“You ever tell anyone?”
She shook her head. “No, no, never. Everyone would think I was a kook.”
I thought about the two boxes I’d found in storage.
Had my father-in-law gone back to grab them in the middle of the night?
If so, why? Who was the client? And what was valuable in them?
TWENTY
I needed to get back on the road to Austin soon, or I’d be late for dinner. Taylor would surely bust me for being late. She already seemed annoyed that a few hours at the office had turned into something much more extended. I’d made a commitment to her three years ago, when I’d started my company, to always be home to sit at the dinner table with our girls. Other than some travel here and there, I’d rarely broken that commitment. I could certainly offer her no viable excuse for being late today since I was supposedly only a few miles from home all day.
Each time Taylor and I had texted today, I’d felt the guilt building. And I’d just opened the lid to Pandora’s box about her father. What the hell was I supposed to do now?
But I had one more stop to make. I’d reached out to an old college pal for a quick meetup before jumping back on I-35. Brian Jones used to play linebacker on the football team with me. He then spent three years bouncing around the NFL before pursuing law enforcement. His father had been a cop in Shreveport for forty years. His grandfather before that. Brian had recently been promoted to Dallas PD detective. We still regularly kept up with each other. I pulled up to Lee Harvey’s, a dive bar with a fenced-in gravel patio, and found Brian waiting for me out front. Wearing a blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up and gray slacks, my friend still looked very much like the hulking linebacker from his playing days. Although he now shaved his brown head completely bald, and it shone in the afternoon sunlight.
We shared a quick handshake and a bro hug.
“You look like hell, Mahan,” he said to me.
“Been a rough week. Not getting much sleep.”
“Man, I’m sorry to hear about Taylor’s dad. You doing all right?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that right now. “I’m making it. Trying to be strong for all of my girls, you know?”
“I hear ya. You want a beer? I’m off duty.”
“Nah, I better not. I’ve got to hit the road. Were you able to get it?”
He nodded, pulled out his phone. “What’s this all about?”
I’d asked Brian if he could get the building security footage from the parking garage where Ethan Tucker had been killed last night. The managing partner at Ethan’s firm had mentioned it earlier.
“I just need to see it. I can’t really tell you much more right now. You’ll have to trust me. I came up here this morning to talk to this guy about some financial matters only to find out about what happened last night. You watch it?”
“Yeah. Looks pretty straightforward to me. Guy walks up to him, they struggle, he gets shot. You sure you want to see a guy get killed?”
“I do.”
“All righty.”
Brian pressed a few things on his phone screen, brought up a video, and then handed it over to me. I held it close to my face. The security camera looked like it was installed in a corner near the garage’s elevator. The time stamp on the video said it was 11:17 p.m. A man in a dark suit with gray hair holding a black briefcase appeared in camera view, probably from out of the elevator. Although I couldn’t see his face, I presumed it was Ethan Tucker. He paused, stuck his hand inside his suit jacket, pulled out a key fob, and then aimed it and pressed a button. A white car in the distance blinked its lights. It looked like it might be a BMW sedan. The garage level was nearly empty. Only a few random vehicles here and there.
Ethan had taken a step toward the car when another man suddenly appeared from off-screen and stepped right in front of him. It was a side shot of the guy, so I caught only a small glimpse of his face. He wore a black jacket and black pants. A brief but animated conversation ensued between the two men. There was no sound on the footage. When Ethan tried to step around him, the guy pulled a gun out of his jacket. Instead of dropping his briefcase and holding his hands up, like any normal person would do, Ethan lunged for the gun. They had a very brief struggle, and then Ethan kind of jerked, dropped to his knees, and clutched his hands to his chest. The other guy seemed to be yelling at him. But Ethan didn’t respond. A second later, Ethan fell forward onto his side and lay perfectly still. The guy in black knelt over him, began searching his pockets, and found what looked like his wallet inside his suit jacket.