Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Cole
H ad this been a mistake? Was I going to look like a total tool?
Parker Gagnon had texted and asked if I could stop by, so I headed over to Hebert Timber and met her in the conference room she’d turned into an investigation headquarters of sorts.
Gus and Chloe had stopped by to say hello. The moment they appeared, I was swamped with guilt. They’d been working nonstop with Parker and the FBI for the past few months. There was no way this ordeal wasn’t weighing on them heavily. Even if my oldest brother didn’t show an ounce of the stress that had to be plaguing him. Honestly, I’d never seen Gus so happy before. He’d admitted a few months back that he’d always wanted to be a father and worried that it would never happen.
Then his ex-wife had come back to town, and the baby was due in a few months.
“I’m going to run through preliminary findings with you, show you a few photos, and ask some questions.”
I nodded. “Not sure how much help I can be.”
She waved me off, the move making the largest diamond I’d ever seen sparkle. It could have taken someone’s eye out. “You’d be surprised what you might know. This is a family company, and our town is small. So many things are connected.”
She had me talk through my understanding of the business, her expression one of interest, never making me feel like an idiot for how little I knew. Then she guided me through an org chart of everyone who had worked under my father before his arrest.
“You were close with your father?”
I snorted, my chest tightening painfully. “Not very.”
“But of all the brothers, it seemed like he took the most interest in you. I found records for flights and hotel stays he expensed so he could watch you play hockey.”
Forearms on the table, I dipped my chin. “Yeah, Dad was a big fan of hockey.” And a raging narcissist who would lash out if I didn’t play well, if I didn’t make him look good. Every time I looked up and saw him in the stands, whether it was on the peewee league or when I went pro, it made me sick to my stomach.
Parker had set up whiteboards on the walls, where she’d listed names and dates. The room was filled with dozens of file boxes too. I couldn’t imagine I had any information she didn’t already know. Clearly, I was wasting this poor woman’s time.
“Did he spend a lot of time with Chief Souza?” she asked, her head bent over a notepad as she jotted down notes.
“Yeah. When I was a kid, they’d go hunting together a lot, and he came over for dinner once a week or so.”
“And in the couple of years before your dad’s arrest?”
“I wasn’t around much then, but I assume they were still friendly.”
Humming, she tapped her pen against her chin.
“Can you look through some of these photos for me? I’m curious about the items the feds seized in their forfeiture case. Cars, real estate, jewelry,a few pieces of art.”
I flipped through the photos in the binder and stopped on one in particular. “And the watches.”
She sat back in her chair and assessed me. “Tell me about the watches.”
“My dad was a big watch collector.” I pressed a finger to the first of dozens of photos of his collection. The federal government had definitely gotten a good chunk of change for some of these. “Obsessed really. He called them ‘timepieces.’ That was a bunch of pretentious bullshit, if you ask me.”
Parker laughed, the sound warm and genuine.
“He made a big deal about the Holy Trinity, the three best Swiss watchmakers in the world.”
The collection began when I was a kid. He bought himself a Rolex for his fortieth birthday and one for my mom after that. From there, he got more and more ambitious.
She nodded at the pictures in front of me. “What are those?”
I was not a watch guy, but I’d spent my entire childhood listening to my dad’s lectures, so I could recognize most brands at a glance and could spot the difference between a ten-thousand-dollar watch and a one-hundred-thousand-dollar watch easily.
I pointed to one grouping of photos. “These are less exclusive brands. Rolex, Nardin, Breguet. But this one.” I tapped my finger on another image. “This is a Patek Philippe. Super famous. And this one,” I said, pointing to a diamond-shaped face casing with complicated mechanics. “That’s a Vacheron Constantin. Super old-school.” I continued to peruse the pictures, allowing memories to come to mind as I did. Watches were one thing that made Dad happy, and since I craved his positive attention, I always pretended to care. Somewhere along the way, I supposed I absorbed the information. When he gifted me a watch the day I got drafted, I was overwhelmed with the briefest sense of belonging. That was washed away quickly, though, when he launched into berating me about training harder.
“Hold on,” I said, flipping through the book. “There’s one missing.”
“Something valuable?” Parker asked, one brow arched.
I nodded. “It’s an Audemars Piguet. He bought me a matching one as a gift. He gave it to me when I got drafted. It’s engraved with my name and the date. So is his.”
“Maybe he was wearing it when he was arrested?”
I shrugged. That was possible. “It was made of stainless steel rather than precious metals. He said I could wear it to games for good luck.” Not that I ever did. It was hard enough not to get my ass kicked on a minor league hockey team without flashing around a fifty-thousand-dollar watch.
But I’d kept it, moved it with me from city to city. Always tucked safely in its fancy leather box. The moment he’d given it to me, I’d felt a sense of pride I’d never experienced. And I was ashamed to admit it, but the gift had made me feel loved. Now, that notion was ridiculous. But I was a nineteen-year-old kid who’d spent my life feeling left behind by my half brothers and striving to earn my dad’s love.
Pathetic.
On the bright side, at least I’d have plenty to talk about in therapy this week.
“I’ll look into it,” she said. “Do you think someone could have stolen it?”
“Not sure.” I kept flipping, looking at the cars, his beloved boat, and all the other shit he’d accumulated over the course of his life. How was all this worth the crimes he’d committed?
Nice cars were cool and all, but to obtain them by hurting people, by killing people? And destroying his family in the process? The notion turned my stomach.
The longer I looked at photos, the more despondent I felt. No wonder I was such a fuck-up. I never had a fucking chance with this kind of role model.
“You okay?”
Choking back the self-loathing, I nodded. “Sorry, it’s that, sometimes, I can’t believe this is my life.”
“It’s okay,” she assured me as she scratched out more notes. “The watch info is helpful. I’m gonna call some local pawn shops, see if it ended up in one of them. Could be a good lead. Your brothers didn’t know much about the watches.”
Huh. A facet of the investigation I had more knowledge of? That felt surprisingly good.
“Anything else I can help with?”
Without stopping her note-taking, she waved her left hand, gesturing to the room. “Feel free to look around, see if anything jumps out at you. I’d love for you to email me the dates and locations of games he flew to over the past few years.”
I nodded. I could do that, painful as it might be.
With my hands in my pockets, I made a slow circle around the room, looking through the photos she had spread out on one of the tables before moving to the whiteboards. Most of the information she’d collected was related to the lumber business—names of mills, delivery schedules, buyers the company had worked with, photos of machinery and land.
“What’s this?” I asked, pointing to a whiteboard.
She straightened and squinted. “Deimos Industries?”
I nodded.
“No fucking clue. It’s a corporation based in Delaware. Supposedly, they’re in the merchandising business. Owen and Lila found suspicious financial records connected to them, but we can’t trace anything or figure out how they fit. I’ve spoken to my contact at the Department of Commerce, but they’re swamped and haven’t gotten back to me.”
“I’ve seen this before. It’s familiar.”
Parker stood and shuffled to my side, her attention focused on the name. “Where? When?”
I scratched my head. “Not sure. When I was planning RiverFest, I had to look up a bunch of stuff in the archives. Maybe there? Maybe not, but that name is familiar. I’m pretty certain it’s connected to this town.”
Eyes closed, I took a deep breath and willed my brain to connect the dots. I’d seen it. Somewhere random. While doing something routine. But I lost the thread, came up empty. Fuck.
“Okay. That’s still helpful,” Parker said, pacing with her hands on her hips. “This is the first lead we’ve had on this.”
Lips pursed, I studied the whiteboard again, looking at the list of dates and dollar amounts, but nothing jumped out at me.
“Could it be a creditor?” I asked.
She shook her head. “There’s money going in and coming out.”
“So…” I trailed off, unsure of why this was so significant.
“Probably money laundering. Your father may have been using the timber business to launder money for another criminal organization.”
Money laundering? That term landed like a punch to the gut.
“And the fire?” I croaked. “The threats?”
“All possibly connected.”
Damn. There were people still out there. We knew that. And we knew there were threats. But all this information really made it come into focus.
“I’ll find out,” I said quickly. “I’ll get to the bottom of Deimos.”
If there was a chance my family was in danger, then I’d do what I could to protect them. For so long, I’d assumed the fire in the shop had been set by a disgruntled employee. But Gus and Owen had been right. There was a hell of a lot more to this.
My head spun at the implication. I’d been so na?ve. So consumed by my own bullshit that I’d failed to register that actual threats to my family existed. Threats that affected Merry, Thor, and Gus and Chloe’s baby. Debbie too. And even my mom.
When would this shit end? When would we be free of my father’s poisoned legacy? I’d spent all my therapy sessions hashing out my childhood shit, consumed with my own problems, while there was a criminal organization lurking in the shadows.
“Are you okay?” Parker asked.
I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat. “No. I’m not.” I grabbed my jacket. “I’ve got to get to practice, but I will find Deimos. I swear.”
She patted my shoulder and smiled up at me. “Investigations take time, Cole. I’m working through this. And you’ve been a huge help.”
That was debatable. But I could do more. I would do more.
I left, my shoulders weighed down by the shame of being a self-centered prick, and hopped into my truck. It was time for hockey practice.