Page 31 of Final Approach (Lake City Heroes #4)

“Do you have any weapons on you?” Andrew asked.

“N-no. Nothing. I swear. Not even my pocketknife.”

“Can I pat you down?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Jacob held his hands out to his sides.

Andrew shot a look at Kristine, who nodded. She’d cover him.

The door opened just as Andrew finished with Jacob, and Chey stood there gaping. She snapped her mouth shut and glowered. “You need to leave him alone.”

“Relax, Chey,” Andrew said. “We just want to talk to him.” He nodded to the restaurant. “Wanna do this in there or come with me to the station?”

Jacob swallowed hard and Andrew’s compassion meter kicked up a notch. The kid was terrified. “I-I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” he said.

“Okay, then let’s go inside and talk.”

“Can Chey stay with me?”

“Sure.” Maybe if Jacob didn’t want to talk, Chey would be scared enough to do so for him.

Once the four of them were seated in a booth in the very back of the restaurant, Andrew looked the boy in the eye. “We know you dug up the money your dad buried. I need you to turn in whatever money is left, and I need you to do it ASAP.”

He flinched and frowned. “And if I don’t?”

“You’ll be arrested. That money is the fruit of a serious crime. You can’t keep it.”

Jacob went white. He picked at a fingernail.

“My dad told me where it was the day before the hijacking. I asked him where he got the money, but he just said he’d taken a major gamble that paid off and I was the only one who knew where the money was.

If something happened to him, I was to use it to take care of Mom and the kids. ”

Andrew eyed him. “What else did he say? Why didn’t he want your mom knowing about it?”

“He said if she knew about it or spent it, she would probably get in trouble with the law, but I was a kid, so I’d be fine.

” He raked a shaky hand over his head. “I didn’t know why he thought she’d be in trouble because of his gamble, but I didn’t ask.

Anyway, I was just trying to do what he told me to do. ”

“I get it, but now so do you. You going to cooperate and return the rest of the money or make this difficult?” Please cooperate.

Jacob shot a glance at Chey, who gave him a subtle nod. The teen sighed. “Okay. I’ll give it back. I wasn’t trying to steal or do anything wrong. I just wanted to help make my mom’s life easier, do what my dad told me to do. I promise.”

“Then if you cooperate, you should be fine.”

“Do we have to give back the stuff I bought with the cash? I mean, I don’t think I can get that money back.”

“No, probably not. As long as we get the rest of it, everything should be all right.”

“Fine. I’ll give it back.” He dropped his gaze to the table and shivered.

“Let me buy you a good meal and then you can take us to get it.”

Jacob nodded, and Chey, who had been silent through the whole exchange, sighed. “I told you, Jacob.”

“I know.” He glanced at Andrew. “She told me I needed to turn the money in, but I thought since Dad basically died for it, I should do some good with it.” He squirmed in his seat.

“I ... uh ... paid for two kids in the youth group to go to camp this summer. And I paid someone to help mow Mrs. Crabtree’s lawn for a year.

Her husband died a few weeks ago and I overheard her say she didn’t know how she was going to keep up with the house, much less the lawn. And some other stuff like that.”

“I see.” Andrew’s heart went out to the teen. “You’re a good young man, Jacob. Your heart’s in the right place. I don’t ever want that to change, okay?”

Jacob’s shoulders relaxed a fraction and he gave a quick nod. Kristine’s approving gaze straightened Andrew’s spine. He liked that look from her aimed at him.

“Where’s the money?”

“Not far.”

They ordered breakfast and forty-five minutes later, Andrew and Kristine stood in Chey’s apartment bedroom behind the café.

Jacob had stashed the money with Chey, who’d stuck it under her mattress.

She shrugged at Andrew’s raised brow. “It’s a cliché for a reason. No one looks there anymore, right?”

“I will from now on,” he muttered.

His phone buzzed. Nathan.

Call me when you get a chance. Nothing urgent.

Once he and Kristine were back in the car, he called Nathan, who answered on the first ring. “What’s up?” Andrew asked.

“The team going through all of the hijacking cell phone footage from our flight found something interesting.”

“What?”

“The guy, Erik Leary? The passenger in 29C? The one we cleared? He had two phones.”

“Okay. Explain?”

“Some of the footage showed him talking on a phone while the hijacking was going on. No big deal. A lot of people were on their phones calling loved ones or 911 while everything was going down. But then he’s on a different phone a short time later.”

“But why?”

“Exactly. You up for a visit?”

“Absolutely. When?”

“Now?”

“I’m on the way.” He’d explain about Jacob and the money later. “Kristine’s with me.”

“Well, she’ll have to hang back on this one.”

Kristine nodded her understanding. “No problem.” He hung up and aimed the Bucar toward Mr. Leary’s home.

He pulled to the curb about the same time Nathan did. Andrew scoped the area with interest ... and dread. “It’s empty,” he said.

“Yep.” Nathan ran a hand over his head. “Looks like it.”

“Unbelievable. He was clean. Squeaky clean. What did we miss?”

“Could be something else. He could have a very valid reason for having two phones. You have two. I have two.”

“Right. True.”

“But why not mention it?” Nathan asked. “We specifically asked him about multiple devices. He said he had a laptop, an iPad, and a phone. Singular.”

“Yeah.” Andrew sighed. “I’ll write up the affidavit for the search warrant and call in a favor to get a rush on it. Then we can get the crime scene unit down here and let them go through it, but I’m guessing they won’t find anything.”

“One can hope.” Nathan shook his head. “I’ll work on the passports. Make sure they’re flagged and see if they’ve been used recently.” He grabbed his phone, and Kristine shoved her hands into her pockets, then leaned back against the car.

Andrew made the call and looked at Kristine. “You want me to take you to the hospital so you can be with Emily? This is going to take me a while.”

“No, I’ll catch an Uber.”

He frowned. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“I’ll be fine.” She pulled out her phone and started to make the call, and he placed his hand over hers.

“Really,” he said. “I want to take you. Nathan can hold down the fort here until I get back.”

She hesitated, a light pink staining her cheeks, then shrugged. “All right. You can finish telling me your story.”

He frowned. “Story?”

“About the innocent man who died in the holding cell.”

Oh. That story.

Maybe he should let her catch that Uber.