Brian was almost ready to go over to his uncle’s house. His parents were expecting him back in Dallas for Thanksgiving, so if he didn’t get the information today, he’d have to try again in a few weeks. The FBI agent and the Wingate family wanted the information sooner rather than later, and Brian didn’t blame them at all.
He rubbed the back of his neck and put on his shirt over the wire.
“Okay, when you talk, the recording will start,” the agent told him. “It’s voice activated so you won’t have to do anything. As a reminder, don’t bait him. If you do that it will make it harder to use it in court. It might be enough to indict but we want a conviction too.”
“Yeah, I got it. The other night he started talking about it when I brought up Ava’s sister...” Brian paused. “I think he saw us as both loving the same type of woman.”
“Just use your gut. You know him and you know the law. Don’t feel like you have to force it, either,” the agent said. “If you do that you won’t sound like yourself.”
Brian listened to more advice from the agent, and after he tested the device the agent left him alone. Brian sat there in the room at the back of the club going over the evening in his head. The other day, Keith had already been drinking. What if he wasn’t today?
Then he took a few deep breaths and put on his lawyer persona. Sure of where he needed to be and what he wanted to have happen. He wasn’t going to be more ready than this.
Leon and his friends were in the bar again and waved him over, but he pointed to his watch and made a maybe next time gesture before walking out. Dusk was falling and the November evening was crisp and cold. Starting to feel more like the holidays, he thought. He remembered the plans he’d made with Piper that would probably not be happening now.
Brian exhaled roughly. He didn’t kid himself into thinking that bringing information to help clear her sister and family was going to make it any easier to win Piper back over. She needed to get to the point where she could trust him to stay. And trust herself enough to admit she loved him.
Piper usually had a pretty clear read on most people. He wondered what it was she’d seen in him that had led her to that conclusion, but then he shook his head and pushed all of that aside.
The only way he was going to get Keith talking about Ava again, regardless of whether he’d been drinking or not, was to convince his uncle that he hated Piper Holloway and the Wingate family as much as Keith must.
He went off book and stopped at the liquor store and bought a couple of bottles of Jack Daniels. He’d never drive drunk so he drove to the park near Keith’s house and had a few swallows to give his breath the smell of the liquor and then spilled a little on his sleeve so it would seem like he’d been drinking all day.
To be honest, he might have been doing that if Keith hadn’t said what he had the other night. Brian would have gone home and drowned his heartache in whiskey. Somehow doing this was almost cathartic.
He felt like at least Piper would be able to see he was a good, decent man. Maybe it would be enough to make her see that he’d never meant to hurt her the way he had. After driving the short distance to his uncle’s house, he parked his car in the drive. He had poured out three quarters of one of the bottles and was holding it loosely in one hand, and he had a full bottle in the other hand.
Brian knocked on the door and waited. The housekeeper showed him to Keith’s den where he was drinking, and when his uncle looked up and saw him, he welcomed him in.
“Glad you’re back, son. No man should have to deal with a broken heart on his own,” Keith said.
“I agree, Uncle,” Brian replied. “I brought a bottle for you.”
“Come in and we’ll get started on it,” Keith said with a grin.
Brian took a deep breath and stepped into the den, not knowing what his uncle was going to say. But he needed to get to the bottom of this. And then he’d figure out how to win Piper back.
He’d made a promise to himself that he wasn’t going to let her walk out of his life again.
And he’d meant it.
“It has been a crazy year,” Brian said.
As an opening gambit he wasn’t sure it was a great one, but he needed to lead the conversation naturally to Ava and the sabotage at Wingate Enterprises. And frankly, at this time of year, he always reflected on the past.
“Opening your own law firm is quite an accomplishment. I know your daddy is proud of you, as he should be,” Uncle Keith murmured.
“He is,” Brian said. “He and Mama are anxious for me to settle down.”
“Be careful who you choose, boy,” Keith said. “I know you said you were dating Piper. Are you sure that’s over?”
“Probably. My parents thought she seemed great, and they were not happy that we broke up. They don’t get it like you do...” He knew he was laying it on a bit thick, but he needed to establish a rapport with his uncle. Make them the same. In one way they were. Piper had dumped him because she thought he wanted to change her. Which was beyond ridiculous. But honestly, he wished she’d seen that he wanted her just the way she was.
“Those Holloway women can singe a man to his core,” Brian grumbled. “Even Trent didn’t always have it smooth with Ava. He used to tell me about her stubbornness.”
“God save me from that hardheadedness. Piper is so sure she sees me better than I see her,” Brian said, knowing he had to be bitter and angry if he wanted Keith to start spilling. “Like she knows me at all.”
“Ave never really saw me either. Just saw what she needed to in me,” Keith told him. “I was there when Trent was sick and she started leaning on me to help out at the office. Just lend a hand because she was overwhelmed.”
“You did a good thing,” Brian said. The way his uncle was talking today, Brian felt more confident that Keith would give up the name of the insider who’d betrayed the family, and he was already determined to represent Keith if any charges were filed against him. Right now, he just sounded like a man who’d lost the woman he loved.
“I did, didn’t I?” Keith asked, taking another sip of his drink. “Of course, she didn’t see that. As soon as we got back from Europe she started acting different.”
“There was the lawsuit after a fire at their jet plant in East Texas,” Brian pointed out. “I think that shook her.”
“I get that, but I was her rock. I had her back,” Keith said. “She should have leaned on me. I think it was Beth who started her thinking of me in a different way.”
“How do you figure?”
“I could tell. I don’t think the kids were comfortable with her spending so much time with me so soon after Trent’s death. I could tell by the way she talked to me. Always a bit standoffish,” Keith said.