Page 118 of Traces Of You

“Everything I’ve seen shows Randy is the one with the drugs, Oliver just hiding them at times. Not sure what or if this officer is involved,” Grady said. “But he’s there with them and carrying bags.”

“You feel it,” Clay said. “And that is enough for me.”

“Send me a bill for your time,” Ford said. There was no way this guy was doing this for nothing.

“I’ll square up with Clay,” Grady said. “You two can work it out. But this has been more fun than I thought it’d be. Might see a future in the PI arena. Thanks for that.”

He heard laughing on the other end, Clay said a few more things to his buddy and then disconnected the call.

“Now what?” Ford asked. “Tell me more about your buddy.”

“His instincts are there. I’d let him cover my ass in the field any day and have.”

“Sounds as if things are just too clean,” he said. “There’s a chance we are making more out of it. Or that they have movedon and aren’t worried about the stash. It’s not much compared to other deals.”

“No,” Clay said. “Unless there is something special about them.”

“Special? It’s a thousand pills, and Reenie doesn’t have them. I’ve been in the cabin. There isn’t anything there that doesn’t belong.”

“There isn’t,” Clay said. “I checked her car for hidden compartments.”

“What the fuck, Clay.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” his brother said. “It was a while ago. Sorry, but I know what I know and I’m not taking chances with the family. You never go into anything blind.”

“You found nothing and you know it.”

“I just said that,” Clay said. “There were no traces either that I could see.”

“When did you do it? Someone would have seen you during the day when it was parked at the cafe.”

“One night,” Clay said, shrugging. “She was never the wiser. I can get around without making noise.”

The fact his brother was outside of the cabin when Reenie was sleeping, going through her car that she locked nightly, frustrated him. Not that Clay could do it, but that he’d done it and never said a word until now.

“You would have told me if you found anything, right?”

Not that he had any doubt there was nothing to find.

Yet didn’t he accuse her of that when he found out weeks ago that pills were missing?

All he knew was what was in his heart twenty years ago and what was there now was much more intense.

That should be enough, but he wasn’t naïve to think that was the case.

“You would have been the first to know,” Clay said.

“It bothers you that Reenie is the victim, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“Then what does?”

There was a flicker of hurt and anger in Clay’s gaze. “What bothers me is her history of leaving. Not just when she was a kid and had no control over those things, but as an adult. The way she went about this.”

“She wanted to make sure he didn’t come after her.”

“Great,” Clay said. “I can almost understand her drugging him so that she had hours to go. She could have made up a lot of ground before he woke, but the blood staged and then cleaned up. As if he was hiding a crime that he didn’t commit.”