Page 57 of Concrete Evidence
She shivered. “How would I go about looking for it?”
“You’re staying inside, remember?” Roden said. “I’ll stop by later. Your car has been returned to the hotel parking lot. Stay put until I see you.”
Avery’s thoughts were twisting and turning like a maze.
“Avery?” Roden said. “Is there a problem?”
“I’m wondering who would be keeping tabs on me?”
“Doesn’t matter. If there’s a tracker, I’ll find it.”
“Hey,” Marc said. “Your granddad called me last night.”
She gasped, a sense of relief flooding her. “What did he say?”
“His biggest concern is you.” Marc relayed the late-night conversation, and she hoped he hadn’t purposely left anything out. “If the senator knows Roden and I are working with the corps, he has an insider helping him.”
“I wish I could give you a name other than Lieutenant Shipley. Granddad says his shoes squeak, so I don’t think he’d bend the law for anyone. Is he involved with your investigation?”
“He’s aware of our concerns.”
Marc, the vague FBI agent. “Okay. I have things to do on my end, all online or by phone. Roden, see you late afternoon. Marc, every hero has to rest.”
After she hung up, Avery lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. Forcing herself to roll out of bed, she bit back the protest from every muscle and bone in her body. Poor Marc. Hard for anyone to maintain a good disposition when life tossed you into one mess after another.
After three ibuprofens, a hot shower, coffee, and much-needed prayer, she concentrated on her to-do list. Despite giving her word to Granddad not to contact anyone other than his lawyer and Marc, she made five calls to people and places where Granddad frequented. Nothing. But then she expected a negative response.
Avery longed to prove his innocence. But how? Always her thoughts swung back to the same question. Why hadn’t Granddad denied the murder? Why hadn’t she persisted when they first talked?
She paced the hotel room, ignoring her body’s protests.Think, Avery, what are you missing?If she hadn’t tried to surprise Granddad with lunch... But he could have told her not to join him. He hadn’trejected the idea but welcomed her. So the person who pulled the trigger had been the motorcycle driver? Had Liam surprised Granddad, got in the way of a bullet aimed at him?
Granddad had no reason to tell her every detail of his life. Neither did she expect it.
How sad her parents hit the top five suspects. They had so much to gain with her and Granddad out of the picture, and an unscrupulous attorney would figure out how to give them what they wanted. How awful to consider... yet true.
33
MARC’S MOTHERhad the typical dramatic response to his accident. “You tripped on a broken piece of asphalt? An in-shape FBI agent? Maybe you should invest in a walker.” She perched on the edge of a living room chair. “I could have driven to the hospital and sat with you.”
“Not even necessary.” He’d changed a few details. A lot of them. “I told you yesterday I’d check in with you, so I asked Roden to drive me.” His inability to pass a polygraph crept into his thoughts. Roden hid Marc’s stretch of the truth with a perfect poker face.
Her voice quivered. “Why look in on me when you have stitches?”
“My father and his friend’s deaths have you upset. I’m being the good son.” He leaned back on the sofa, willing his head to stop its incessant hammering.
Mom fumed, her typical she-was-so-mad-that-she-couldn’t-talk mode. “The truth, please.”
“How often have I lied to you?”
“Hard to say. It’s probably a class you took at Quantico.”
He grabbed a blue-and-green pillow and tucked it behind his back. The living room needed paint, the woodwork too. In fact, the entire three-bedroom ranch built in the nineties could use the touch of a paintbrush. Mom’s standby pale-blue walls and green plaid sofa craved an update. She’d done well over the years. Her teaching career, purchasing a home, and paying off the mortgage were an accomplishment. With his father’s inheritance, she could remodel or buy another home. Marc must be losing his mind thinking about paint and redecorating with a murder case on his hands. He blamed the meds.
Marc tried to refocus. The phone records for Avery, his father, Liam Zachary, and Senator Elliott had arrived enroute here. Several calls between the men, and five calls from the same burner number hit the radar for all three men and one for Avery. Buddy and Saundra’s phone records were free of any calls in question.
He needed to be at his office, where—
“Marc, have you looked in the mirror?” Mom crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve been talking to you for the past three minutes, and you’re out of it.”
