Her heart sank further. “No . . . your half brother.”
A fresh flush of crimson reddened his face and his ears. He shook his head and leaned his forehead against the window. “This is so messed up.”
“I didn’t want you to know. But it might come out, and you might as well be ready. But let’s not make Abe deal with it yet, okay?”
Face pinched and twisted, he nodded agreement.
“Just remember that I’m trying to help the FBI find anybody who had anything to do with Dad’s death. I want this behind us.”
Zach seemed to consider that. Finally, he managed to speak again. “Can’t they just let all this go? It’s not like they can arrest him or something. He’s not here.”
“But the others connected to this drug ring are, honey.”
“But I don’t care about them. I don’t want you to help them ruin Dad’s reputation. Can’t you just leave it alone?”
Juliet didn’t tell him that she wanted nothing more.
M
ichael had parked two buildings over from Miller’s, his car facing Miller’s apartment. He squinted into the setting sun. Though it was hard on his eyes, he hoped it put a glare on the windshield that would keep Miller from seeing through it.
Cathy was in the backseat, digging through a duffel bag.
“What are you doing?”
“Disguising myself,” she said. “I’m going to walk behind his building and see what I can see.”
He watched in the rearview mirror as she pulled her hair into a high ponytail and tied a bandana into a do-rag, covering most of her hair.
“Cathy, I’ll go. You stay here.”
“No,” she said. “I know what I’m doing. I’ll go through one of those passages between the apartments and get to the back. I’ll just get close enough to take a few pictures of the back of his apartment so we’ll know if he has a back door or back windows. You wait here in case he comes out.”
She was out the door before he could stop her. What
was
this? Cathy acting like the boss, telling him what to do?
She was a piece of work, and she clearly thought he’d kill the guy with his bare hands if he got the chance.
He watched her walk across the parking lot. There were three two-story buildings, each one made up of four units—two up and two down. According to Juliet, Miller was on the first floor of Building C, his door facing the stairs between the two bottom apartments.
Cathy walked through the passage in Building A and disappeared out the back of the building. He had gotten the lay of the land as he’d come in. Behind Building A was a small plot of grass and another building. He wasn’t sure what was behind Buildings B and C. Probably woods, from what he could tell.
He checked out the windows on the upper floors. Some of the blinds were closed, some open. He prayed no one would spot Cathy sneaking around back.
Cathy pulled out her phone and pretended to be texting. She walked purposefully through one of the apartment buildings, came out on grass, and checked out the upper windows on the back of the buildings. The first-floor apartments had privacy fences around patios that were about twelve feet square. The upstairs units had balconies.
Since Miller was in a downstairs apartment, Cathy took a picture of the privacy fence closest to her, still pretending to be texting. Though it wasn’t his unit, it would give them an idea of what his looked like, if she couldn’t get close enough.
She crossed the grass to Building B, glanced up. All the
blinds were closed, and no one seemed to be looking out. From here she could see behind Building C. She saw Miller’s privacy fence but couldn’t see inside it without going closer.
She angled her phone and took a quick picture inside the opening of the privacy fence in Building B. It had a waist-high iron gate. This tenant had a grill, a small table and chairs, and a sliding glass door. Leonard Miller would have the same square footage on his patio.
She backed away, looking through her dark lenses at Miller’s windows. One on the back of the house, one on the side, and one on the front. His blinds were closed, too. She stepped back beside one of the privacy fences, where he wouldn’t be able to see her if he did happen to look out, and took a picture of the wooded area behind his building. If the feds ever found a reason to make an arrest, they’d have to guard the back door or he’d be able to escape this way.
She hurried back the way she had come and cut across the parking lot to Michael’s Caprice. She got in and pulled the pictures up on her phone. “Here’s the back. There’s woods there, a sliding glass door, privacy fence.”
Michael studied the pictures. “Good work. We may be here awhile.”
“That’s okay,” Cathy said. “I have nowhere to be. Can’t think of a single thing that’s more important.”
Michael looked over at Cathy as she leaned back in the seat, her bandana still covering her hair. She was beautiful, even when she tried to hide it. Even with the scarf on, she would turn heads.
A look of deep reflection darkened her eyes. Was she
remembering the pain of the trial, with Miller sitting smugly as the defendant? Was she remembering how he’d high-fived his attorneys after he was acquitted?
Or had her memory taken her further back, to that day when she’d gotten word that Joe was dead? That the man in that apartment had murdered him?
Suddenly the door opened, and Michael snapped to attention. “He’s coming out. Be ready to write his tag down when we see which car is his.”
Yes, it was Miller . . . about twenty pounds heavier, with longer hair than the last time Michael had seen him when Miller’s mother died. He looked less threatening, not like someone you would automatically assume to be a thug. He stepped out of his building and crossed the grass to a white cargo van. Cathy brought the binoculars to her eyes. “Got it,” she said, then wrote the tag number down.
Miller pulled out of his space and passed them without glancing their way as he left the complex. Michael gave him a few seconds, then followed. As he did, Cathy opened her laptop, signed onto one of their databases, and typed in the tag number.
A couple of minutes later, she had what she was looking for. “The car is registered to a Miller Arden.”
“See what else that name brings up,” Michael said as he drove.
She typed on the laptop and waited. “Okay, the apartment lease is in that name. I have a landline phone number. And a cell phone. Utility bills.”
“Driver’s license?”
She typed again. “Yep, he has a Florida driver’s license in that name. That’s his picture, all right.”