Page 70 of Don't Say a Word

Jack offered me another beer; I declined. Two was my limit. He brought me over a water bottle and we sat in the family room while Laura went out to the barn.

“You’re happy,” I said.

“I am.”

“And everything went okay last night?”

He hesitated a fraction with a glance toward where Laura had gone.

“What?” I pushed.

“It was fine. It didn’t start fine, but by the end of the evening, we had an understanding.” He paused. “I said things I wish I hadn’t, but they got through.”

“You mean, you told the truth and felt bad.”

“I don’t like hurting anyone, even with words. But they had to be said. A reminder of everything I did to save our marriage. I don’t think she realized every step I took to prevent what ultimately happened. But there is no going back.”

If I had been drinking, I would have spit out my beer. “What? She wants to get back together?”

“God, no. I think—” He paused, assessed what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. “I’m not a shrink, but I think Whitney liked having me on-call. She liked knowing I would always come—and I still will. She will always be Austin’s mother. But I saw last night—I saw it before, but I knew in my heart last night—that she never wanted to be married to me. I should have seen it fifteen years ago when I first proposed. But we can’t go back, and we have Austin. He alone is worth everything.”

“Amen,” I said and toasted with my water bottle.

Jack was going to be fine.

“Changing subjects because I should be going home soon,” I said, “but do you think you can get me a one-on-one with Mike Hitchner?”

His mouth dropped open. “From DEB?”

“Yep. He was lead in the Bradford investigation and I have some questions.”

“He’s a commander now. I don’t know that he would have the time or desire to talk to a PI. Why?”

“I can’t find any connection between the drug bust three years ago and what happened these last two weeks with Elijah’s overdoseand Lena’s murder, but I think it would help if I better understood how the Bradford operation ran.”

“As in, if it happened once, maybe someone else is running it?”

“Something like that.”

“I don’t think you can assume that these events are connected. Drugs are a parasite; they’re everywhere.”

I didn’t know how to explain to Jack that little tickle in the back of my mind that told me there was something more here than meets the eye. “It’s... a triangle,” I said lamely.

Jack’s lips twitched. “A triangle.”

“Yeah, Elijah and Lena are connected through Sun Valley—time and place. They’re now both dead—killed less than two weeks apart.”

“Whoa—there is no evidence that Elijah was murdered.”

“Okay, maybe notkilled, but Detective King didn’t conduct a thorough investigation. She took the autopsy report as theonlyevidence, and there are a lot of unanswered questions. Did you read the police reports?”

“I skimmed them.”

“Did you notice that his backpack and phone weren’t recovered?”

Jack shook his head and asked, “What did they conclude?”

“They deduced that the phone was in the backpack and someone took it after Elijah passed out or died in the park.”