23. Chapter 22
“She’s fine. You can see her,” Berlin murmured.
Still staring out the windshield at the sidewalk of Main Street, Bradford still didn’t like letting Hope out of his presence. Was that a realistic thing to expect? No. Also, he didn’t care. He was irrational and unreasonable when it came to her. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re vibrating with energy.”
“We’re all vibrating with energy.”
“Oh my god,” she muttered. “Wait, there he is.”
Edward Killeen had just stepped out of the hardware store and was striding down the sidewalk, looking half distracted as he headed in the direction of Hope’s attorney’s office.
Bradford texted Hope, who was waiting in the café next door. Go time.
A moment later, Hope stepped out of the café and slid her sunglasses on.
She was carrying pepper spray in the pocket of her pants and…
Fine, Adalyn was watching Killeen through her scope across the street where she was hiding on top of a building with a clear shot of the sidewalk.
If Killeen made one wrong move, she would put a bullet in him.
Was it over-the-top? Yes. And again, he also didn’t care. At all. He would have preferred to be right next to Hope, but they were trying to get Killeen’s reaction to seeing her in the flesh. And Adalyn would have no problem pulling the trigger.
But more than seeing his reaction, they wanted to see what he did next—who he called. They needed him to unlock his phone.
Bradford watched from the SUV. Saw the moment Killeen spotted Hope walking down the sidewalk toward him.
The guy’s body tensed but he didn’t go for a weapon, just watched her cautiously. He was stunned that she was alive.
To give her credit, Hope didn’t even act as if she saw him, just kept on walking and only stopped when she reached her attorney’s office.
Killeen stood there for a long moment, looking as if he was going to follow her.
Bradford had his hand on the door handle, could reach him before he even thought about heading into the lawyer’s office behind Hope.
“Hold on,” Berlin murmured.
But Killeen turned away and pulled out his cell phone—unlocked it to make a call.
“Here we are. Cover me,” Berlin whispered as she slipped out of the passenger seat. She waited until Killeen passed by her, but kept up her pace.
Bradford moved out after her, literally just being her backup in case Killeen realized what she was up to. But Berlin was so damn good, he doubted Killeen would realize anything was off.
The man had unlocked his phone and that was all Berlin needed. But she had to stay within a certain distance of him while she mirrored his phone.
Bradford had a fake coffee cup in hand and a shopping bag he’d stuffed with a towel to give it a shape as he kept a few paces back from Berlin.
Killeen had paused outside a dog grooming shop that advertised their prices right on the window, as well as a display of “puppy treats” that looked more like cupcakes for humans.
Berlin stopped in front of the shop and pretended to take a picture of the prices before she peered inside for a closer look.
Bradford sat on one of the nearby benches lining the main strip, glad there was a decent amount of people out on a Tuesday morning.
Mostly dog walkers and joggers, but it was right after ten and a lot of shops had just opened up, so more people were starting to park and make their way onto the sidewalk.
Made it a lot easier for him to blend in.
Though Killeen wasn’t paying attention to either him or Berlin as he angrily spoke into his cell phone.
When Berlin turned away from him and headed back the way she’d come, Bradford knew she’d gotten what they needed.
Without looking at her, Bradford got up and headed back to the waiting Jeep—one of their company vehicles—and found Adalyn sitting in the back seat, the vehicle already running.
He slid into the driver’s seat, and moments later Berlin was in the front passenger one.
“We’ve got him.” She sounded smug—as she should. “Might not matter if this ends up being a burner, but I’ve now cloned his phone.” She set the phone into the stand in the cupholder, then pulled out her laptop from the footwell.
He texted Hope just to check in and got a message back that she was good, so he could breathe clearly again.
After they’d fooled around last night, he’d simply held her as they finally drifted off to sleep. By the time he got out of the shower this morning, she’d been gone.
Well, she’d been downstairs. But it had felt like she was putting distance between them.
Still didn’t regret last night, even if he should. She hadn’t been weird, exactly, but he’d still sensed her putting those walls back up as they’d eaten breakfast and gone over the plan for today.
Which was simple enough—clone Killeen’s phone and see who he called after spotting Hope. Because his guys had disappeared last night. Just poof.
Into the ether with no contact.
Killeen wasn’t going to let that go. But they needed to know if he had a boss and who he was working with.
The other part of the plan was to get Kim alone and get some damn answers. Unfortunately that was going to be later tonight when she got off work. And Bradford was going with Hope whether she liked it or not.
“I don’t give a shit, I just saw her with my own two eyes walking around town. What the hell happened!” Killeen’s voice came through the laptop loud and clear. “This was supposed to be taken care of.”
“He’s talking to this number. Looks like a burner,” Berlin murmured as she shifted her laptop slightly to show the phone number. “Caller isn’t far from here.”
Bradford eyed the map, saw the little dot was relatively close to Hope’s place. Maybe a neighboring farm?
“I have no idea where they are,” the unknown man said. “Haven’t heard from any of the guys.”
“No one checked in at all last night?”
“Not last night or this morning. I already told you I’d contact you when I heard from one of them.”
“This is bullshit.”
“Look, I can get another crew together,” the unknown man said. “No one connected to you at all.”
“No. Hell no. That’s not the point,” he snarled. “Something weird is going on. Four armed men didn’t just disappear.”
“Maybe she killed them or something?” The man’s tone suggested he didn’t even believe that possibility. “Or maybe that guy with her?”
Killeen’s sigh was filled with derision. “Yeah, a journalist took out four of our guys. There’s no way. Are you screwing with me? And if something happened, her husband would have called the cops. Did they even hit her place?”
“I swear to god they did! Weezer contacted me about half an hour before they were rolling out, said he’d be in contact as soon as it was over. Then I never heard from him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me last night?”
“I already told you. I fell asleep.”
“Bullshit. You got high is what happened. I don’t know why I thought I could trust you to handle something like this.”
“That’s not—”
Killeen ended the call with a savage snarl. He didn’t wait long to start texting.
Bradford watched as the mirrored messages popped up on the laptop.
How’s New Orleans?
“That’s his wife’s number,” Berlin murmured.
Having a great time. Patrick wanted to stay out so we didn’t get in until almost two. I’m exhausted this morning but nothing a café Americano can’t fix. This was followed by a few laughing emojis. Then, I miss you!
I miss you too. Busy with work, will call this afternoon.
His wife texted a bunch of kissy-face emojis and Killeen didn’t respond.
“I don’t think they have an open marriage,” Bradford murmured.
“Nope,” both Berlin and Adalyn said almost in unison.
Bradford really hoped they got to use that video of Killeen and the other woman against him. “Who’s he calling now?”
“Hmm, this isn’t a burner,” Berlin said, pulling the new number up. “Belongs to a woman named Edith Phillips. She’s ninety-two… Okay, this is n’t her on the phone.” Berlin started working on her computer, likely looking up potential relatives as Killeen’s voice came over the phone line.
“I’ve got a job for you.”
“Hit me,” a male voice said.
“I need you to follow Hank’s daughter.”
“The reporter lady?”
“Yeah. Just tail her around. I want to see where she goes, who she talks to, whatever. And don’t let her see you.”
“Anything I’m looking for in particular?”
It was clear by Killeen’s sigh that he was fighting for control. “No. I just want to know what she’s up to. Try to get a picture of her husband too. I need more details on him. He’s been a ghost. She’s at Chelsea Ortega’s office now. No idea how long she’s gonna be there.”
“All right, headed out now. I’m not too far. I’ll try to place a tracker on her vehicle if I can. What’s she driving?”
“I’ll send you the details.”
“Okay.”
Moments later, Killeen texted the make and model of the vehicle Hope had driven that morning—her actual car—to the same number.
She’d parked out of sight of her lawyer’s office. Bradford and the others had driven into town in a Jeep with tinted windows and a lot of rubber ducks on the dash.
“I think we might need to return to her house,” Bradford said. “It’ll look odd if she loses this guy. And we can’t have him tailing her back to the rental.”
“We’ll take him out before then,” Berlin said.
“No… We don’t want them to know we’re on to them.
” Adalyn was silent for a long moment. “Yeah, let’s have her go back to her dad’s.
Bradford, you’ll go with her, obviously.
Then maybe she tells a friend in town, or Kim or the sheriff maybe, that she has friends coming to support her after the loss of her dad.
That’ll be us. Killeen will find out she’s got company.
He won’t make a move on her if she’s got a house full of people with her—and if he does, we’ll just take care of him.
Right now he has no idea what’s going on with her.
We need to keep it that way until we figure out who else is involved with… whatever this is.”
Bradford nodded slowly. “Yeah, keep him guessing, keep him confused.” He texted Hope, letting her know to head back to her place after talking to her lawyer. He’d be following whatever guy ended up tailing her. And if the man got too close, Bradford would end that problem fast.
“We’ll need to find out for sure,” Berlin said.
“But I think that caller might be a man named Alden Phillips. He’s twenty-seven, lives with Edith, takes her to her doctor’s appointments and anything else.
At least according to all her social media posts about him.
He doesn’t have much of an online presence, but he was in the army, got out last year, and does handyman-type jobs.
He has an online social media page for that with his portfolio, but that’s it. ”
“You pull up his army file?” Bradford asked, still watching for Hope to exit her lawyer’s office.
Berlin shook her head. “Still working on that. I’ll have it by tonight.”
“What’s he drive? Or what does his grandmother drive?”
“Nothing in his name but…Edith owns a gray Subaru Outback.”
“I see a gray Subaru, might be our guy,” Adalyn murmured from the back seat right before she slipped out of the vehicle and headed in the direction where it was parking.
He glanced down the street at the incoming traffic. “We’ll get a tracker on that car if possible… I want to get down in that bunker. See what the hell Killeen is hiding down there.” And then take him down.