Chapter Fifty-Seven
Parker
Nate’s already set up in the conference room when I stroll in, my shoulders looser than they’ve been in months.
He studies me, his dark eyes cataloging everything, then nods. “Good. You got some…rest.”
“Among other things.” I reach into my bag and place a muffin next to his keyboard. “The woman at the bakery on Grand said this was the healthiest thing they had. Bran, chia seeds, wheat germ, hemp hearts—whatever those are—and enough pumpkin seeds that Halloween is actively in danger.”
Nate’s brows shoot up. “Why are you bribing me?”
Scowling, I take my seat across from him, coffee tilting dangerously close to the rim of my DPS mug. “I’m not. I’m trying to be a good partner.”
He doesn’t say a word. Five seconds. Ten.
At twenty, he wins. “What happened…at the compound…changed me. I thought I’d put it away.
Compartmentalized it as part of another life.
But that’s not the same as dealing with it.
I was so busy trying to keep everything under control, I didn’t see what it was costing the people around me.
” I glance at the muffin, then back to Nate. “So, I’m trying to do better.”
He lifts the muffin, gives it a sniff, and nods. “You don’t have to apologize for surviving, Parker. Though if that brings more hemp hearts into my life, I won’t complain.”
After a bite of muffin he deems “aggressively acceptable,” Nate slides a piece of paper across the table.
“I should apologize too.”
Now I’m suspicious. “For…?”
“I started going through Apex’s financial records without you. Last night, in fact. Couldn’t sleep. It took two showers and the world’s longest soak cycle on the washing machine to get rid of the scent from Kessler’s apartment.”
Gesturing to my braid, I give him my best side-eye. “Three showers, a hair mask, two washes, and once my clothes were dry, I sealed them in a plastic bag with enough lavender to feed all the bees in Texas. But you were sayin’?”
Nate mirrors his laptop on the wall monitor. Eight-year-old articles of incorporation. Annual reports. Pruitt as the registered agent in the state of Texas, with a second registered agent in Delaware.
“That all looks…exceedingly boring.” I take a sip of coffee, pleasantly surprised it doesn’t taste like motor oil. AJ must have made this pot.
“It was. Which was why I fell asleep ten minutes into it. In bed, this time.” He pulls up another document on Apex letterhead. “Got a solid six hours, which meant I was here at seven, and found this on the thumb drive Martinez brought back from Apex’s headquarters.”
The operating agreement is one more long, dry document in a string of long, dry documents. “That’s not much more than what we got from Pruitt.”
“The front page isn’t. But look at page two.” With an exaggerated flourish, Nate taps his keyboard.
“Capital contribution schedule. Well, bless Apex’s black heart.
That we can use.” The line items are too small to read clearly from across the room, so I round the table for a better look.
The schedule lists five or six members of the LLC, the amount of their buy-in, date, and a memo field.
Most are marked as “initial contribution.” Start-up funds.
Nate aims the laser pointer at the last line. “One hundred and forty thousand in founding capital. Wired in two transfers the month before the articles of incorporation were filed. From Ridgeline Policy Partners.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Neither had I twenty minutes ago.” He’s already moving his browser tab onto the main screen. “They’re a political action committee. Which means…”
“Public records.”
“I’d give you a prize, but I’m out of granola bars and the muffin was a gift.” A few more clicks. “Owned by Senator Gabe Dines.”
Nate throws Gabe’s photo up on screen. Balding, with what remains of his hair shaved almost to the skin, wire-frame glasses, a reddish-brown beard, and the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen outside a commercial for veneers.
He’s got that slick, self-satisfied look of a man who knows he’s powerful and doesn’t give a damn about anyone who isn’t.
“Last election, his signs were on every other lawn in the district.”
“And he won by a landslide. The man tried to eliminate Title IX in schools, Parker. Yet, he’s won every election for the past thirteen years.”
“Tell me how you really feel.”
Nate snorts. “Let’s see what his personal financial statement can tell us.”
A few more clicks, and he’s got the Texas Ethics Commission filing for Senator Dines. “Yep. It’s his. But because the law is sometimes an idiot, he doesn’t have to disclose a fucking thing about where Ridgeline’s money comes from.”
I lean my ass against the table, letting all the various bits of information Nate just threw at me settle.
“He built Apex. Funded the majority of its startup costs eight years ago. But this ain’t enough for a warrant on him.”
“No.” Nate sighs and looks longingly at the muffin. “But if AJ gives us the go ahead, it gets us a conversation.”
AJ listens, looking more and more like he wants to put a fist through something with every minute that passes.
“I sat across from that sombitch at a Chamber of Commerce dinner two years ago. He had the fuckin’ gall to ask me if I wanted him to set me up with his secretary. Said she was a ‘fine piece of ass’ and surely I needed some ‘company’ at night.”
Well, now I hate him on principle. You don’t say that to a man whose wife has been missing for two years.
“Somethin’ about him never sat right with me. But hatin’ him don’t get us anywhere, and—as impressive as it is—neither does all this work. Not on its own.”
“We’re not askin’ to bring him in.” I tap the founding capital line on Apex’s operating agreement. “We’re askin’ to talk to him.”
AJ's quiet for a moment. “You make it damn clear this is voluntary. His office. His terms. He’ll want his lawyer present. Politicians always do. You do this by the fuckin’ book or you don’t do it at all.
And for the love of all that’s holy in this world, don’t say anythin’ that’s gonna get me a call from the governor. ”
I call Senator Dines’s office twenty minutes later.
The woman who answers has the practiced warmth of someone who’s fielded angry constituents day in and day out.
When I explain who I am and what I’m asking for, she puts me on a brief hold, then comes back and offers us an eleven a.m. appointment tomorrow at his office.
I assure her we’ll be there with bells on, hang up, and scrub my hands over my face.
Gabe Dines might be responsible for this whole damn operation, but I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to prove it.
Eliot
After being on my feet in a hundred and one degrees since eight this morning, I ain’t proud of the sound I make stepping through the doors of the Ranger station. I don’t want to know what their electric bill is like running the AC this cold all summer long.
Parker and Nate are in the conference room. She looks up when I step through the door, a tiny smile curving her lips. “Hey there. I thought you were inspectin’ all day.”
“You know how some people say their body’s a temple?
” I angle a pointed gaze at Nate. “Mine’s from the middle of the Stone Age.
But we’re down to the last twenty or so buildings, and half of ‘em are either empty or the businesses leasin’ them are small enough to relocate for a few days.
I’m sendin’ most of the other inspectors home tonight. ”
“I count thirty-three lines with no status update,” Nate says. “That isn’t twenty.”
“Whoa there, Pookie. I said twenty or so. The other eleven burned down some time in the past eight years. Four of them this month. I’ll go through the arson investigation files for the others tomorrow. From my desk. Where no one’s gonna ask me to climb a fuckin’ ladder.”
Nate holds up his hands. “Sorry. The data guy likes it when the numbers match.”
“You should have enough data to see trends now. Ownership, inspection date, type of deficiency. I tried makin’ the pivot table, but all I got was garbage.”
I sink down next to Parker, and she rests her hand on my thigh under the table.
“You look wiped. I’m gonna get you a water. Dr. Pepper too?” she asks.
“God, yes.” I’d kiss her if Nate weren’t sitting across the table from me. Or if I didn’t smell like yesterday’s trash drenched in sweat.
The door swings shut, and I let my head fall against the back of the chair. If I close my eyes—
“Whatever happened this weekend,” Nate says quietly, his gaze never leaving his laptop screen, “it did her good. She’s…more Parker than she’s been in a while.”
I’m so shocked, I can’t come up with a response to save my life.
Before I recover enough to say anything, Parker practically dances back into the room. “Guess who just got a text from the lab.”
Nate’s still typing, but one of his brows curves upward. “They finally process that damn memory card?”
“Yep. They’re sending the link to our inboxes now.”
“What memory card?” I ask.
Parker sets the drinks in front of me and wipes her hands on her jeans. “Kessler’s. We found it taped to the underside of one of his dresser drawers.”
“And you haven’t looked at it yet?” I can’t help my skepticism.
The glare she gives me could strip paint. “Someone spent a fair bit of time makin’ Kessler’s death look like an accident, Eliot. We weren’t gonna touch it until the lab pulled prints from the card and the tape.”
“Fire guy, remember?”
With a sigh, Parker returns her hand to my knee. “Sorry. I think we’re all runnin’ a little hot. And there’s a lot you don’t know.”
“Well, I’m here now.” I link our fingers under the table and give her hand a squeeze. “Catch me up.”
“The ME confirmed Kessler’s cause of death was strangulation, but she also found what might be an injection site.
Toxicology report won’t be back for another twenty-four hours, and the decomp was too severe for her to say for sure.
But that’s two inspectors dyin’ under suspicious circumstances, both connected to Apex. ”
Nate’s building pivot table after pivot table, not pausing to look at any of them, while Parker continues to fill me in on what they discovered this morning.
“A state senator? Fuck me.”
Across the table, Nate chokes on a sip of water. “There are approximately seventeen things I could say right now. I’m choosing none of them. Apparently, I still have boundaries.”
Parker’s lips twitch. “Your restraint has been noted. If you’re done color coding the entirety of the known universe, can we talk about all those pivot tables?”
Nate gets to his feet, laser pointer in his hand.
“Seven. Seven companies own all forty-one of the buildings Eliot and his team flagged. The top issue was inadequate water supply with or without a missing fire pump. Second was the fireproof coating on the steel columns, and third was missing firewalls. Coincidentally, these are also in order of how much a company would need to spend to fix them.”
“Well, that gives us ammunition for the warrants,” Parker says.
Nate heaves a sigh. “Judge Nesbitt is going to love us. Or she’ll throw us out and permanently ban us from her chambers.”
Parker huffs out a laugh. “Only one way to find out.”