Chapter 56
“You were very lucky, Detective Jensen,” the ER doctor said as he signed her discharge papers. “The bullet passed through the fleshy part of your upper arm. It will be sore for a while, but I don’t see any permanent damage. It should heal up nicely.”
“Thank you.”
A patrol officer dropped Lainie off at home sometime early in the morning. So much was on her mind. The patrol officer told her he’d heard that Benton was expected to survive.
“She went into surgery and provided she comes through it okay, they’re lining up guys to guard her until she can be moved to county jail.”
With two shootings under her belt, one fatal, she could no longer avoid talking to the department psychologist. Lainie wasn’t certain why she didn’t want to talk to psych, she just didn’t.
Right now, she was wired and not certain she could get to sleep. Setting her fanny pack and Evie’s Bible down, Lainie decided to take a shower, hoping the warm water would relax her nerves and help her get to sleep. She had to keep the stitches dry, but half a shower was better than nothing.
She thought back to her conversation with Ben about the SUV driver.
“He has an extensive record and was also employed by Quartz Enterprises. At one time he was Vine’s bodyguard. Bucshon told me he thought Plug and Benton were having an affair,” Ben had said.
The whole episode raised so many questions in Lainie’s mind. As the hot water ran over her head, she ran through just a few of the big ones.
Why was a prayer journal hidden in Evie’s car?
Why did Benton come after it?
Was Benton working for Vine or against him?
Where was Vine?
Shower finished, Lainie dressed in comfortable sweats and a long sleeve T-shirt. She pulled her wet hair back into a bun and settled onto her couch. She didn’t have a television set so she thought about streaming something on her computer.
Maybe I should just read instead.
The only books she had were her brand-new Bible and a blank journal.
Her old, well-used ones—from years ago—burned up in her house.
As kids, Lainie and her siblings had been given blank journals on Christmas Day every year by their folks in the hopes that they would record prayers and important points they learned in church on Sundays.
Lainie was faithful for many years to do just that.
But when she walked away from church, she walked away from that habit as well.
She got up to retrieve her Bible and noticed Evie’s. She was certain that Evie was faithful to keep up a journal. There was probably a lot of wisdom and insight in her journal.
She unzipped the Bible cover and laid it out on the table.
On top of the Bible was a plain black notebook.
It wasn’t anything like the journals their parents used to give them.
It was smaller, almost industrial. Lainie frowned.
Had her sister’s tastes changed so much over the years?
She set the notebook aside and leafed through the Bible, smiling at all the notes Evie had written in the margins.
Here and there were also prayers and exclamation marks when something the pastor had said touched her heart.
Lainie read several notes and then wondered if this was a violation of Evie’s privacy. She decided not and her attention returned to the odd little notebook.
Lainie opened it. Inside the front cover was a sticky note with a handwritten message on it.
Ben, sorry I messed up—if you’re reading this, I did. Found this little gem in one of Vine’s SUVs. It’s got everything: the code legend, names, and involvement of other players, and I only scanned a small portion of it. I pray to God it gets to you. Tell Candy that I love her. Efren
Her heart nearly stopped. This was the ledger, not what they had put into evidence. Efren might have thought that he messed up, but he protected the book.
Lainie grabbed her phone to call Ben just as someone pounded on her door.