“Let me give you my email. Send it over, and I’ll go out there right now. This could be very big. If something like that is out there, we need to find it.” The captain cleared his throat. “Looks like you might be right. And you think that stuff is still there?”
“One of the splinter groups is after these pictures. I assumed it had something to do with an old murder, but now I suspect he’s searching for the map to the radioactive material and the C-4. We need to reach it before he does.”
“I’ll call you after I check this out. Thanks for the tip.”
Jane put down her phone. “That’s the best we can do right now. But this definitely ups the stakes on why Gabriel wants these pictures. And it would provide a powerful motive for framing Will in order to force us to hand them over.”
A trickle of unease slithered down Reid’s back. “I’m still not convinced Gabriel framed Will. Something still smells off to me.”
“Maybe, but it’s the best direction we’ve got right now.”
“Let’s not give up on the investigation connecting Lauren to Gail. Just in case, we have to cover all the bases. I still think Gabriel was lying about being behind this.”
She placed the pictures back in the shoebox. “Let’s go talk to her brother, Ned Berry, again. Maybe he knows something about that friendship. Or about her trying to blackmail Lauren. At least it will give us something to do while we wait to see Will at four fifteen.”
The hours would drag until Reid got to see his son again.
Thirty
The glowering clouds flickered with lightning, and the radio blared the warning of possible tornados. Jane drove her SUV through the darkening air to Ned’s house again. Reid rode shotgun and was staring out the window with a morose expression. She knew how he felt.
It had been a couple of hours since she talked to Captain Andreakos, as they had waited to leave until Rebecca, the nurse’s aide, came to watch over Olivia. How long would it take for him to find the buried weapons—if they were even still there?
She pulled into the driveway of Ned’s place. Had it only been just over a week since she’d first spoken with him? So many things had happened in so short a time.
When she got out, she spied the Harley-Davidson through the open garage door. Wet tire tracks showed it had recently been out for a ride, and she caught the stench of engine exhaust. She and Reid went to the door, and she pressed the doorbell of the modest ranch home with a sense of déjà vu. He might not be able to tell her much more than he had last week.
Ned opened the door and stared at her. “I figured you’d be back at some point.” He stepped out of the way and gestured for them to come in.
She walked past his bike boots sitting under a hook that held a black leather jacket. His hair was windblown.
“Looks like you just got back from a ride,” Reid said.
Ned gestured for them to follow him. “I’ve got burgers on the grill out back. You can talk to me there.”
They followed him through the small living room to a dining room that had a sliding door opening onto what seemed like a new deck. The wonderful scent of grilling meat wafted on the breeze.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and Reid glanced up. “Better hurry. We’ve got a storm brewing.”
“Yeah, lunch is almost done. So what do you need, Chief?”
Jane positioned herself out of the ribbon of smoke from the grill. “I wanted to personally let you know about your sister’s autopsy.”
He flinched. “Murder for sure?”
“I’m afraid so. She was drugged and died of smoke inhalation. I think it’s some comfort she was already dead before the fire got to her.”
“At least she didn’t suffer burns or anything.” He cleared his hoarse voice. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Did you ever meet Gail’s friend Lauren? Lauren Haskell?”
“Lauren Haskell?” He flipped over four burgers, then shut the grill’s lid again. “Met Gail and Lauren for drinks one night. Man, she was quite the looker. Had all the guys salivating over her in the bar, and she knew it.” His eyes widened. “Say, is that the woman who was killed along the Bon Secour? They arrested the kid? Your kid, right? I didn’t notice the victim’s name. That’s too bad. She was hot.”
“Yes, Lauren was the victim.” Jane should have known he’d have heard the news.
“Gail talked about her a few days before the fire. Said she was loaded and that she hoped Lauren would help her out with a loan until she could get back on her feet from her scumbag husband.”
A loan. Jane didn’t want to reveal what they’d been told about the so-called loan. “And did Lauren help her out?”
“I don’t think so. Gail was mad about it. Said Lauren’s rich boyfriend should have been more understanding.”
“Did she and Lauren have an argument?”
“She was yelling at Lauren on the phone the day before the fire. I heard her saying something about ‘you’ll be sorry’ and ‘wait until your ex hears about the plans.’” Ned glanced at Reid. “That would be you, I assume?”
The guy had heard more than he’d let on at first. “Did she ever mention people in her lab being angry about the results?”
“Oh yeah.” He lifted the grill’s lid again and scooped up the burgers, then transferred them to a plate. “Some guy came by her place once when I was there. He banged on the door and was yelling that he was going to turn her in for fraud. But she said he was just mad his drug use got found out.”
“Did she go to the door?”
He shook his head. “She hushed me when I wanted to go talk to him.”
“Did you see him or did she say a name? Was it the man who was suing her that you mentioned?”
“I think it might have been the same guy. I peered through the window when he got in his truck. He had a fire sticker on his window and a bubble on top. I think he might have been a fireman.”
Finn. She exchanged a long look with Reid. “Well, thanks for your time, Mr. Berry. We’ll let you eat your lunch. If you think of anything else, let me know.” She passed a card to him. “We’ll go around the side of the house.”
The first drops of rain fell from the dark sky as they hustled to the SUV. Jane hurried the last few feet and slung herself under the wheel. “Those clouds are scary.”
Huge black clouds hung low, lit by occasional slashes of lightning. It was early afternoon, but it was dark enough to be dusk.
Reid dashed around to get in as the deluge started. Jane started the engine and drove toward her office.
Her phone rang, and she glanced at the screen. “It’s Olivia. I’ll call her back in a little while. The roads are too flooded to make it safe to talk.”
And she didn’t like the greenish cast of the sky at all.
* * *
The tornado siren blared from several light poles in a deafening shriek. “Come on, we need to seek shelter!”
Reid leaped from the vehicle and grabbed Jane’s hand as she came around the front of the SUV. Thunder rolled over them, and the sky seemed eerily blackish green. Lightning crashed nearby, and he caught the scent of ozone as the wind picked up.