Chapter Nineteen #3
“They’ll use any excuse to hurt her. If she had gone to
school with them, it would have been something else,” Garrett muttered under
his breath.
“And do you always greet your friends by gesturing them to
the back of the store?” Morgan asked.
“I wasn’t telling her to go anywhere,” Stephen said
unconvincingly. “I was waving.”
“He’s lying. He’s got a tell beyond that flushed face of
his.” Garrett had done well with jury selection before he’d dedicated himself
to corporate work. “His left eye twitches.”
Keane nodded. “He was definitely in on it. Maybe he called
Jessica when she came in.”
Ruby looked up from her system. “I find it interesting that
your back cameras went offline around the same time Jessica entered. Is that
what you’re doing with the computer?”
“I was checking on inventory,” Stephen said, his eye
twitching again.
“Well, the good news is I have a car registered to a man
named Martin Gladen seen at a stoplight roughly ten minutes after Jessica
entered that store. We have pictures and everything,” Ruby said, changing the
screen. “That’s your friend in the passenger seat. She’s coming from your
general direction.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Stephen protested. “She could
have come from anywhere.”
Ruby’s head tilted. There was something predatory about the
woman. “Tell me something. How many doors do you have? Not back doors. I need
to know how customers enter and leave your building.”
He seemed to sense this was a trap, but he couldn’t figure
out why. At least that was the way Garrett saw it.
“Just one. We’re not some big-box store with a bunch of
fancy sliding doors. We only have the one.”
“I think she has him,” Garrett said. He knew when someone
was about to pull out a piece of evidence that would make a courtroom gasp.
“How?” Keane asked.
“He wasn’t smart enough to claim both cameras stopped
functioning,” Garrett replied.
“But here’s the thing, Mr. Gunderson,” Ruby continued. “You
did take out the camera on the store’s backroom. We have nothing there. But we
do have the camera on the front of the store, and while we show Jessica Fellows
walking in the store, she never walks out. Yet we’ve had a team there and she’s
nowhere to be found. How do you explain that?”
“Gotcha,” Garrett said. “Now she needs to explain what’s
going to happen.”
“I feel like we’re wasting time.” Keane’s voice was tight.
“He knows something,” Garrett promised. “We can’t run around
the countryside looking for her.”
The store manager’s face went from florid to pale in a half
second. “I…I don’t know where she went.”
“Did she simply disappear?” Morgan asked.
“Maybe she climbed out a bathroom window,” Ruby began, and
then shook her head. “No, we checked. Those are nailed shut. By the way, that
is a code violation. You should expect a ticket soon. Not that it will matter.”
“Why?” Stephen asked, looking like he was going to be sick
any minute.
“Because you’ll be in jail by then,” Morgan said, standing
up. “I’m going to have the DA pull your cell phone records, and I would bet I
can find some kind of communication between you and Ms. Fellows.”
“I told you, we went to school together. We’re friends,”
Stephen protested.
It was brutally obvious this guy was going to take forever.
He looked to Keane. “Do you trust me?”
Keane’s jaw tightened. “With my life.”
“But do you trust me with hers?” Garrett asked. “I know when
a witness is going to break, but they’re not pushing the right button. He
hasn’t hit real fear yet.”
Keane nodded. “Do whatever it takes. If it gets you in
trouble, I’ll find a way to get you out.”
“I don’t think a little lie is going to get me in real
trouble, Master.”
“You could be seen as an accomplice,” Morgan was saying. “Do
you understand? If you let her in knowing what she was going to do and gave her
the way out, you’re part of a conspiracy to kidnap.”
“You can’t prove nothing,” Stephen said, obviously picking
how he was going to move. “And you can’t hold me. I know my rights.”
“I can hold you for seventy-two hours,” she promised.
That wouldn’t work on him. Garrett pressed through the door.
He ignored Morgan’s startled huff and stared at Stephen Gunderson. Though they
were roughly the same age, Gunderson looked years older.
“Mr. Gunderson, I’m Garrett Pace and I’m Jack Barnes’s
attorney. I’m going to make sure you stay out of jail.”
Gunderson’s eyes went wide, and Garrett heard Keane huff
behind him.
“Why would you do that?” Stephen asked.
Morgan turned to him with a startled look on her face. “What
are you doing?”
Ruby simply smiled and closed her laptop. “Are we going that
way then? Well, I’ll let the boys back at the ranch know. Mr. Gunderson, good
luck with your future endeavors.”
“Why would that man want to help me?” Stephen asked.
Garrett ignored him, looking to Morgan. “My employer wants
to ensure that this man faces no charges. He’s certain no Gunderson would harm
his daughter. They know what the price was when they embarrassed his wife. They
wouldn’t be foolish enough to physically harm his daughter.”
A fine tremble came over Stephen. “He wants me out of the
jailhouse. Is he waiting out there for me?”
Garrett gave him a cold smile. “I’m sure Mr. Barnes will
have a word with you at some point. He’ll want to make sure you’re okay.”
Stephen pushed his chair back. “He has no right to touch me.
I didn’t do anything. I didn’t.”
Morgan sighed and stood. “Then I guess you’re free to go. I
would watch my back if I were you. Barnes is a tricky fellow. And he has that
friend who everyone is sure has ties to the mafia, but no one can prove it. You
know now that I think about it, I do believe Mr. Lodge is Olivia’s godfather.
We should call and let him know. I’m sure he’ll want to help.”
Ruby chuckled. “Mr. Lodge doesn’t get his own hands dirty,
but I’m sure he’ll send a friend to investigate.”
“You have no right to threaten me,” Stephen said, but he
sounded weak now.
“No one here has threatened you,” Morgan replied.
“I will.” Keane stepped forward. “You should understand that
I don’t care what the law says. I know you had something to do with this, and
if they won’t handle you, I will. So will my future father-in-law and all of
Olivia’s relatives. You think Jack is going to be satisfied with taking your
sad-sack grocery store out this time? He’ll raze the earth beneath you.”
“See, this is why you should let the lawyer handle things,”
Garrett muttered under his breath.
“I heard nothing,” Morgan said, and she retrieved the small
recording device she’d used. “I don’t think this thing picked up our talk. Oh,
well, it wasn’t like you knew anything. Good luck.”
She was almost to the door when he broke.