Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Present Day
Palm Springs, California
Mission Day Three
Mick grabbed an outside table at the coffee place—a quirky mom-and-pop called Caffeinated Cathy’s—while Emily waited in line to place her order.
He’d run about an eighth of his normal distance, at about half of his usual pace, but he’d loved every minute of it and it was clear that Emily did, too.
She was tall and athletic and it totally made sense that she’d love using her body in this way.
When they got back to LA, he’d take her on some of his favorite trails, far from the busy streets.
Where her mom should’ve gone to train for her race—although in no universe was Marina’s death her own fault.
It was one thing to train for a half-marathon on the trails when you had a few million dollars in the bank—another entirely when you had to get up hours before work to do it.
No, Emily’s mother’s death was entirely on his father, who’d been behind the wheel of the car that had hit her.
Mick had gone back into the old man’s library office to confront him about that, shortly after his unsuccessful visit to Frank Santana.
He’d first made sure, though, that the evidence he’d stumbled across was safeguarded.
He’d put digital copies into the hands of Etta Caldwell, the lawyer he’d found through an internet search—the same lawyer who then helped him change his name.
Attorney Caldwell had no connections to his father—he’d been certain of that not merely from her reassurances, but because she was a woman of color.
In no universe would his bigoted shit-stain of a sperm-donor have ever hired her for anything other than housekeeper, maid, nanny, or nurse.
Mick had gone into the estate library while his father was on the phone. Just opened the door and walked on in, sat down in one of the chairs in front of that big wooden desk and waited.
The old man scowled at him and made shooing motions with his hand. And when Mick didn’t move, he ended his call with a rather huge mad-on.
“What is wrong with you?”
It was a perfectly pitched question—it came in sweet and fat and steady, right over the proverbial home plate, flawlessly positioned for Mick to hit it clean out of the park. So to speak.
So Mick smiled, his own anger compressed tightly down into this glittering, hard diamond of action. This action would achieve an outcome that was not even close to fair, but would be tolerable, considering the unsurmountable challenges that true justice would require.
What was wrong with him?
“I dunno, Dad, finding glaring evidence that proves you set me up to take the blame for Marina Santana’s murder has made me a little... snippy.”
Ah, the look on his father’s face...
“I think I’m probably entitled to move up in priority—at least above a phone call to the club reserving a tee time for tomorrow, I mean, that’s reasonable, don’t you think?”
“Whatever you think you’ve found—”
“Oh, it’s not whatever, Dad. It’s everything. Fact—I’d say fun fact, but four years in prison was certainly not fun for me—I was in Las Vegas on the night of the murder.”
“It wasn’t a murder—”
“Oh, excuse me. Vehicular manslaughter, although who could know the killer’s true motivation—oh wait, that would be you! And you insist it wasn’t murder. I’m so glad we cleared that up.”
His father was silent now, so he kept going.
“Fact: You drugged me and made that video of me in the driveway, sitting in your car, and you forged the timestamp to that of the night of the accident. Kinda crazy that you saved the original, but it was probably your first murder cover-up—excuse me, vehicular manslaughter cover-up—so you made some newbie mistakes. Completely understandable.”
“If you have this evidence, why tell me, why not go to the police?”
“Hmm, good question. Why not go to the police? I’m gonna go with: because I have to assume that you’ve still got someone over there on your payroll.
There are big, blue fingerprints all over this cover-up.
Plus, ugh, we’ll end up in court and it’ll be ugly and I really don’t want to do that to the murder victim’s—oops sorry, vehicular manslaughter victim’s long-suffering family. ”
“What do you want.” His father’s voice was flat.
“There’s the question of the hour,” Mick said, slow clapping. “That’s the one I’ve been waiting for.” He leaned in. “You are gonna gift me five million dollars.”
His father choked. “Five million...?”
“Yup,” Mick said. “The one point five from my original trust, with another one point five for, well, let’s call it time served.” That seemed fair, didn’t it, Dad? “Plus another two million that I’m going to give to the dead woman’s daughter.”
His father laughed bitterly at that. “And you don’t think they’ll come back, in a few months, for even more?”
“I sincerely hope they do,” Mick said. “I hope they get their heads out of their asses and take every penny you’ve ever earned, and this entire goddamned estate, to boot. But no, sadly I don’t think they will, so lucky for you. You got off easy.”
“Five million is your idea of easy...?” the old man scoffed.
“Four. Years,” Mick said, slowly, carefully, so as not to be misunderstood. “In prison. You’d get way more than that. The question you have to ask yourself is: Do you really want to risk it?”
His father was silent again, just gazing at him across that wide expanse of cluttered desk. “That’s why I did it,” he finally said. “I knew you’d get less time. I worked to get you out early—”
Mick was on his feet. “Fuck!” he said, losing it for the very first time since he’d come in and sat down.
“You!” But he caught himself because violence would not get him what he wanted—both money and to be gone.
Forever. To walk out the door of this mausoleum and never, ever come back.
So he sat back down. Made himself laugh a little, buying himself the time he needed for his blood pressure to go back down so he could say, “A confession! Goodness! I wasn’t expecting that! ”
He’d won. Sort of. He still had to figure out a way to get Emily’s share of this blood money into Frank I’ll-kill-you-if-you-come-back-here Santana’s giant and seemingly capable of throat-throttling hands.
But there was still a bit of fine print that he needed to spew at his father before he left the room.
Things like FYI, my lawyer will release the evidence to every and all news outlets should I vanish from the face of the earth so don’t try to have me killed.
And Did I say five million? Well, I meant five million plus whatever gift taxes you’ll need to pay. I’m gonna let you and your lawyers take care of that.
And I’ll need the money in two separate cashier’s checks by noon today, so tick-tock.
It worked.
At 12:02 PM, Mick walked out of Devonshire Place for the very last time, with the money in his hands.
“Phew, it’s like the Hunger Games in there,” Emily said now, her eyes sparkling as she set down two hot-cups of coffee and a plate with a pair of freshly baked donuts onto the table in front of him. “But I made it out alive.”
Mick took a bite of his donut. It was not normally what he’d eat after a run, but clearly, all these years, he’d been dead wrong, because damn, it was delicious.
“It’s always good,” he told her, this woman he loved so desperately, as she smiled her delight at him, “to make it out alive.” His phone swooshed then with an incoming text and he glanced at it, hoping.
.. Yes! “The car’s ready. They didn’t think they could get it back to me until Monday, but someone must’ve canceled.
How about I walk you back to the hotel, then go over and pick it up while you’re in the shower? ”
“I was thinking bathing suit, pool, then shower,” Emily said. “And not just shower, but shower.”
Mick looked up from his phone to find her grinning at him as she sipped her coffee. Shower, as in not one at a time.
“Yes,” he said. “To all of that. Your plan is much better than mine. You’re brilliant, I love you madly.” He did a quick google search for the car shop and... “They’re open until six. I’ll get the car later.”
When he looked back up at Emily, her smile and eyes had softened, and she said, “I love you madly, too.”
Woodland Hills, California
The home of Mick O’Rourke, AKA the convicted felon formerly known as Milt Devonshire Junior, had had its front door kicked in, in a manner very similar to Emily Johnson’s.
Like at Emily’s, the power had been cut, but Mick’s house didn’t have an alarm system—not even a video doorbell or a security cam in the living room.
It made sense that someone who’d been the subject of leaked security footage might never again want to live under the gaze of a camera’s lens.
As Sam looked around, Jules charmed the police detectives who’d been waiting for them at the scene—the report of the break-in had come across the ever-vigilant Lindsey’s desk down at TS HQ in San Diego, and she’d not only passed the info along to Jules, but had pulled the right strings with the locals at the LAPD to get Sam and Jules onto the crime scene.
And because Lindsey was very good at her job, she’d also made sure there were uniforms on the scene, out on the street, watching for any suspiciously behaving black Ford Expedition SUVs.
Ambush me twice, shame on me, as the old saying went.
Because of the safety provided by that visible police presence, Sam let himself relax enough to wander through the brightly lit little house.
And it was a little house, especially considering what they knew about Wig-Milt’s five million dollar deposit from the Bank of Rich-Dad. The place was the tiniest of the standard California post-war bungalows: two bedrooms, one central bath, no add-ons.