At some point they would need to talk about the elephant in the room—the murder of his mother. Every time the thought came up, he’d managed to suppress it, but he wouldn’t be able to do that much longer. It was starting to affect his sleep with nightmares.
An old murder wasn’t high on the list right now, but maybe it should be. He’d had a dream last night that it held the answer to what was happening to Will. When he awakened, he dismissed it as the usual weirdness of dreams, but Gabriel wanted the pictures badly. Was there more in them than his mother’s murder?
He needed to gather his courage and take a look.
* * *
“I know you hate asking Dad for money, but you’re not. I am.” Jane pushed open her door and stepped into the deluge of rain, which soaked her in an instant. She ran through the mud puddles to her dad’s front porch.
It had taken a lot of persuasion to get Reid to come out here. It was only when he understood she was doing it with or without him that he agreed to come along. It had to be a blow to his pride, but they could never manage a $500,000 bail on their own. And it might be more than that. Even a percentage charged by a bondsman would be tough. And there was no guarantee a bondsman would take them. The judge would be reluctant to agree to bail because of Reid’s contacts and constant jetting around the globe.
She waited for Reid to join her before going inside. The television blared the sound of a baseball game, and she found her dad in his recliner with lemonade and a half-eaten pizza on the table beside him.
He put his feet down. “Jane. I wasn’t expecting you.” His gaze cut back to the game before he picked up the remote and paused it. “Have a seat.” He gestured to the sofa.
Jane and Reid sat shoulder to shoulder. The sudden silence shriveled her courage a bit, but she had to do this. “There’s a chance Will could be given bail at the hearing on Wednesday. Scott says it’s likely to be at least five hundred thousand dollars though. Even with pooling all of our money, we can’t come up with that kind of cash. Do you know a bailsman who might be willing to cover us?”
“We don’t need a bailsman. I have the money, and I’ve made sure I can get to it. Will is my grandson.”
“Thank you, Charles,” Reid said in a low voice. “I didn’t want to ask you, but we didn’t know what else to do.”
“You didn’t even need to ask. I love Will and I miss him.”
“Thank you, Dad. We have some interesting evidence too.”
She told him about the connection between Gail and Lauren as well as the charges that would’ve been brought against Gail.
His bushy white brows drew together. “I’m not surprised. Finn believed his case wasn’t the only one she’d botched.”
“You knew Finn?”
“I mentored him. He was interested in building a bunker, and we’d spent a lot of time together.”
“This is the first you’ve mentioned it.”
“You haven’t been out much since his death.”
Her dad was always so hard to talk to. He wore his secrets like a second skin, and the shield was as impenetrable as steel. With all that had happened with Will the moment they’d come home from Maine, she hadn’t even told him about her visit with her mother or that she’d met his brother.
Did her dad even love her? He never said it, but at least he freely admitted he loved Will. That was enough, more than enough.
She gathered her thoughts back to the case. “Did you get the sense Finn might harm Gail?”
“He was enraged, but who wouldn’t have been? He hated drugs of any kind. That test was totally bogus, but I don’t think he would have tried to hurt her. I talked to Wayne, and he said they were all out at Gail’s house until Finn saw the ‘Save My Pet’ sticker on the window. He went back inside to try to find the dog.”
“But she didn’t have a dog. And Drew never put a sticker on the window. That’s an odd piece of evidence, and we haven’t figured out how it fits.”
“I know. It seems suspicious to me. Finn loved dogs. He volunteered at an animal shelter and worked on finding homes for dogs every day. He had three of his own.”
“I wonder what happened to his pets?”
“Wayne found homes for two of them. Finn’s ex-wife took the puppy for their daughter.”
Jane hadn’t given much consideration to the sticker. “Could someone have put that sticker there as an enticement for Finn to go in and end up dying? That seems a stretch. I mean, there would be no certainty he’d even notice the sticker. And why would he go in and not one of the other firemen?”
“Was the sticker on the outside of the window or the inside?”
She thought about it. “I don’t know.”
“Someone who puts a sticker in their window wants it to last, so they put it on the inside facing out.”
“I’ll check that out.”
“Wayne dislikes dogs, and Finn was the only rabid animal lover in the fire department. He was young and impetuous.” Her dad reached over for his lemonade. “But you’re right—it would be a stretch to assume he would act that way.”
Jane frowned as she thought about it. “They’d gotten Gail out by the time Finn saw the sticker and went back inside. It’s odd for sure.”
But she didn’t see any way the sticker could play a role in some kind of plot to kill Finn. “What if Finn killed her and set the fire?”
“Autopsy?”
“Drugged with a roofie and left to die. So definitely murder.”
He gave a slow nod. “You can’t completely know another human being, but Finn was a gentle soul. He loved his little girl, and he thrived in his job of helping people. It would be out of character for the man I knew.”
She wanted to point out that he hadn’t done a good job of even picking a girlfriend, but she kept her mouth shut. Charles didn’t have a good track record when it came to understanding human nature.
“I talked to Mom.”
His hazel eyes flickered. “I assumed you did, but I figured you’d tell me about it when you were ready.”
“I found out about my three missing days fifteen years ago. She drugged me so I wouldn’t remember a murder.” Jane launched into what her mother had told her.
Charles ran his fingers across his lips. “She gave you a safe-deposit key? What are you going to do with it?”
“We haven’t examined it yet. Will’s situation is more important than an old murder right now.”
“Is Gabriel still in town?”
“We were going out there this morning until the storm rolled in. We’ll go out as soon as it’s safe. I’ll let you know.”
“He’s always been an angry young man.”
She nodded. “Would you come to the bail hearing with us? You’re friends with the judge.”
“I was planning on it. In the meantime you should check on Gabriel. His presence here is probably not a coincidence with the murders that have occurred. And have you thought about the fact that he might be behind Will’s predicament? He warned you that he’d make those you love pay.”
She wet her lips. She had to tell him about his brother’s threat and see what he had to say.