Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“The uncle,” I say.
“Filthy rich snake of a bastard,” he says, clearly aware of who I’m talking about.
“He fucked Faith’s mom.”
“Who didn’t?” He laughs. “That woman saw more action than ten Taco Bells on Friday night at two a.m.”
“The uncle,” I repeat.
“He had random contact with Meredith Winter over the years, but nothing notable after the obvious falling-out between him and her husband. And I’m sure you know that he’s married to one of the billionaire Warren Hotel heiresses now.”
“I knew,” I say, having done plenty of my own research. “That’s how he got the money for his startup. Any contact between him and Faith?”
“Aside from him attending both her mother’s and father’s funerals, none.”
“Find out if he, or anyone for that matter, has an interest in the property the winery is sitting on,” I say before moving on. “Josh—”
“The agent,” he says. “What about him?”
“Could Macom have used him to connect to Faith’s mother or my father?”
“Interesting premise when I thought of it as well,” Beck says, “but I cross-referenced phone numbers and emails. There’s nothing.”
Grimacing, and with plenty of taillights and time in my future, I lead the conversation to the bank and draw Beck into a debate over their motives, before my mind takes me to a place I don’t want to go. Not with Faith in Sonoma and me in San Francisco. “What if Faith isn’t a killer, but now she’s the one in the way of whoever is?”
“Any time a million dollars plus is missing and two people are dead of the exact same cause two months apart, the possibility of someone else ending up dead exists. But unlike you, apparently, I won’t conclude a murder or murders were committed until you get me your father’s and Meredith Winter’s autopsy reports. And for the record, I’m far from thinking Faith Winter is innocent. She and her mother could easily have been a scam team. Always remember that in the absence of evidence, there is someone making sure there’s an absence of evidence. I’ll warn you again. Watch your back. You have my excessively large bill to pay.”
He hangs up on the warning I’d feel obligated to give me, too, but I’m not a fool. I read people with a lot less of a look into their lives than I have into Faith’s. I dial Abel Baldwin, my closest friend, one of the best damn criminal attorneys on the planet. “I was starting to think you might be dead, too,” he says when he picks up. “What happened with Faith Winter?”
I glance at the clock on my dash. “Can you meet me at my place at four?”
“Now I’m really curious. I’ll be there.”
I asked him to help me destroy her. Now I need to pull back the reins and have him help me save her. And I return to: What the hell is this woman doing to me?
Just after four, Abel and I sit in the living room of my house, him on the sectional that occupies most of the room, me on a chair across from him. One of his many Irish whiskey picks he brings by my place weekly is in our glasses, and while the sectional he occupies is a pale gray, my mood is decidedly darker. “Good stuff, right?” Abel asks, refilling his glass.
“One of your better picks,” I say, but when he lifts the bottle in my direction, I wave him off. “I need to stay sharp. I have work to do.”
“I’ll hang out and get boozed and ask stupid questions to piss you off, because what are friends for?”
“You’re a hell of a friend, Abel. One hell of a friend.”
He downs his whiskey. “I love watching North geek out and start reciting facts.”
“The kid’s an encyclopedia,” I say, motioning to his severely buzzed blond hair. “You thinking about going back to the army or what?”
“Starting a trial next week,” he says. “The judge is a former SEAL.”
“And you plan on reminding him that you are, too.”
His lips quirk. “Gotta work what you got.” He narrows his eyes at me. “And you got me, Nick. Put me to work here. What’s the elephant in the room you want to talk about but haven’t?”
“What’s it going to cost me to get those autopsy results sooner than three weeks from now?”
“We just filed the order,” he says. “You can’t buy your way past a medical procedure. This isn’t a crime TV show, and you know it. Toxicology, which is what we’re looking at, will take weeks and even months.”
“Understood,” I say, “but we both know we can move certain aspects of this to sooner rather than later. Whatever it costs, make it happen.”
He narrows his eyes on me, and after a decade of friendship, I’m not surprised at what comes next. “You fucked her.”