Chapter Eleven Margo Angelhart
Chapter Eleven
Margo Angelhart
Georgia Rollins—now Georgia Smith—didn’t answer her phone when Mom and I called her ten minutes later.
“Dammit,” I said. “Do you have another number?”
Mom was staring out her office window, her face thin and pale. She looked drained, but we didn’t have time to feel sorry for
each other or to sit around and worry about every bad thing that might happen.
“Mom,” I said, trying not to snap, but my frustration showed through, “is there another way to reach her?”
She turned to me and said, “She may not be answering because I called her yesterday. She doesn’t like me very much.”
“I need all the information you have for her. If she doesn’t answer the phone, I’m going to visit her in person.”
“She’s in San Diego.”
“Five-hour drive,” I said with a glance at the time. It was one in the afternoon, I might encounter traffic once there, but
should be able to get back tonight.
“She doesn’t know anything,” Mom said. “I told you what she told me.”
“She gave me Nadine’s name, which she didn’t tell you.”
“I told her to throw you off,” Mom said.
“Yeah, I know that now.” I was angry about it, but was trying to put myself in my mom’s shoes. Fear was powerful. “A woman
named Nadine Pierce visited Dad. Georgia told me Nadine was Klein’s ex-wife, but I found no record of a marriage before or
after his first wife died in New York. It’s not a common name, so I’m thinking Georgia knows who the woman is and why she
visited Dad. I will talk to her.”
If Mom thought she could convince me otherwise, she was sorely mistaken.
“Would you please not go alone?”
“You want to come?” Right now, I didn’t want to spend ten hours in a car with Mom, but I would if it got me answers faster.
“No, I’m thinking of someone who can—” She hesitated.
“Protect me?” I said with a slight laugh. “Now that I know there is a threat, I’ll be careful.”
“It would make me feel better.”
“What about you? You need someone to watch out for you.”
Jack stepped into the office. “I agree. Until this is over, I’m moving in with you.”
Mom shook her head. “That’s not necessary.”
“It’s not up for discussion,” Jack said, his face firm. He wasn’t backing down any more than I was. “I just spoke to Logan
and Laura. Logan’s bringing in a security team and Laura and the kids will go to his house in Cave Creek. He already has a
good security system—the personnel is just as a precaution. The kids aren’t going to school the rest of the week.”
“Did you call Whitney and tell her about the sudden change in plans?” Mom asked. Better Mom than me to ask about Jack’s bitch
of an ex-wife.
“Yes. I didn’t tell her about the potential danger, but since it was my weekend with Austin and he has good grades, she was surprisingly okay with letting me take him for a long weekend. If this goes on past Sunday, I’ll have to tell her everything.”
Jack glanced at me. “What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to San Diego to talk to Georgia in person, since she’s not answering her phone.”
“Why don’t you take Cal with you?” Jack asked.
“Because he has a job and I’m not going to ask him to drop everything. I’ll take Luisa, good?”
Jack nodded. “I’ll call in Nate to keep an eye on Tess.”
Nate Lorenzo worked on and off for Angelhart Investigations. I’d known him practically my whole life. He grew up in a house
with two people who should never have been parents. Two years younger than me, Nate bolted the moment he graduated high school
and enlisted in the Navy.
Back then, he was sarcastic and fun—a little moody, but in a way that made people laugh. After the Navy, the moodiness stuck,
but the laughter didn’t. He hadn’t wanted to leave the service, but he’d been seriously injured when his ship was attacked
by the Houthis while escorting merchant vessels through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Jack later told me that Nate had been hurt saving two young seamen trapped belowdecks. That was Nate; he’d never leave anyone
behind, even at the cost of his own safety.
I hadn’t seen him in months. Outside of working part-time for us, I wasn’t sure what he did. His parents had passed away while
he was deployed, and he’d moved back into the house he grew up in, though “moved back in” wasn’t quite right. He’d gutted
the property inside and out, remodeled everything. It looked nothing like the place we used to know.
Maybe that was the point.
“I should have thought of that,” Mom said.
I wanted to talk to Jack alone, but I also wanted to get on the road as quickly as possible. I had no intention of staying in San Diego overnight.
Aunt Rita approached, and Jack moved out of the doorway to let her into Mom’s office.
Rita immediately went over behind Mom’s desk and hugged her. “Ava, I am so sorry this is happening. How are you holding up?”
“I will be better when we have answers.” She looked up at Rita, hopeful. “Did you find out why Cooper was transferred? When
can we see him?”
Rita looked pained. “Langford received a call late yesterday afternoon from the AUSA office that there was a threat against
Cooper that they believed was credible.” Bob Langford was the current county attorney. He had worked for Mom when he was a
prosecutor and she was the county attorney, and he had remained close to our family. “They’re following up, but in the meantime,
they felt Cooper would be safer in a federal penitentiary until they could determine exactly what was going on. Langford thought
the AUSA had contacted me, otherwise he would have called—he feels awful that we were caught unaware.”
“What was the threat?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know,” Rita said. “No one would tell me, just that they believe it was credible. That’s the portion of the order
that is sealed. Langford confirmed what the warden told you, that the transfer was supposed to happen Friday morning, so he
doesn’t know why it happened in the middle of the night. I also confirmed that they have me listed as his attorney. I notified
the Florence Penitentiary that I would be visiting tomorrow and expect to meet with my client when I arrive.”
“I’m going with you,” Mom said.
“Of course.”
“I don’t think either of you should be traveling anywhere,” Jack said.
Mom seemed like she wanted to object, but considering she had just pushed for me to have a partner on my drive to San Diego,
she couldn’t very well insist she was capable of going out of state with her sister who wasn’t a trained bodyguard.
“Alright,” Mom said carefully, “but you need to stay here, Jack.”
“We’ll find someone to go with you,” Jack said.
“Rita,” Mom said, “we need to tell the family. With this happening to Cooper so suddenly, what if they go after someone else?”
“Did you know?” I asked Rita directly.
“I can’t discuss the case,” she said. “I’m your father’s lawyer.”
Mom said, “We didn’t tell Rita anything about the threats. We told her only what we had to so she could negotiate the plea
deal.”
“I have known Cooper practically since your mom met him.” Rita gave Mom a sad smile. “I know his heart, and he would never kill anyone. I am glad I was right.”
Rita and Mom exchanged a look that said more than words, then Rita hugged her again. “I’ll call you as soon as I get definitive
word on Cooper’s situation. I’ll make the flight reservations and we’ll leave tomorrow, sometime in the morning. I’ll text
you.”
“I like Nico’s idea to use Quincy,” Jack said. “He’s a federal agent, he can smooth over any issues with the prison, plus
he is better positioned to get information out of the US Attorney’s Office. Maybe he would agree to escort you up there.”
“I can’t ask him to do that,” Mom said.
“You don’t have to,” Jack said. “Nico has already talked to him. He’s working on getting answers from his end, and I’ll ask him about doing a protection detail.”
Mom closed her eyes. She looked exhausted. I felt for her and was trying real hard to push back my anger over the decisions
she and Dad made that directly affected us.
They did the wrong thing, even if for the right reasons. Three and a half years was a long time to cover up a crime. I was
skeptical that there would be anything left for me to find. And if I found something, would that information get Dad released?
Would it be enough to prove someone else killed Devin Klein? Was there even any evidence left?
Yet . . . the conspirators clearly had made a mistake if Liz Swanson saw something suspicious on Monday. Maybe others saw
the same thing, even if they didn’t know why it was important.
I thought about her patient. Did he know what was in the file—or missing from the file? Maybe Liz had asked him questions
about the missing data. Was he in danger? How were we going to identify him?
“Mom, we’ll find the truth,” I said. “We deserve it, Dad deserves it, but more importantly? If Dr. Klein was right and there
was a tainted drug trial involving veterans, they deserve to know the truth so no one else is hurt.”