Page 86 of Final Approach

“Right. Three, what’s the connection between Marcus Brown and Erik Leary?”

“It looks like the person who hired Brown also hired Leary,” Nathan said, “but the dots aren’t connecting as to who knows both of them. They run—ran—in totally different circles. Brown was barely scraping by financially and was in terrible health. Leary was well-to-do, decent credit, no obvious need for cash or any reason to risk his life to get it.”

“Unless he was blackmailed,” Kristine said. “Hold on a sec.” Murmured voices filtered through the line, but Andrew couldn’t catch the words. “Dad wants to go home, so I’m going to take him.”

“You need anything?”

“No thanks. Hang on once more while I get him settled.” More rustling, then the slamming of a car door. “Okay, I’ll call back when I can talk without being overheard.”

“Sounds good.”

She hung up and Andrew turned to Nathan and Cole. “We’re on pause for the moment. Anyone need something to drink? A Coke? Water?”

“Water,” Cole said.

“I’m good,” Nathan said.

Andrew grabbed the drinks from the fridge. They continued to discuss the case while they waited on Kristine’s call.

Finally, his phone rang and he grabbed it and put it on speaker. “Pick up where we left off at blackmail,” he said.

“Okay, I have a few minutes. He wanted a burger to take home for later so he’s inside McDonald’s to get it. And before you think I’m a terrible daughter, I offered to go in and get it for him, but he told me to quit treating him like he was helpless.”

“Dads,” Andrew huffed.

“Right? Anyway, I can talk while he’s in there, but I don’t want him to overhear anything so if I go quiet, you know why.”

“Got it.”

Cole waved at him.

“And Cole has his hand raised. Yes, Cole? You have something for the class?” The bit of humor brought a snicker through the line from her, and he smiled.

“I do,” Cole said. “Say someone blackmailed him. But with what? You just said there’s nothing in his past.”

“Nothing that showed up.”

“True. But again. Who?”

Andrew drew a big question mark on Leary’s face, then another one on the word blackmail. “We have a lot of question marks on here.”

“And why did he attack your dad in the hospital?” Cole asked Kristine. “He said Leary wanted his wallet. What would he need that for?”

Kristine gave a sigh and Andrew heard the frustration loud and clear. She wanted to talk. “None of this makes any sense,” she said.

“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “Look, we have a whole force stillworking the hijacking. We’ll figure it out soon.” They had to. “We can keep thinking on that, but for the moment, until new information comes in, we’re kind of at a dead end.” He blew out a low breath. “What do you say we pivot to focus on catching who’s trying to kill Hank?”

“Do you think this guy knows where the safe house is?” she asked.

Andrew turned the speaker off and waved to the others that the conversation with them was over. Nathan grunted and headed for the kitchen, pulling his phone out probably to call Jesslyn. Cole and Kenzie headed to their stations, where they would be watching from various windows. Outside the perimeter, the rest of the Lake City SWAT team and more officers were backing them up. “It’s hard to say. We made an effort to cover our tracks so as to throw off suspicion that we’re luring him into a trap, but not so careful that he couldn’t find us. All that to say, if he knows we’re here, he doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to do anything about it.”

“Just be careful. Please?”

“Definitely.”

“Okay, Dad’s coming. Gotta run. I’ll let you go. I’ll figure out how to get home later. Keep me updated, will you?”

He didn’t like her not having a plan to get home, but he didn’t get a say. “Of course.”