Coldwater Revenge by James Ross (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

“His friend says Billy was pretty upset about that, too.”

“Yes, I know. And If I thought helping Billy get his hands on a chunk of money would turn his life around, I’d have done it in a heartbeat. But it doesn’t work that way, does it? Billy’s problem wasn’t money, it was his life. He didn’t have one… or the confidence or discipline to build one. Any money he got his hands on, he would have blown. Then he’d have come back to me for more.”

Tom stood.

“Is that it!? Is that all you came here for?”

“I’ve got a few more errands to run for my brother.” Her face tensed. He turned at the door. “Look, what would you say if I told you that I saw your friend Suliman, or maybe the guy in that photo, up at Frankie Heller’s the night of your brother’s funeral?”

Her voice went from peeved to petrified in a nanosecond. “I’d tell you to leave Frankie Heller alone. He’s dangerous.”

* * *

Tom left Susan in the sun room and made his way to the front of the house. Outside, a silver two-door Lexus idled at the throat of the circular driveway, its driver gripping the steering wheel with knuckles white from strain. Tom’s mind was on state prosecutors and Susan’s warning about Frankie Heller, and he didn’t see the Lexus until he was almost grille to grille with it. The driver stared straight ahead and made no move to lift his hands from the wheel or move his car from where it blocked Tom’s exit. Tom recognized the NeuroGene owner, Dave Willow.

Tom hopped out of the truck and moved toward the side of the idling car. “You okay, Willow?” The man behind the wheel turned his head so slowly it might have been under water. “Are you okay?” Tom repeated. Cool air wafted from the lake, bringing with it the smell of booze.

“You’re bothering her,” said Willow, his words petulant and slurred.

Tom suddenly remembered Susan’s allusion to a brief grad school marriage, and Sharp’s to a long ago relationship between his partner and his research assistant. Tom stepped away from the car, eyes probing the blotched face and bloodshot eyes. No way.

Willow opened the car door and stumbled out. “She doesn’t want you around,” he blurted.

Tom didn’t bother to look at the face of the man coming toward him. Instead he looked at the hands and pockets… empty and flat, respectively. It was a little catechism that the original Sheriff Morgan had drilled into his boys, though he was sure that Joe had made the most use of it over the years. “I was just coming to see you,” said Tom.

Willow stopped. Whatever he had expected in response to his Dutch courage challenge, it wasn’t that.

“You scammed your partner, didn’t you? Though I’m sure he still thinks it was the other way around. It depends on who hid the better card, I suppose. NeuroGene is worth more than he realized, or a lot less than you thought. Have you figured out which it is yet?”

Willow said nothing. Which was as good as holding up a sign.

“Did you have something brewing in the lab that Sharp was too dull to notice – pardon the pun? Something that’s going to make you and your new investor a lot of money? Is that what you’re celebrating tonight?”

“You’re not the detective in the family.” The voice was slurred and the cadence deliberate. “You’re just the boring over-achiever.”

“I’ve spoken with your pal, Dr. Hassad.”

Willow said nothing, but his face rippled.

“Sharp thinks he’s the only one who dealt with Hassad. But the professor told me that he dealt with you, too.” He wondered if Willow was in any condition to appreciate the significance of Hassad’s confirmation. “You keep some of the things he sends over, don’t you? And you sent him things too, for safe keeping. Things you didn’t want Sharp to know about.”

Willow stood silent.

“How many companies have you started, Willow? A dozen? I’ll bet you’ve got it down to a formula by now. Run it on a shoestring until your partners give up and sell out to you cheap. If you’ve got something tucked away with your pal Hassad, you bring it out then. If not, you bring in new investors and start the scam all over again. You’re not in the research business, Willow. You’re in the investor fleecing business.”

Somewhere in the stand of pines at the far end of the lawn, an owl hooted twice and broke into flight. The NeuroGene owner swayed grandly but said nothing.

Tom laughed. “You shouldn’t drink, Willow. It slows your thinking. Right now you’re desperate to say something clever. But you’re afraid to open your mouth.” He watched the color return to NeuroGene owner’s face. He checked the man’s hands and pockets again.

“All you were to her was a stud,” Willow blurted. “She told me so.”

“Does she know about you and Hassad?” Tom asked quietly. “Or about Hassad and Billy?”

“Stud!” blubbered Willow, as if it were an insult and not the Morgan brothers’ favorite four-letter word.

“Go in there and make your peace,” said Tom. “If she’ll let you. I’ll be at your office tomorrow when you’re sober. We can skip the fairy tale about Billy breaking into your mail room. He couldn’t have gotten in without a security card. Someone gave him one, either you or Sharp, so he could do his deliveries and pick-ups after hours. We’re going to talk about who and what, and whether that’s what got him killed.”

CHAPTER 21

Tom turned off the engine, doused the headlights and allowed the truck to roll over the crest of the hill. A full moon winked behind a broken bank of clouds revealing a shallow ditch where the shoulder of the road should have been. He held the truck to the center of the road while the question he’d been unable to answer in Susan’s driveway repeated itself now against the back beat