Part 15 (2/2)

”I'll go to the mortuary. You stay here with the kids. Let me do that for you.”

Morgan shook her head. ”No. I've got to do this.”

”If that's what you want,” he shrugged, ”but first, I've got something for you.” He still had the lease application in his hand. No doubt she already knew about his checking on Camacho. Betty Jean's unexpected phone call to his office. Now he'd reveal the good reason he had for what he'd done.

He handed her the paper, and then watched her closely as she read. Her face was inscrutable. He waited for a reaction. Something. Anything?

”Don't you see? That's why they're sitting on the report at Wheat Ridge. He's got a--”

”I knew all this. I thought I told you. Stan Eisley is handling it. He set up a meeting with the policewoman who interviewed Deidre.”

”But--”

”I know you are just trying to help.” Condescension dripped from her lips, melting him into the naive Oklahoma boy he was when he'd met her. ”You need to back off, Nate. Let our lawyer do his job. Heaven knows we pay him enough.”

Morgan glanced at her watch, gave him a peck on the cheek and picked up her handbag. ”I won't be late,” she said as she headed for the door.

Why was it she could still do that to him? Fifteen hundred dollar suits, the best barbers, dentists, personal trainers, and whatever c.r.a.p it took to make him fit her world-didn't mean jack s.h.i.+t. He was still the Okie kid with his brand new B.S. from UNC in hand, applying for the property manager job at Bayfield Enterprises.

He had been a bit older than your typical new graduate, but then he'd explained how he had to go to work first to earn the money for college. That had made big points with old man Bayfield. He'd gotten the job, ditched his hokey Okie accent and then had summoned the gumption to court his boss's granddaughter.

Morgan was three years older, but hey-he knew from experience that older was sometimes better-up to a point. That gorgeous creature had told him she didn't date. Was it just the brush off? Not so. He'd learned that Morgan was the major caregiver for her mother and baby sister. Stepfather, dead ten years, mother a virtual invalid, and sister Deidre, a nightmare in black nail polish and purple eye shadow at twelve.

Nate told Morgan he didn't mind playing second fiddle. Or even third or fourth. He told her that he admired her dedication. Almost as much as he admired her money, but he'd kept that part to himself.

The Chinese was cold by the time he picked at it. After only a few bites, he decided to pitch the rest. There was no future in warmed-over Chinese. He gathered up his plate, utensils, and the remaining cartons and carried them into the kitchen.

When he opened the dishwasher to deposit his dirty plate, the three cups with their matching saucers that already rested on the top rack raised a question in his mind. He didn't usually have morning coffee at home. Beth didn't drink coffee. Like most teens, she drank pop or that flavored bottled water.

His brain homed in on a sliver of conversation: Stan Eisley set up a meeting with that detective... He scanned the kitchen for some sign that Morgan had received guests that day. They would probably have sat at the kitchen table by the window, not at the dining table.

Why didn't she say she'd already had the meeting? The pink pastry box from Meacham's Bakery, still on the table, told the tale. He opened the lid. Crumbs. Just crumbs.

Why was Morgan keeping things from him? Their relations.h.i.+p had never been that great, but now he'd settle for things to be like they were. Was he paranoid? Was he just being infantile about having his amateur detective work rejected?

He thought back to their early days, like turning pages in an alb.u.m. Courting her had not been easy. Like breaking down a wall. As Morgan relented and they got closer, he was even able to watch her give her mother Elisabeth those shots she needed when the migraines got so bad that nothing else helped. Morgan had looked up to him then, leaned on him even for emotional support. Or had that been his wishful thinking? He'd never let on how watching the needle enter Elisabeth's flesh made him want to puke. Morgan's strength had impressed him back then--not just her ability to give shots without batting an eye, but the way she lifted Elisabeth when the need arose and even carried her, never asking his help. Frankly, sick people freaked him out. Even Morgan in her weakened state was somewhat repugnant to him.

Another thought, triggered by the idea of puking: Kevin's autopsy report was still in his briefcase. He remembered something he was going to check out. Something from the report.

He grabbed Beth's laptop out of her room. Where were those kids anyway? He looked at his watch: 8:30. Then he retreated to the guest room where he opened the laptop and went online. He Googled a word on the autopsy report: meperidine.

As he scrolled down the results, Nate felt moo shoo pork working its way back up his throat.

b.i.t.c.h has to come home sometime. Outside Wehr's apartment Reggie stewed in the rancid juices of the day's events.

The drug bust he'd spent the better part of a year on was down the toilet. The meeting with his team had been depressing. n.o.body came out and said it was his fault. They didn't have to. Who had vouched for JJ? He'd been screwed again. Cabron was probably sitting in some cabana on a Mexican beach, spending Bayfield bucks and drinking tequila.

Reggie popped a handful of Tums to ease the gut ache that had been tearing at him all day. The night without sleep, spent weighing plans to cut his losses, had left him teetering on a crazy place in his head.

How'd he know for sure Wehr had kept the tape that could do in his already shaky career? There was the cell phone conversation he had tapped into last night. Though the tape hadn't been mentioned directly, it confirmed his speculation. From the gist of what Wehr told Veronica Sanchez, she didn't have the tape with her. This meant it still could be in the apartment. Or in a safe deposit box somewhere.

Ironical, he thought, Veronica could bring me down.

But there was still a chance he could beat this thing.

Where was Emily Wehr? Nothing in or out on her landline, which probably meant she led a pretty solitary life. Plain as she was, he didn't wonder. Or, she'd told a bunch of people in advance she was leaving. But...no suitcase?

He'd seen her grab the interstate east last night, but was pretty sure she hadn't made him.

Earlier, after he left his team, he'd ambled into the station at Wheat Ridge to get the lay of the land. No telling what the b.i.t.c.h might've told Commander Marsh after last night's little fiasco.

Reggie had a plan in place. If he went down, Wehr would go, too. He'd say they conspired to use the tape to blackmail the Bayfields.

He'd seen Commander Marsh in with the chief, through the closed gla.s.s door. Maybe nothing. Then he'd mosied into the locker room and seen Susie crossing Wehr's name off the weekly schedule. Susie had told him Wehr was on emergency leave. Family illness. He didn't buy it.

Now he sat weighing his options in his dark green Dodge pickup, a vehicle Wehr wouldn't recognize. Go back in, really tear things apart and maybe find what he missed the first time? Catch Wehr returning and maybe convince her that there was no way she could have a legit reason for keeping the tape. s.h.i.+t! Maybe she'd already acted on that thought and destroyed it. Then, what in h.e.l.l was he doing here? Setting himself up?

Krispy Kreme donuts and black coffee fought a duel in his stomach. Reggie popped another bunch of Tums from the plastic bottle on the truck's console.

He'd already checked back and front for Wehr's car before parking. She couldn't drive in the back without going through the front driveway.

Reggie watched a woman in sweats and a baseball cap key into the common front entrance. A large grocery bag hid most of her face. Something kinda familiar about her. Maybe from his surveillance, but then he didn't have everybody from the building pegged yet. He dipped into a battered briefcase and eyeballed his notes. Nada.

The single mom with two kids from apartment C, upstairs across from Wehr's, buzzed in a pizza delivery guy. Reggie knew this from the kids' faces at the front upstairs window. Pizza!

Seven-thirty. Dusk, but too early for the street lights to go on.

Then he thought he detected movement in Wehr's apartment. Light flickered behind the draped front window. Irregular, pulsing light. Like somebody had turned on the TV. Or the VCR.

”Uncle Nate?” Beth's voice just outside his door. ”Do you have my laptop?”

He quickly logged out and opened the door. Beth stood there in jeans and a tank top. He looked down the hall behind her for Josh.

”Where's Josh?” He closed the laptop and handed it to Beth.

She shrugged. ”Home, I guess.”

”You two haven't had a quarrel?”

Beth took the computer, and then wrinkling her nose, looked at him. ”Why would you ask that?”

”I-No reason.” He tried to smile disarmingly.

”Next time you want to borrow my computer, ask me first,” said Beth. ”Where's Aunt Morgan?” She glanced around, though Morgan seldom entered the guestroom.

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