Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

and his accomplice, Armand. He would bring the payment in cash and wanted the reporter present and all copies of the video in his hands before he would turn over a single dollar. When they met the following day, it was only Delveaux and Armand present.

“I was exaggerating a little about the reporter,” Delveaux said, “but I did talk to him and he said he was definitely interested in the video if it was what I said it was. He would have to run it by his legal department first.”

“What’s the reporter’s name?”

Delveaux told him.

Ronald knew of the reporter and the whole enterprise sounded just about his speed. “Okay, good then.”

He nodded to Thomas who grabbed Delveaux and broke his arm, and then turned his attention towards Armand.

“Wait, wait. I’ll get you the video. There’s only the one copy. Please. It wasn’t my idea.”

“What do you think, Thomas?”

“Maybe just his little finger.”

Armand gave them the video, Ivery’s lawyers contacted the reporter’s editor and delivered the appropriate legal threats, and it had all gone away. He didn’t think there were any other copies of the video out there. Armand would have told Thomas if there were.

The big detective still worried him, but that was in reference to something altogether different from his past history with drugs. It was one thing to play around in politics, make some donations and get a few early heads-up on profitable business opportunities; it was something that happened all the time in the real estate game. There might still be idealists in politics, but damn few of them were over the age of thirty, and grey areas were the norm. But he had become involved with Albright and his accountant and lawyer in a land development deal that in retrospect had been reckless. Perhaps even illegal if the rumours he’d heard after the fact, about Albright’s men applying pressure to the sellers, were true. There was a thin line between persuasion and coercion, and it sounded as if it might have been crossed.

That was concerning enough on its own, but when Thomas told him what Sullivan suspected about the park bench assaults, Ivery was stunned. Before he could meet with the lawyer to discuss the situation, Sullivan had disappeared. Thomas had made inquiries through his contacts but had run into a brick wall. The man was gone. From their previous dealings, Ivery had a clear picture of the man’s tight financial situation and knew he wouldn’t just take off when a big payday was on the horizon. Something had happened to him, and it was not difficult to figure out who was the other person involved.

Ivery wasn’t sure what to do now. If he had suspected Albright was this out of control, he would never have gone into business with him in the first place. It wasn’t as if he needed the money. But how could he have known? Questionable real estate deals involving inside information were one thing, they happened all the time. Brutally assaulting women and leaving them half dead on park benches was something else entirely.

If what the lawyer suspected about Albright was true, sooner or later there would be a criminal investigation of him that was almost certain to branch out and encompass all his financial dealings, and that would end up involving Ivery as well. Pleading ignorance about Albright’s methods in the subdivision acquisition was not going to cut it. He was going to have to do something — that was clear. The problem was what.

Chapter 38

Cat threw the cell phone at the back of the couch. She wasn’t quite mad enough yet to fire it at the wall, but it could happen soon. She had been dialling Jared off and on for six hours now without any response. She’d tried to leave a message but his inbox was full. She knew he would take Joseph’s death hard and that his first reaction would be to go off and isolate himself. He was not good at giving or receiving comfort. She thought he might head to Arrow, his last refuge, the place he would go to grieve or punish himself, or — God forbid, but way more likely — plan something really bloody stupid.

She’d headed down to the marina from the hospital immediately when she learned that Annie was resting comfortably and out of any immediate danger, but she’d arrived there too late. The manager told her about Clarke’s visit earlier on, so she knew that he’d been unsuccessful as well. She considered touching base with Clarke, then decided against it. He would only tell her what he wanted her to hear, and to stay out of it and let him handle everything, and she was never going to do any of that.

She tried to think of what she could do to find Jared before he did something sensationally reckless. Jaimie and Erin would have put the word out to the commercial fleet, so there would be a lot of fishing boats out on the water keeping a watch for the sailboat. Clarke would have all of officialdom on the lookout, marine patrols, forestry boats, police in port towns, the B.C. ferries, hell, maybe even the Navy patrols. Even sending a chopper up was a possibility depending on how mad Clarke was. Nothing she could do to help out there. She could only hope they located Jared soon. She had no clue as to where he was heading or what he had in mind. What she did know was that with Joseph’s death he was capable of anything. She had seen him go off the rails before, and he had loved the old man.

No, what she had to do was use her brains and her connections. She was well known in the big city, and had made a lot of friends in the media, many of whom owed her for various intros and tips she had given them over the years she’d been doing celebrity shoots. She’d tell them