Page 13 of Thicker Than Water
Huffing out a breath, I set my phone aside, then force my attention back to my laptop. I groan at our inbox, where Dale Stapleton is impatient for an update on when his new splash page goes live.
“What’s the Out of Office message,” I ask, “for ‘Our brother-slash-husband is in a coma and the cops think he murdered someone so give us a break for a while’?”
“I wouldn’t lead with ‘brother-slash-husband,’?” Julia says. “It sounds… gross.”
I pout at her. “You don’t want to be my sister wife?”
“Ew, please stop.”
I chuckle deviously before turning back to the email. “I’m telling Dale we have a family emergency. And also that he can suck it.”
Julia’s fingers pause on her keypad. “I know you’re joking, but Ialso know you’re stressed. So let’s be careful not to have a Lashley Incident.”
The reference tugs a smile from me. Ashley Lattari was one of our first clients. She was getting her salon off the ground the same time Julia and I were learning how to run a business together. So far, our journey had been relatively bump-free—no surprise to us; our closeness and complementing talents made us uniquely qualified for partnership—but when Ashley’s check bounced, after we’d already sunk weeks into her project, my eyes burning from perfecting each pixel of her Lashley logo, I didn’t even think, just reached for my laptop, then funneled my rage into an email, caps lock engaged. When Julia caught sight of my screen, she gasped and grabbed my hand. “Cool your fire,” she urged—and I took a moment, breathed in the mantra like it was oxygen, and deleted the draft so Ashley would never receive it.
Not even moments later, our email pinged with an apology:I’m so sorry, I think my check bounced?? There was a delay on my recent deposit, but it’s all set now. I’ll drop off a new check today.
Julia and I gaped at Ashley’s message, processing the split-second sequence of events.
“Oh my god,” Julia said, “you almost blew up our business before it really began.”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” I said, not bothering to deny it, “that’s a fair assessment of what just happened. But hey, this is why we’re partners, right? So you can keep us… un-blown-up?”
Our eyes slid to each other, and we shared an uneasy silence. Then we burst into laughter, giddy with relief at the near miss.
“As long as Dale behaves,” I tell Julia now, “I won’t have to Lashley him.” Her gaze dashes toward me to make sure I’m joking.
On the armrest of my chair, my phone lights up. I slap my laptop shut. “It’s Lou!”
Lou Ackerman, my dad’s old golfing buddy—and a defense attorney.
Last night, I’d resisted Wyatt’s recommendation to get a lawyer. Actually, according to Julia, I sniped at him about it. But the suggestion stabbed at me. How could Wyatt, whose life Jason literally saved one time when Wyatt choked on a hot dog, think that Jason was capable of murder?That’s not what I’m saying, he insisted.But it’s in Jason’s best interest to have someone representing him, before this gets worse.
“Lou, hi,” I say into the phone. “Did you talk to the cops? Did they give you anything?”
When I spoke to him a few hours ago, he was shocked to hear that Jason was a suspect.Jason’s a good kid, Lou said, as if my brother were thirteen, not thirty-nine. But his next sentence—don’t worry, I’ll take care of him—relaxed my spine for the first time since Detective Beck trudged into Jason’s room.
“Uh, yeah,” Lou says, voice deep and gravelly, just like I remember from my childhood. I switch to speaker so Julia can hear. “I’ll be able to do more once the blood from the knife comes back, but in the meantime: Do you know where Jason went on Friday night, after the conference?”
Julia and I hold each other’s gaze over the phone.
“He went home,” I say. “We already told them that.”
“Turns out that isn’t true. Police have footage from the hotel security cams that show Jason leaving around eight thirty p.m. The cameras don’t have the best view of the parking lot, so they can’t tell what direction he went, just that he left at eight thirty.”
Julia’s forehead scrunches. Yesterday, she told Beck that Jason got home at eleven thirty.
“We… didn’t know that,” I tell Lou. “But I’m sure it’s nothing. Friday night—that was when it was really nice out, right? Before thatbig rainstorm? He probably just went somewhere to enjoy the night, or maybe he grabbed a beer with a co-worker before going home.”
“Definitely possible,” Lou says. “But it’s important we—”
“And if they have Jason on the cameras, what about Gavin? Did they see him leave with anyone?”
“It’s hard to say,” Lou answers. “He departed the same time as Jason—seems a group from Integrity Plus left all at once—but again, the camera angles didn’t allow the police to catch where he went once he left the building. What’s important right now, though, is plugging that gap in Jason’s timeline. And since we can’t ask Jason himself, I’d suggest you check his credit cards, debit cards, see if he made any purchases during those hours that could verify his location.”
I point at Julia’s laptop and she opens a browser.
“Okay, I’ll let you know if we find anything,” I say. “But—can’t the cops just figure out where Jason was through his phone? The cell phone towers he pinged or whatever?”
