20. “Girl on Fire”
TWENTY
“GIRL ON FIRE”
(ALICIA KEYS)
A throat was cleared loudly.
Javi and I kept making out, standing by the side of his truck.
A throat was cleared even more loudly.
Javi and I didn’t break our clinch.
What sounded like three throats were cleared loudly along with more than one male chuckling deeply.
Then came Jessie’s, “For shit’s sake!”
We broke our clinch.
But Javi didn’t move too far away.
“Be right out here, lil’ mama,” he said quietly.
“Okay,” I replied, also quietly.
He touched his nose to mine (that was new, and so sweet !), let me go, and with a hand on my back, pushed me toward the opened door to Angels Headquarters.
It was the next night.
We’d had a quiet day.
No calls from my mom (and there wouldn’t be, she’d be alternately sulking and playing the victim).
No calls from Easton (and there wouldn’t be, because I blocked him).
No calls from my dad (this, I had to admit, kinda freaked me, but I’d pressed play on this situation, I had to let the tape run as it would).
Now we were going to have our Angel meeting and Javi was going to hang out, playing bodyguard along with, I saw as I walked the short way to the Headquarters’ door, Cap, Liam, Gabe, Eric and Brady.
They had a couple of six packs and a massive bag from Cane’s.
They’d also come prepared, and they had some fancy camp chairs.
I smelled the chicken goodness wafting from the Headquarters and realized whoever the mastermind was who thought to provide dinner also took care of the Angels.
I stepped over the threshold, and Raye tugged the door down.
“You guys are so cute,” Willow sighed.
We so were .
I smiled at her as I wandered across the space and threw myself on the red sofa.
Shanti shoved a Styrofoam box of Cane’s in my hands.
Yum!
“Let’s get this party started, because I don’t think any of us, particularly those who have getting banged on their schedule for the evening, want to be here all night,” Luna called from her place at the pretty desk close to the door that had a computer and a bunch of monitors on it.
By the way, she was so right about the getting-banged thing.
“Luna and I spent the last couple of hours going through everything Arthur sent, so we have a presentation,” Raye announced, handing me a Black Cherry Fresca and sitting beside me with her own Styrofoam container of chicken tenders, crinkle-cut fries and Texas toast.
Indeed, all the Angels, save Luna, were on the couch, and there was plenty of room, with some to spare.
Seriously. It was a big couch.
“We’re gonna start with Javi’s dad, Lolo. Cool?” Luna called.
I nodded and braced.
The big screen behind the large desk in front of us lit up with a picture of a passably good-looking man who was definitely another product of the loins of Javi’s father.
“Patrick Atherton,” Raye said. “Austin Atherton’s oldest son.”
The image on the screen changed to the same guy with bloodshot eyes, messy hair, and a belligerent expression his face.
Oh, and it was a mug shot.
“Also, total fuckup,” Raye continued. “Drunk and disorderly. DUI, time two. Misdemeanor assault.”
The picture changed to one of Javi’s father, nothing passable about his handsome, drat it.
Raye carried on, “Probably not a surprise, with his looks, though, since we watched some footage, admittedly we learned the guy also has tons of personality and he’s funny as well, Austin got a multi-million-dollar contract as a commentator for the HustleSports station.
Even though he’s been retired from the game for a while, he’s still a big deal.
He has some endorsements, also does a load of speaking engagements, and his fee is astronomical. ”
The screen changed, and it was bodycam footage of Patrick struggling while being arrested, shouting, “Do you know who my dad is?”
“Needless to say,” Raye kept at it when Luna muted the action, “this footage, and more, has made the rounds of social media, and Austin is not a big fan of his son being an entitled asshole. He’s had to apologize publicly…four times…for Patrick’s bullshit.”
Luna cycled through some old pictures of the family of five out and about in the world, and I recognized Julia and Cath immediately, as well as their mom, who wore a lot of makeup, and on her body, along with her bag, it was all designer.
I knew it wasn’t sisterly to think so, but although she was pretty, it was passably, like her son. She was no knockout, like her husband, his son by another woman, and her two daughters.
Patrick got more of his mom, Julia and Cath got what Javi did.
A lot from the genes of their dad.
As these people got older when the pictures clicked along, eventually the woman was gone, as was Patrick, but it looked like Austin had a great relationship with his girls.
As I watched these images cycle through, I felt something happening to me.
“So it isn’t about the divorce,” I said. “It’s man stuff. It’s about the fact he raised a jerk of a son, thus he’s writing him off and thinking he’s got a second shot at creating a decent legacy by finally claiming Javi.”
“Uncertain,” Raye replied softly. “But that would track.”
“Do you think Javi knows about this crap with his brother?” I asked.
“Definitely,” Jessie said glumly.
The screen changed again, and it was the picture of a massive house, and beside it, the address.
“Austin Atherton’s home,” Luna said.
And oh yeah, my blood was boiling.
Javi didn’t even have an armchair (yet), he was thirty-three and only allowed himself to buy new stuff very recently, and this man lived in that house?
Luna went on, “The soon-to-be ex, her name is Tiffany…” Of course it was.
No shade to the cool Tiffanys out there, but…
ugh. “…now lives in a luxury high-rise. Unsurprisingly, Patrick, who’s thirty-four, is unemployed and lives with his mom.
But when you’re ready, we know where Austin lives, Arthur says he can tap into his security system so he’ll know when he’s home, and we can plan our intervention. ”
I nodded, picked up a tender, shoved it in Cane’s awesome special sauce, then shoved it in my mouth and chewed angrily.
Once I swallowed, I said, “Let’s get into the other stuff so we know when that will fit into the schedule.”
The screen went blank and then a picture of what looked like a bank statement came up. This clicked to another one. Onward to a third.
On each, one line item was highlighted.
It was a deposit of ten thousand dollars.
“Trevor Clampitt’s bank statements,” Raye said.
A new image, and it was an enlargement of the highlighted line.
The place where the deposit came from was called Sun Dial LLC.
“Shell company,” Raye informed us. “Arthur’s digging into it, but he reports that wherever this leads, they did a good job in covering their tracks. It’s going to take him some time.”
This was a surprise. Arthur seemed to be able to get his hands on stuff pretty quickly, case in point, the bank statements.
“At the time of his death, Trevor had been unemployed for three months,” Luna called from behind us.
“Thirty thousand dollars is a lot of money,” Shanti noted.
“Smacks of payouts to me,” Jessie put in. “Blackmail?”
“Unknown,” Raye answered, and the image changed. “Police log of evidence taken from Trev’s. They did not get either a laptop or a cellphone.”
And again, Arthur could get his hands on anything.
But…
Interesting.
“So whoever did him and wrecked his place took both,” Shanti shared my thoughts.
“More than likely,” Luna said. “Which means, if they did, they either can’t get into them, or they didn’t get what they want out of them.”
As I bit into my toast, a picture came on screen of Trevor.
“We keep forgetting the basics of an investigation,” Raye began.
“That is, learn all you can about the victim first. So, twenty-nine years old at the time of his death. Second oldest son. Older brother, younger sister. Parents divorced when he was in middle school. Washed out of Arizona State in the middle of the first semester of his junior year. Longest he held down a job was for thirteen months. He sold solar panels. He was good at it but was fired after the second woman he worked with filed a sexual harassment complaint against him.”
“And again, that tracks,” Willow mumbled.
The image on the screen changed, it was obviously a police report, and Luna started talking.
“According to notes from police interviews, not only had that one friend distanced himself from Trev, pretty much all of them thought he was a mooch. He’d made a play on one of his friends’ fiancées, and the friend didn’t like it, the fiancée liked it a lot less.
Quite a few of them shared Trev had pretty much run through them all.
The only one he remained tight with is Kevin. ”
“Shot in the dark since it’s obvious this seems bigger, but did any of them dislike him so much they’d kill him?” Shanti asked.
“That’s kinda extreme, but the police have been thorough, and they’ve cleared them all,” Raye said.
“What about his family?” Jessie asked.
“Prodigal son,” Luna answered. “Mom and dad, brother and sister were wrecked he was murdered, but they shared with the cops that they worried about him and the life he was leading. He didn’t seem to have any direction. And when you don’t have any direction, you end up heading down the wrong path.”
Somehow, we just didn’t know how, outside the dating app scam, he definitely did that.
“None of them know about those deposits,” Raye said. “Except the dad reported Trevor told him he’d landed a good job that paid ‘five figures a month,’ and he seemed flush. But the dad also reported Trevor was cagey about where he worked and what he was doing.”
“I don’t think you can accept a gift of more than ten K before the IRS wants their cut,” Shanti remarked. “So maybe this Sun Dial deposit was payroll.”
“At exactly ten K each month?” Raye asked.
“It’s thin, but the payroll thing could be a cover so he could deposit it in order to pay bills and escape paying taxes,” Shanti replied.