Mind Play (Bennett Sisters Book 3) (25 page)

Claire wasn’t going to argue. She was starved. She retook her original seat and started fixi
ng her plate, her heart was heavy as she thought about the other women Butch has had in his life. Not all of them, just one in question; Regina.
They might be in for a lot more than they bargained for with this new turn of events, and only time would tell.

****

Butch walked his old partner to the door
. “Man
,
you know, if I didn’t know you better, I’d think I’d need to keep a closer eye on you. I can tell you’re into Claire.”

Thompson patted him on his back before he walked out the door. “You’d be right, but I can tell she loves you
,
and she’s actually perfect for you.” He tilted his head to the side
.
“
In an opposites attract kind of way. Just don’t know what she sees in your ugly mug when mine is so much prettier.
” Thompson
rubbed the stubble on his own chin and
chuckled. “I’ll call you if I find out anything. I’ll be back to help you guys with her father’s files. My gut tells me the answer is right there under our noses.”

Thompson trotted down the stairs to his car. Butch could feel the tension in his muscles. If what Thompson said was true, then
he’d completely missed whoever was responsible for stealing from Claire
,
and that wasn’t good. He’d have to mul
l
this over and discuss it with Jake. Maybe he was too close to the situation to see things clearly.
Could he base his thinking o
n
his partner
’
s gut? Butch stopped on his way back to the kitchen and let his head fall on back on his shoulders
,
clenching his eyes closed. “Damn it.”

His friend
’
s gut had never let them down. It was almost as if he’d had his own “super powers” like the Bennett family. “Double
d
amn it.”

Butch walked back to the door that led to the kitchen.
He d
rew in a deep breath and pasted one of Cl
aire’s famous fake smiles on his
face as he pushed through the door.
How was he going to explain to Mike and Jake what Thompson had suggested
?
He didn’t have any proof that he’d missed anything, just the word of a man he’d known for ages and that man’s gut.

Chapter 13

Butch walked into the kitchen to find the trio joking around a
nd
laughing, almost as if they didn’t have a care in the world. His fake smile had turned to a genuine one. Seeing Claire laugh took some of the weight off his shoulders. He knew he couldn’t relax yet, but for
just
a minute
,
he wanted to forget that someone was out to get her and her entire family and just be happy that she’d finally accepted what they meant to
each other
.

Butch pulled out the chair next to Claire’s. She’d already filled him a plate. Claire glanced at him and smiled before resuming her conversation with Jake about stuffed animals.
They’d just finished eating and clearing the table while Claire fixed herself another cup of coffee. Butch turned from putting the last di
sh in the dishwasher and pushed it closed
.
They were in for a long afternoon going through files and sifting through the information that Mike had brought over.

Mike took a sip of his coffee and asked, “Claire, where can we set up? We have a lot of files to look through.”

“Let’s take them to the dining room table. There’s plenty of space in there. Do you want me to call Jenny in
? M
aybe she can help us
.”

All three shook their heads no at the same time.

Butch threw his arm around her shoulder
.
“Have you read her mind yet? Do you know if she’s telling the truth?”

“Don’t have to
;
I trust her.”

“Claire…”

“You can’t be serious…”

Claire held up her hand to stop their remarks. She trusted the girl
,
and that was all there was to it. She’d done a thorough check on her before hiring her
,
and she believed Jenny didn’t know anything. “That’s final. It’s not her, so let’s move on.”

Claire entered her dining room to find
five moving
boxes stacked up in the corner. She glared at Mike.

“What? I knew you were going to say we should use the dining room, so I already brought them in.”

She released a sigh and walked over to the top box. “Did they give you any trouble taking
them
from the
precinct
?
”

“Nope, not after I explained that we were all looking into this. He considered it extra help that he doesn’t have to pay for. Think about it
,
Claire
. He
’s got
m
e, Abby, Jake, and Butch
,
who are all trained in this type of stuff. He wasn’t about to turn down th
e free help and benefit of our
experience.”

He was right
;
she hadn’t thought about it that way. Maybe had they brought in extra help when it had happened, they wouldn’t have had to go so many years without having the answers.
It was all water under the bridge
. S
he couldn’t go back and change it even if she wanted too
. N
one of them could.

Claire pulled the flaps back on the first box and pulled a file from the top that was three inches thick. She pulled out a chair to sit in and set her coffee on the table. “What are we suppose
d
to be looking for?”

She glanced up to find the guys grabbing their own files.

Mike answered her question after a brief silence. His eyes met hers
.
“We don’t know. Anything that doesn’t make sense
. A
nything that the precinct didn’t follow through on. Anything that stands out
as
strange. We’re grabbing at straws, but this is all we have to go on.”

Claire opened her file. “Do you think this Winter’s guy is involved. What are the chances that he’s in Southall and doesn’t have anything to do with this, especially because he’s a money launderer?”

Butch was the first to answer “I’m not sure angel.”

Claire wanted answers and all of them seemed to be lacking in that department. Claire hoped Abby
was going to have an easier time at solving this th
a
n they were. Her gift of psychometry would come in handy. She might get impressions from just one touch of the old parched witness
es
’ statements. Claire
’s
and Mike’s gift
s
only worked on living people, not inanimate objects.

They all settled in looking through files. They each had their own and would pass them off for another person to review behind them. This was going to take months at the rate they were working, but at least they had more than one set of eyes on each file in
case someone missed something.

Claire paused on a statement she’d read and put the open file down on the table. “Let’s move backward on this. Who was the last person that saw
D
ad alive?”

Claire glanced up at Mike to find him reading a statement. “That’s easy
. T
hat was Patricia Clark. She was the one who called the police.”

Mike sat his file down on the table and pulled out the statement he’d been reading and handed it to her.

Claire read it. Her mouth fell open
;
she’d been expecting more. “What does the rest of this statement say? Half of it is marked through with
Wite-out
?”

Claire held it up to the light, trying to read the words underneath.

“She was one of
D
ad’s informants. She was the one who had told him about meeting with Rex Simpson. Dad was working undercover and was trying to bust the guy by buying drugs from him. We don’t know what happened, only that when Patricia called the department, she said they were both dead.”

“That’s it? That can’t be all.
Was s
he working both sides
? S
he could have set them both up
.”

“Angel, I think you’ve been watching too many detective movies. I’m sure they questioned her in length about
her involvement
.”

Claire glared at Butch.
“Butch, don’t patronize me. That’s what I’m getting at. Where is the rest of it? This is just the statement she made. What did they find out when they questioned her?”

Claire wasn’t a detective, but hell, even she knew that there should have been more to the story
even if it wasn’t in her statement
. They each started flipping through their files and glanced at one another. “There isn’t anything in this file
. W
hat about you?”

“Nope
,
”
t
hey said in unison to Butch’s question.

“What about your file, Claire? Are you sure you looked at everything in there? I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t have a paper trail of some sort that has the interrogation notes on it.”

Claire flipped through her file one more time in an attempt to find what she was looking for. Nope, not in hers either. That could only mean one of two things
—
either they didn’t have all of the information and they were wasting their time
,
or her dad’s partners hadn’t been thorough
,
and she doubted that. They needed the rest of the information.