Distortion (Moonlighters Series) (20 page)
He got back into his car and pulled away, checking out the rest of the area. Why would Bob have a seven-figure home that Juliet didn’t know about? It wasn’t for Amber. She lived in a patio home. Did he have
another
woman?
But the security system was far more sophisticated than a normal home would have.
He drove to the nearest Starbucks, sat in the parking lot, and used his laptop to look up the real estate records for that property. Bob wasn’t listed as the owner. The title holder was D&B Properties. He did a quick search—D&B had a business license, but nothing else he could find. That was unusual. Most businesses had a paper trail of some kind.
Michael knew Sid well enough to know that he wouldn’t have installed a security system without knowing he was dealing with the owner. Bob must have proven to him that he was the owner of D&B.
So if Bob owned this house that was wired like Fort Knox and a company called D&B with no paper trail . . . this house wasn’t your run-of-the-mill residence. Bob was using it for his extracurricular activities.
Satisfied that he’d made some progress, he headed back across town to get Cathy.
A
fter a couple more stops, Amber led Juliet and Holly to an apartment complex. Juliet pulled into a space across the parking lot and climbed into the back of the van. She had a clear view out her rear window, and through her camera’s zoom she watched as Amber got the baby out of the backseat and carried him into the building with her.
“Write down this address,” Juliet told Holly as she snapped Amber going in.
They waited, silent, for Amber to come out. “Keep your camera pointed at the door she went in,” Holly said. “Whoever she’s visiting may be visible when she comes out.”
Juliet already had the lens zoomed in on the door.
“I need to eat something,” Holly said. “My stomach is growling so much it’s scaring the baby.”
“You knew we were doing surveillance. You should have packed some granola bars or something.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“So what do you want to do? Lose this trail so we can go get you a burger?”
Holly grunted. “Of course not.”
“Look in my purse. I have some protein bars in there.”
Holly moved to the front and dug into Juliet’s purse. “You carry these all the time?”
“Usually, for my kids. You qualify.”
“You don’t have to get snippy.” Holly tore open the wrapper and got back into position. “I thank you and the baby thanks you.”
The baby. Juliet wished Holly had a name picked out. But she hadn’t been able to afford an ultrasound yet. She would get one, though, on her next doctor’s visit. Juliet had promised to help her pay, since Holly had no insurance. Then they would know the sex of the baby.
“Door’s opening,” Holly said. “You got a good view?”
“Yes.” Juliet snapped a few pictures as Amber came out. “She’s turning back. Somebody’s in the doorway.” She zoomed in more, trying to see who was inside. It looked like a man. He was tall, over six feet, but the inside of the apartment was too dark to see more. She took pictures anyway, hoping something would come out. Then she got lucky—he stepped outside and walked with Amber toward the parking lot, his door still open behind him.
As he stepped out of the shadows, Holly gasped. “No way!”
Juliet’s mouth fell open as she locked onto his face and snapped. “Leonard Miller.” She would recognize that face anywhere. “Call Michael.”
Juliet took one picture after another as Holly got Michael on the phone again. “We’ve got Leonard Miller,” she blurted when he answered.
Juliet could hear Michael’s excited response: “Are you sure?”
Holly gave him the address and apartment number. “Want us to stay with him or follow Amber?”
“Stay with him until I get there,” Michael said.
As Amber got into her car and drove out of the parking lot, Miller closed himself back into his dark apartment. Juliet lowered her camera and drew in a deep breath.
“Man, are we good or what?” Holly asked.
Juliet couldn’t help smiling and giving her a high five.
W
here are you going?” Cathy asked Michael as he turned his car around.
“I’m taking you home before I go to Miller’s apartment.”
“No, I want to go!”
His jaw muscle was clenched tight, and she could see the intense anger on his face. “Cathy, I’d rather you didn’t.”
“I don’t care what you’d rather. I’m as invested in this as you are.”
“But it might get dangerous.”
She stared at him for a moment. “What are you going to do? Go in there and beat the daylights out of him?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then I’m coming. You’ll need me. Between the two of us, we can gather a lot of information about him. We’re not letting him disappear this time.”
Michael still hadn’t turned back around—he was taking her home. “Michael, Miller lives that way. Turn the car around.”
Michael let out a great sigh and turned into a parking lot.
As he circled it and came out, Cathy sulked. But Michael was quiet too.
“I know how you feel,” she said in a softer voice. “I feel the same way. I dream about Miller suffering. Tortured. Locked behind bars. I could hurt him.”
Michael didn’t answer.
“But, Michael, we have to keep our heads. We have to do this right.”
Michael’s eyes had taken on a steely determination as he drove. “We’ll do it right, don’t worry about that. Leonard Miller is about to get what’s coming to him.”
S
chool was the last place Zach wanted to be today, but when his mother had given him the choice, he’d decided to go. Uncle Jay had a password on his computer, so Zach couldn’t get on it without telling him why. The password was mainly to keep Jackson from getting on the computer when he wasn’t supposed to, and since his cousin was only five, Zach got that. But he didn’t want every Google search to turn into some big hairy deal. At school, he could search in peace.
The first few teachers who’d greeted him with hugs had made him mad, and he’d locked into brooding mode, practically daring anyone to talk to him. Some of the girls ventured too close and told him how sorry they were about his dad, but he pretended not to hear. What was wrong with them? Couldn’t they see when somebody didn’t want to talk?
He thought of putting a sign around his neck that said, “Yes, I’m fine. Leave me alone.” But that would just draw more attention.
He bided his time, paying no attention in class, counting down the minutes until he had computer lab. Finally, fifth period came. By now, most of his classmates were giving him his space, but the teachers hadn’t got the memo.
Mrs. March greeted him at the door. “Zach, I didn’t expect you back so soon.” She touched her chest as if she was about to cry. He hoped he didn’t get stuck having to comfort her. “I know this has been a hard week for you.”
“I’m okay,” he managed to say around the knot in his throat.
“I won’t make you take the test today since you’ve been out for a few days. You can make it up next week.”
Zach didn’t even know there was a test. “Okay, thanks.”
Good. Now he’d have time to get on the Internet and see what was going on with his dad’s case.
He waited until the test started and his classmates were working, then he signed onto the computer and got online. He googled “Dr. Bob Cole Murder Panama City” and waited as the list of related articles came up.
He clicked on the first one. It only outlined what had happened the night his father was shot. Nothing new. The next one was pretty much the same, but told about the arrest of Jerome Henderson in his father’s shooting.
He made a mental note to find out everything he could about Henderson. But first he clicked on the third link, which took him to the
News
Herald
, Panama City’s local newspaper. Today’s news links came up, but he saw nothing about his father. He typed “Bob Cole” into the search box, and several headlines came up. He skimmed them, looking for the most recent one.
There it was—an article posted two hours ago. “Bob Cole Murder—Drug Deal Gone Bad?”
He clicked on the article and saw a photo of his dad that he hadn’t seen before. His pulse throbbed in his temples as he leaned forward and read.
Panama City Police Department spokesman Horace Gerrison told the
News Herald
today that the investigation into the murder of Dr. Bob Cole was turned over to the FBI, after Drug Enforcement Agency officials in Florida alerted police that the prominent spine surgeon had been on a watch list for the past year.
Sources say that Dr. Cole was suspected of money laundering and drug trafficking, though officials at the DEA and the FBI declined to comment. However, anonymous sources at the PCPD confirmed that the murder may have been drug-related.
Cole was gunned down in front of his wife in the U-Haul store parking lot on Highway 57. Dr. Cole’s wife identified Jerome Henderson in a lineup, and he was arrested. FBI agents have confirmed that the investigation continues and that Henderson may have been part of a larger conspiracy.
Zach wanted to put his fist through the computer. What did they mean, drug trafficking? And money laundering . . . what was that?
He read the article again. Were they implying that his dad was to blame for his own murder? That he’d made drug dealers mad or something?
Those were lies! His dad was a good man. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he blinked them back and looked around. His classmates were focused on their tests, but if he lost it, all eyes
would be on him. No, he couldn’t do this. Not here in front of everybody.
Heat flushed his cheeks; his chest grew tight. He closed the computer window so no one else would see the article, and got up. He slipped between desks to where the teacher sat. “Mrs. March, I don’t feel good. I need to go home.”
She gave him a long, sympathetic look, which didn’t help. “It’s okay, Zach.” She wrote out a hall pass. “Maybe it’s too soon to be back?”
He grabbed the yellow slip and rushed out of class and into the bathroom across the hall. He stood at the sink and let the tears go.
Why had his dad been on a drug watch list? What did that mean? He was a surgeon—a great one—and people respected him. Now he’d been shot dead in the middle of a parking lot, and they were twisting this around and trying to make him the bad guy?
No
way.
He went into a stall and sat down, pressing his face into his palms as he wept. The sound of footsteps made him cover his mouth to muffle his sobs until the boy left. He couldn’t let people see him like this . . . hear him like this.
He had to talk to his mom.
He went to the sink and threw water on his face, then wiped it off with a paper towel. Taking a deep breath, he headed for the office.
Two student workers stood at the front desk and looked up at him as he came in.
He looked past them to the secretary beyond. “I need to go home,” he told her.
“Zach, are you okay?” the girl at the desk asked.
“No. I have to call my mom.”
The secretary came to the desk and handed him the school’s landline with that stupid look of sympathy. He hated that look. “Sure, go ahead, honey.”
Zach punched in the number and turned his back to them, not wanting them to see him if he fell apart again.
J
uliet’s phone rang as she waited with Holly in the van for Michael to arrive at Leonard Miller’s apartment complex. She recognized the number that came up—Zach’s school. Quickly, she clicked it on. “Hello?”
“Mom, it’s me.” Zach sounded hollow, stopped up.
“Honey, are you okay?”
“No,” he said simply. “Come get me. I don’t want to be here.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Just come get me. I can’t be here.” His voice was muffled, low.
She closed her eyes, hurting for him. “Okay, but I can’t come right this second. It’ll be a few minutes before I can leave.”
“No, Mom! I can’t go back to class. Please just come.”
She frowned at the urgency. “Did something happen?”
“Yes.” His voice flattened to a whisper. “I read what they’re saying in the paper, okay? Everybody’s going to think he’s . . .” His whisper faded out.
Alarmed, Juliet met Holly’s eyes. “Zach, what did it say?”
“We can talk about it when you get here. Just hurry. Will you ask her to let me wait in the office?”
Juliet sighed. “Yes, put Miss Carol on the phone.”
In a moment, the secretary’s voice came on. “Hi, Juliet,” she said. “I’m really sorry he’s so upset. What you must be going through.”
Juliet didn’t know what to say. “Look, I can’t get there for a few minutes. Can you let him sit in your office until I do? Just don’t make him go back to class. I think I needed to give him the rest of the week. He’s really grieving.”
“I can see that,” she said. “I’ll get him a drink and let him cool off.”
Juliet ended the call and leaned her head back on the seat. “I can’t believe this. Did you hear that? The newspaper is onto Bob’s past. Now it’s going to be all over the news.”
“I’m looking this up.” Holly was already on the Internet on her phone. She found the article recently posted on the newspaper site, skimmed it quickly. “Okay, it really doesn’t go into any detail about the trafficking and stuff. It just says there are rumors that the murder had a possible drug connection and that Bob had been on a DEA watch list.”
Juliet took the phone and read. “How did they find out?”
“People talk. At the DEA, the police department . . . anytime humans are involved, you know somebody’s going to spill it.”
Juliet didn’t know how much more she could take. “What am I going to tell people? And now the kids have to deal with it.”
“Maybe it’s not so bad. For now, let the kids think it’s just a rumor. People who knew Bob won’t think it’s true.”
“But it
is
true,” she said weakly. “And the kids will have
to know the truth soon enough. Zach is too adept at googling and researching things on his own. There’s no way to keep him in the dark.” She put her hand over her mouth. “I never thought I’d feel this way about my own husband.”