Page 7 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

Chapter Four

Jack Angelhart

After serving warrants in Peoria near Lake Pleasant, Jack spent the drive back downtown thinking about how to approach Rachel King.

They’d worked together a few times back when he was still a detective.

As he’d told Margo, Rachel wasn’t a bad cop.

But she wasn’t a good one either, at least in Jack’s book.

He needed to tread carefully. Test the waters with King.

Or maybe he could just as easily go around her, reach out to his former partner instead.

Most of the cops he’d worked with were happy to help him now as a PI, but he couldn’t afford to be careless.

If anyone got the idea he was going after a cop, they’d shut him out fast.

Not that he was targeting King—she hadn’t done anything wrong. Even if he could convince her he was only chasing down leads for a grieving mother, she still might slap him down.

Jack had always been the diplomat of the family. He’d inherited his mother’s shrewdness and his father’s bedside manner. Honesty, more often than not, had served him well. And it suited him—lying had never come easy.

When his phone rang and Laura’s name and photo lit up the screen, Jack grinned, a wave of giddiness washing over him.

Since his divorce three years ago, he’d rarely dated, and when he had, it never progressed beyond a few dinners and polite goodbyes. Whitney had been his one true love until she pulled the rug out from under him.

Then, two and a half months ago, Laura walked into his life. And just like that, he was “smitten” as his Abuela would’ve said.

Funny how love finds you when you’re not even looking.

“Hello,” he answered, the sound of her voice dialing his grin up another notch.

“Hi, Jack. Driving back from the Fitzpatrick ranch out in Black Canyon City, thought I’d return your call.”

Laura was a veterinarian who co-owned a clinic. She often made house calls because her specialty was farm animals, and her love was for horses.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Routine visit. They have eight mares and a stallion, so I go up twice a year to check on them. All healthy, one of the mares is pregnant. They suspected she was—I confirmed and estimate she’s three months along.

She has a long way to go. Anyway, sorry I missed your call this morning, cell service up there is spotty. ”

“You’re busy.”

“What else is new?” she said with a light laugh that always made his heart swell. “You sound better now than your message this morning. Is everything okay?”

“Mostly.” He didn’t want to dump his problems on her, but she would understand. “Whitney found out that I’m seeing someone. I should have told her, but I knew it would be a ridiculous conversation and I kept putting it off.”

“You’re seeing someone? Who?”

Her voice was light and humorous. His heart lifted.

“Yeah, I am. A beautiful strawberry blonde with the most amazing green eyes I’ve ever seen. Smart too. Beauty and brains.”

“You’ll have to introduce me sometime,” Laura teased.

“I know we had plans tonight, but I have to cancel. I promised Whitney I would have a sit-down. When she started bringing men around Austin, I made her sit down and agree to terms, so I have to live up to the same agreement.”

“I understand,” Laura said, and he knew she did. “You’re a great dad and want what’s best for Austin. That means maintaining a good relationship with his mother.”

“She barely says more than two words to me if it’s not directly related to our son, until she found out I was seeing you. I actually preferred the noncommunication.”

“That’s not good,” Laura said. “You need an open line of communication because of Austin. Avoiding her only prolongs the inevitable and makes conversations that much harder.”

“You are a wise, wise woman.” Laura was right, but conversations with Whitney made him tense and angry—probably because he forced himself to be calm and agreeable when around her. The tension always gave him a pounding headache.

“Call me when you’re driving home,” Laura said.

“I won’t be in a very good mood.”

“Be an optimist, Jack. And I don’t care if you’re in a crappy mood. We all have our moments, right? And before you say I don’t, remember when I yelled at you and poked a finger in your chest?”

“You were scared about the safety of your children.”

“That’s no excuse for my bad behavior. And still, you like me.”

“I more than like you,” he said quietly.

He could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “I more than like you too, Jack Angelhart.”

“I’ll call tonight,” he said and hung up.

They weren’t far enough into their relationship that Jack had told Laura he loved her, though he knew he did.

They were cautious not just because they’d both been burned in their first marriages, but because they each had kids.

For Jack, Austin would always come first. For Laura, Sydney and Cody were her life.

Her devotion to family was one of the reasons that Jack had fallen for her.

And though cautious, in the two and a half months they’d been seeing each other, they were exclusive.

Jack had never dated around—it was one girlfriend at a time, even in high school.

And Laura, though divorced longer than Jack, hadn’t started dating until now.

Warts and all, I loved Charlie. Still do, but I see him now for who he is, not who I wanted him to be. After the divorce, I had to think about my kids, and then my job. Dating was the last thing on my mind.

When Jack brought Austin home last night, Whitney had started the argument about why Jack hadn’t told her about Laura. It angered and depressed him that she pushed it. Whitney had wanted the divorce; he hadn’t. He’d begged her to go to counseling; she’d refused.

You couldn’t force someone to love you, even when you had a child together.

Jack wasn’t the kind of man who cried. But when Whitney told him to leave—that she wanted more than he could offer, that she couldn’t love a man who couldn’t give her everything—he did.

He’d given her all he had: mind, body, spirit.

But it wasn’t enough. The house wasn’t big enough or in the right zip code.

The clothes she wanted blew past their budget—and why should she have a budget, she asked.

The car she coveted was far beyond his means, and the one he could afford she complained about constantly.

She compared their life to her friends who had more, did more, traveled farther, spent bigger.

He’d had two parents who loved each other and raised five kids in good times and bad. They worked through problems and came out stronger in the end. He wanted, expected, the same.

For the first time since he signed the divorce papers, he thought he might have found someone who wanted the same things in life as he did: home and hearth, children and family.

It gave him hope.

It was nearly twelve thirty by the time Jack walked into police headquarters.

He had several reasons for leaving the force three years ago.

The primary factor was a shift in morale.

The weight of being a cop had taken its toll on Jack.

The anti-cop sentiment and push from the top was intense, and with the added pressure of his divorce and his dad’s situation, he needed to step back.

Sometimes, he regretted his decision, but he liked being a private investigator.

While he didn’t make as much money as when he’d been a cop, he could set his own hours, and that meant more time with Austin.

Occasionally, he was offered a private security gig for a VIP, which paid well.

He liked working with his family, and with his dad in prison, his mom needed him.

Ten minutes later, he learned that Rachel King was in the field, and Jack’s old partner Wendy Lopez was on vacation.

Drug crimes were generally the purview of the Drug Enforcement Bureau, though they often worked in tandem with VICE, where Jack had worked for a few years.

He headed toward the VICE wing, mentally running through who he knew that was still here.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to think too hard.

As soon as he entered the squad’s suite of cubicles, a booming voice said, “Hey, Angelhart!”

Jack turned as his former commanding officer, Lieutenant Hank Thomas, walked toward him. “LT, good to see you.” Jack extended his hand. Hank took it and brought Jack in for a slap on the back and hug.

“Damn good to see you. Whatcha doin’ in the building?”

“I had to deliver a couple subpoenas, thought I’d come up and see if you and a few of the others were in while I wait for a deadbeat down the street to get back from lunch.”

The best lies were couched in truths.

Hank motioned for Jack to follow him through the bullpen and into his office. “Sit, tell me all.”

Hank had worked VICE most of his plainclothes career.

Though Jack had worked under Hank before he was promoted to command, everyone knew Hank was on the fast-track to management.

He was smart, a good cop, and didn’t play office politics.

Hank did the job right: made clean arrests, put bad guys in prison, and stood by his people.

“Not much to tell,” Jack said. They chatted about family, he showed off Austin’s sixth-grade school picture, and Hank showed off his new family portrait—Hank, his wife Abby, and their six kids, ranging from sixteen to three.

“How’s the PI business? I heard you were involved with that arson investigation a few months back, Desert West Financial.”

Jack gave him the nuts and bolts about that case. Then he said, “Well, no beating around the bush—I came in partly because I’m working on another case where King is lead detective. She’s not in right now, so I just wandered around until someone had time to chat.”

“I have a few minutes. What case?”

Jack told him—including that he was hired by the family—then said, “King closed the case, but there are some holes so we’re working it.”

“Drug related? Those cases usually cross my desk.”

“It was ten days ago. Might not have made it up here yet. The kid was a senior at Sun Valley High School in Sunnyslope. Honors student with straight A’s, no suspensions, no known drug use.”

“Do you have a case number?”

He glanced at his phone—Margo had texted him the information earlier—and he rattled it off for Hank.

Hank typed into his computer, read.

“Hmm. Seems King slapped at a cop—Morales. One of yours?”

“Yeah, my cousin.”

“After King closed the case, she got calls from the mother, the school, a friend of the victim. It may end up on my desk eventually if there’s a pattern.”

“So you have no open investigation,” Jack said to confirm.

“On this? No. I don’t have anything open that touches the school. Sun Valley has their problems, but no major drug-related issues since my team took down a coach who was dealing.”

“I read about that. Football coach, right? His wife was also involved?” It happened around the time Jack left the force so he didn’t remember many details.

“I’ll print you the file. We did a damn good job taking the bastard down.

All the kids involved would have graduated by now, since it was three years ago.

Coach is serving ten-to-fifteen. If in the course of your investigation any of these names pop or you see a similar operation in play, let me know. ”

“I will,” Jack agreed.

Hank typed rapidly on the computer, then pulled a large stack of paper off the printer, grabbed a file folder, and put the papers inside. “Enjoy the reading.”

“Thanks, Hank.”

Jack left. He wasn’t certain this closed case would help them, but it wouldn’t surprise him if one or more of the low-level dealers had slipped under the radar and avoided arrest.

He sent Margo a text message.

I have a pile of paperwork about an old case involving drugs at Sun Valley. It’s closed, but maybe something here relates to what happened to Elijah. I’ll leave it on your desk.

A moment later, Margo responded.

Come to my house tonight, six? Pizza and paperwork.

Jack winced. Actually better to tell Margo the truth over text than in person.

Dinner with Whitney.

No response. Maybe Margo was getting over her hatred of his ex.

Seven minutes later he was in his car when a message from Margo popped up.

Why?

Jack wondered how many nasty messages Margo had started and erased.

I’ll tell you later.

Almost immediately came a chain of angry emojis, signifying Margo’s displeasure with his answer.

He left to serve the rest of the subpoenas.