Mistaken Identity. Shirlee McCoy
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and he seemed intent on it. Maybe he wanted to prove himself. He was young. Probably a couple of years younger than her. He couldn’t have been a deputy for long.
“It really is a mistake.” She tried again, and this time he did look at her, his dark eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
“It’ll all get sorted out. Right now, let’s just concentrate on getting you inside and warmed up.”
They’d reached the path, and she wanted to yank her arm from his, run back to Mason and the sheriff and explain herself.
But she thought that might cause more trouble than she already had, so she kept moving, stepping onto the path and glancing back.
Mason had stopped halfway to the crowd of people and had turned in her direction. His face was hidden in shadows, but she thought he might have been smiling.
* * *
Trinity looked like she was being led to the gallows, and she was eyeing Mason as if he were the reason for it. In point of fact, he was. He’d asked Judah to have her transported to the station. He hadn’t wanted to expend energy keeping an eye on her, and he was still uncertain of her status. She was either a criminal or an innocent bystander. Until he knew for sure which she was, he wasn’t giving her the opportunity to escape.
“You know I can’t hold her there for long, right?” Judah asked as Trinity and the deputy stepped onto the path and disappeared from view.
“You don’t need to hold her for any longer than it takes to get her statement. I just need her out of the way. I don’t want to deal with more chaos than I’ve already got.”
“You don’t have chaos. I do. It’s my town, my jurisdiction. My problem. I’ll take care of it. All you need to do is answer questions and stay out of the way.”
“You know that’s not going happen, right?”
“Yeah, but I thought I’d give it a shot. You really think Trinity has something to do with this?” He waved toward the fallen man. EMTs were lifting him onto a stretcher, and Mason thought he could smell the scent of blood in the chilly night air. His stomach heaved, but he ignored it.
“I’m not sure, but I’m not much into coincidence,” he responded and was relieved that his tone was even and controlled. He’d spent years learning to compartmentalize the past, keep it tucked neatly away so that he could be in traumatic situations and not panic.
“Me, neither. Which is why it strikes me as odd that your house was broken into on a night when you were supposed to be out of town. Who knew you were going to the funeral?”
“You and John’s widow, Sally. That about covers it.”
“And, Sally knew you were coming back tonight? I was under the impression you’d be away until Sunday.”
“That was the plan. It changed.”
“Because?”
“I attended the funeral out of a sense of obligation, but John and I weren’t exactly buddies these last few years, and I’ve never been all that fond of his wife. I thought she might need help settling John’s estate, but all she really wanted to do was sob in my arms. I decided to cut the trip short.”
“Was she happy about that?”
“She tried to convince me to stay. At least for another night. So that she didn’t have to face the empty house.” Those had been her exact words. When he’d refused to stay the night, she’d begged him to stay for a couple more hours. Through dinner. Or lunch.
“She knows what happened between you and John, right?”
“They were married when he and I were business partners. Seeing as how he signed over his share of our company in exchange for me not pressing charges, I’d say she does.”
“You should have pressed charges,” Judah said.
Maybe, but Mason had partially blamed himself for what had happened. He hadn’t wanted to deal with the financial aspects of the company. He’d left it to John, trusting him because they’d been army buddies and friends. He’d known John’s weakness—that he drank too much, partied too hard, sometimes hung with the wrong kind of people. He’d also known that John was a computer programming whiz. It was his program that allowed Mason to design the kind of prosthetics he created. John was also the one who’d had the idea of implanting a computer chip into the prosthetic limb. If he’d been honest, if he’d played by the rules, if he hadn’t cheated someone he’d called friend, he’d have died a millionaire. Instead, he and Sally had been living in a single-wide trailer in a run-down trailer park.
Mason tried not to think about that, tried not to wonder if he should have handled things differently when he’d found out about John’s crimes.
“Instead of pressing charges, I got his half of the company,” he said.
That had been the agreement.
The quarter of a million dollars John had syphoned from their business account had been a little more than half the value of the company. In exchange for not having charges brought against him and not having to repay the money, John had agreed to hand the company over to Mason.
“In my opinion, you let him off easy, but we’ve talked it out a dozen times. The past is past. What I’m wondering now is what tonight has to do with John and his widow.”
“Maybe nothing.”
“You really think that?” Judah eyed the EMTs who were carrying the injured man away.
“No. John and I were still working together when I had this house built. He knew I had a hidden office, and he knew I was keeping sensitive material there.”
“And you think he sent someone here to access that material?”
“Have you heard of Tate Whitman?”
“The name is vaguely familiar.”
“You know that court-martial case that’s been all over the news?”
“Bigwig army general accused of selling information that got half his battalion killed? Who doesn’t know about it?”
“Tate is the star witness in the case. He’s also one of my clients. He entered witness protection a while back. Last week, a couple of government officials came here asking for information about his whereabouts. The MPs came, too. Apparently he’s on the run.”
“And they think you can find him?”
“I can find him. I won’t. There are tracking devices in all my prosthetics, Judah. They’re part of the program that allows me to design the best possible limb for the client. It’s common knowledge among people who work with me. I’m contracted by several government agencies, so there’s no secret to what I do and how I do it. They want to track Tate using that chip. I refused to allow it.”
“Do you think the guys who came tonight are feds?”
“No. Their work was too sloppy.”
“Then what do you think?”
“If the MPs and the feds are looking for information about Tate here, they probably aren’t the only ones. If Tate doesn’t testify, it’s going to make the case against the general really hard to prove.”
“You think someone affiliated with the general knows you have the ability to track Tate?”
“It makes as much sense as anything else does.”
“If that’s true, the information could have come from one of your employees or from—”
“John? Exactly. He was my first thought. For the right price, he’d sell his own mother out.” He sounded bitter, and he didn’t like it. He’d forgiven John a long time ago. He didn’t trust him. He wasn’t friends with him. But he had forgiven.
“What about his wife?