Page 35 of Lost Truth
“Sorry. I should probably have told you. I don’t do things halfway, and I have too many goals I want to accomplish in my job before I settle down and raise a family.” She opted not to tell him about her parents’ failed marriage. Her mother’s abandonment. In all these years, she’d never brought that out in the open. Too much pain.
His brow furrowed. “You don’t think you can work and have a family too?”
Good. He continued in the area shecouldtalk about. “No, that’s not it. I believe you need to give your full commitment to your spouse and children. That doesn’t mean you can’t work, it just means your work/life balance must be in line with each other. Right now, my life balance is seriously out of whack with my work time. Well, at least normally. Once I find out who killed my dad, work will once again consume my life.”
“Got it.” He sounded as if he understood her conflict, but didn’t seem too pleased about it. He reached for her father’s laptop, then squatted next to her to insert the drive. “Ready for me to start playing this?”
Glad he’d moved on and didn’t seem upset with her, she nodded.
He clicked on the video. The screen came to life, revealing her father sitting in the same chair she now sat in.
“Hi, my Cady girl.” Her dad smiled.
She gasped, and her heart clutched. “Oh, Dad. I miss—” The words slipped out, but a sob swallowed them.
Hayden paused the video and took her hand again. “Are you okay to go on? Maybe you’ll want to take this to your room after all.”
She shook her head hard and gripped his hand. “I need you here. To hold your hand. Start it again.”
Without a word, he clicked the mouse, and her dad appeared on screen.
“First I want you to know how special you are to me.” Her father beamed at her. “I know as my dementia gets worse, you won’t believe me, so I want to tell you before it’s too late. I couldn’t have been prouder of the woman you’ve become. You have so many wonderful qualities that will take you far in your job. Sadly, I set the example of letting work be all-consuming. But my move to Lost Lake taught me to slow down and appreciate everything life has to offer. I found such a richness here I wish I’d embraced in my younger years. Don’t make the same mistake as I did, Cady girl. Live life to the fullest, the life God wants you to have, and you’ll have no regrets.”
“It’s almost as if he heard our conversation,” she said and waited for him to continue.
“Now, about the information you need to pass along.” The gentleness disappeared from his tone, and his expression turned to stone. “I’m sorry to have to share it this way, but Ernie swore me to secrecy and gave me no choice.”
Cady flashed a look at Hayden. “It’s about Mayor Sutton.”
He released her hand and leaned forward.
“Since I promised never to tell anyone for the rest of my life,” her dad said. “I figured this was the only way to make sure the secret didn’t die with me. Ernie stumbled on a human trafficking ring in our area and tried to stop it.”
“Human trafficking!” She flashed a horrified look at Hayden. “This could be related to the women in the cave.”
“Let me explain,” her dad said. “He’s partners in a charter fishing boat with his brother-in-law Wade Collins. Their fishing business has been losing money for some time, and Ernie planned to sell the boat. He had a potential buyer who wanted to compare the boat engine hours to the maintenance records.”
Cady paused the video. “Any idea what boat engine hours are?”
Hayden nodded. “It’s the equivalent to an odometer on an automobile. You can’t record the miles driven in a boat, but you can record how many hours the engine has run. Gives the buyer an idea of the longevity of the engine going forward.”
“Makes sense.” She clicked to start the video again.
“But when Ernie recorded the information at his office, it didn’t match the records Wade had turned in. And the gallons per hour the boat should’ve been getting for the fuel used was way off from what Wade had been charging to the business.”
Hayden paused the video this time. “We interviewed Collins when the mayor was murdered, and he seemed like kind of a shady guy. He could’ve been cheating the mayor for sure.”
“Hopefully my dad will tell us what he was up to.”
Hayden restarted the video.
“Ernie wondered if Wade was using the boat for something else and faking the reports, so he downloaded the boat’s GPS data. It showed Wade taking the boat out every Thursday night at three a.m. to coordinates in the Pacific where there was nothing but water.”
Surprised, Cady glanced at Hayden. “Did you discover anything about this when you investigated the mayor’s death?”
“No,” he said, his focus still fixed on the screen.
She looked back at her dad.
