The next morning, Sal made a quick call to Shelley. After making sure she’d received the button he’d sent, he got down to business. “What have you found in Hewston’s background?”
“Not much. Yet. You think he’s behind the kidnapping?”
“I don’t know. But something about him is off.” Sal proceeded to tell her about last night’s ambush.
“Are you and Olivia okay?”
“We’re good.” A smile slid over his lips as he thought of Olivia’s pride in scoring a hit on her opponent.
“One more thing,” Shelley said. “And knowing you, you’ve already thought of it. It’s what, day three or more since Olivia’s boss was taken?”
Sal knew where she was going with this. “We’re running out of time to get Chantry back alive.”
Shelley didn’t say anything more. She didn’t have to.
A small groan sounded over the phone.
“What’s wrong?” Sal asked in quick concern. Not only was Shelley his boss, she was the little sister of his best friend.
“Nothing that having this baby won’t fix. I think he’s playing soccer—” another groan “—for both teams. Caleb,” she said, referring to her husband, “is in worse shape than I am. You’d think a big bad Delta could handle one little pregnancy, wouldn’t you?”
“Cut him some slack,” Sal advised, chuckling over Caleb Judd, a much-decorated Delta, struggling with his wife’s pregnancy. “Delta training didn’t cover pregnancy.”
Shelley’s answering laugh told him that she was enjoying her husband’s discomfort. “I’ll get back to you on Hewston as soon as I can.”
“Thanks. And take care, little mama.” There was real affection in the words.
“You, too.” She paused. “How’s Olivia?”
Now it was Sal’s turn to pause. “Okay.”
“That’s all? Just okay?” The words held expectancy.
She was more than okay. But Sal couldn’t tell his boss that. He couldn’t tell anyone how he felt about Olivia when he didn’t know himself.
An hour later, Shelley called back. “I struck gold on Bryan Hewston. He’s in debt to online gaming sites to the tune of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He’s been embezzling from Chantry & Hammond for three years. I called some CIs in Savannah. Turns out Hewston’s in hock all over town and has some mean types breathing down his neck.”
Sal nodded. Shelley had a network of confidential informants throughout the South.
It wasn’t much of a stretch, Shelley continued, to discover that he had connections to a few ex-military types who would do anything for money. At that, Sal’s lips narrowed. He and his buddies had served America with honor and pride, some of them making the ultimate sacrifice with their lives.
Fury filled him at the idea of anyone using their training for ignoble purposes. It tarnished the name and reputation of every good man and woman who had served, past and present.
With an effort, he pushed his anger aside and did what he did best: confront the enemy. That this enemy wore three-piece suits and spent his days in an office rather than the mountains of Afghanistan didn’t change the hunt.
Sal was an apex predator. He waited for Hewston outside the law firm. When his quarry emerged, Sal followed him to a nearby watering hole that catered to young professionals. Sal slid beside Hewston in a booth, effectively trapping the lawyer.
“You sent those thugs after us. Why?” Sal knew the answer; he just wanted to see what the man would say.
Would he flat-out deny the charge? Or would he come clean and confess? Sal didn’t have much confidence in the latter. Everything he’d learned about Hewston said the man was weak, took the easy way out whenever possible and blamed others for his poor choices.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the lawyer blustered, confirming Sal’s prediction. Sal sighed. Sometimes he hated being right.
“And I don’t appreciate the accusation,” Hewston said, a sneer in his voice and his mouth curling in a scowl. “Did Olivia put you up to this? She’s always had it in for me.” Righteous indignation coated every syllable, but fear shadowed his eyes. He squirmed in the booth, eyes darting in all directions as he sought a way out.
“Knock it off. I know you were the one who hired them, so you might as well spill it.”
Before Hewston could register another protest, Sal cut him off. “Don’t bother lying. I’ve got the goods on you and have already shared everything with the Savannah PD.”
The arrogance in the man’s eyes slowly faded away as he finally absorbed that he wasn’t going to bluff his way out of this, and, like a balloon losing its air, Hewston deflated. “I knew you were looking at me. It was only a matter of time until you’d find out what I was doing.”
“Embezzling from the firm’s clients.”
“Yeah.” The sizzle had fled, and his expression was that of a spoiled kid who’d just had all his toys stolen by someone bigger. “I couldn’t let it go that far. I’d lose my license, maybe even go to jail. I was just trying to buy some time.” There was no remorse in his voice, only resentment.
“So you thought you’d scare us off.” Sal didn’t bother pointing out that the man’s debts weren’t going to go away with a little time.
A jerky nod was the only answer.
“They could have killed Olivia,” Sal said, anger vibrating in every syllable. “Was covering up your habit worth that?”
“I told them not to kill her. Just rough her up a bit. I only wanted to make the two of you stop looking into my business.” Hewston offered the explanation as though that excused what he’d done.
“That’s how you solve your mess? By roughing up an innocent woman?” Sal had to stop himself from yanking the man out of the booth to show him just what he could do in the roughing-up department. He fisted his hands on the table, giving Hewston a hint of what he wanted to do.
The lawyer shrank back in his seat, all bravado gone.
“You’re going away, buddy. If I have my way, it’ll be for a long, long time.”
Sal had no sympathy for people who cheated their way through life. According to him, it was laziness that motivated them, laziness and greed. “We’ve already established that you’re a cheat and a liar. Are you also a kidnapper?”
“Are you crazy?”
“Like you don’t know. Calvin Chantry’s been abducted, and you’re suspect Number One.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Hewston shot Sal a look of pure hatred. “I had a good thing going. I wasn’t hurting anyone. Those people I embezzled from have so much money that they didn’t even know there was any missing. Then you and that Goody Two-shoes Hammond had to go snooping around. I wish those guys really had hurt her.”
That did it. Sal clamped a big hand on Hewston’s shoulder and squeezed. Hard. When a waiter started to intervene, Sal sent him a back-off look that had the man scurrying in the opposite direction.
Sal stood and, with his hand still wrapped around the Egyptian cotton of the man’s shirt, propelled him out of the bar. “We’ve got a date with the Savannah PD. Hope you packed your toothbrush because you won’t be going home anytime soon.”
* * *
Olivia knew Sal was investigating the people in her office. She told herself she was prepared for whatever he discovered.
She was wrong.
“You found something?” she asked when he showed up at the office at the close of the work day. She got to her feet, bracing her hands on the edge of her desk.
His nod held no triumph. “Yeah. Shelley put on her computer hat and dug into Hewston’s background.”
Olivia held her breath. “What did she find? Is he behind the kidnapping?”
“No evidence of that yet. But the man is up to his eyeballs in debt. Fancy cars. Fancy trips. Seems his wife has an eye for the finer things in life. He probably could have kept things afloat, but he tried to make money the easy way by playing online gaming. When he got in over his head, he started skimming. He’s been stealing from the firm and its clients for over three years.”
Even though Olivia had never particularly cared for Bryan, she’d never thought he was a thief. “Calvin would have loaned him the money if he’d known.”
“This is more than just getting through to the next paycheck.”
“How much?” she whispered.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And that’s just what we’ve uncovered so far. There’s probably more. When someone’s in that deep, he just keeps digging himself in deeper.”
Olivia sank in the seat. “I never expected that.”
“Hewston’s gotten pretty good at covering his tracks. He moves the money around. It’s like playing musical chairs. When someone looks into an account, he moves money there. Then he moves it back. He keeps shuffling it around so that it looks like all the money’s accounted for.”
“Always one step ahead.”
“You got it. He had to know things were going to catch up to him pretty soon, though.” Sal paused. “There’s more.”
“What?” Her voice was a thread of sound.
“The two men we tangled with last night?” At her nod, he continued, “Turns out Hewston represented one of them on a DUI beef. Got him off on probation. Seems the two of them have kept in touch. Hewston sent those goons after us. He thought we were onto his embezzlement. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want that.”
“No. I didn’t.” She let it sink in. “What’s going to happen to him?”
Sal shrugged. “He’ll do time. In fact, I’d say it was a given.”
She knew how the legal system worked. Hearing it applied to a man she’d thought of as a colleague, if not a friend, was somehow different. Bryan had sent those thugs to scare her and Sal off, maybe worse. The words worked their way through her mind. They refused to register.
“We have to question Bryan, get him to tell us what he knows,” she said at last.
“If he’s smart, he’ll clam up and hire a slick lawyer.”
“I can talk with him, convince him to tell us what he knows about Calvin.” She paused. “If he’s involved.”
“You don’t think he is?”
“I don’t know.”
Sal framed her face with his big hands. From his expression, she knew she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “Why don’t you go visit Shelley? She’s pregnant, big as a house, and could use the company.”
She wasn’t fooled. “You want me out of the way, right?”
His nod was rueful. “The most important thing I can do right now is find out who’s behind this. That’s the best way to keep you alive. Until I can do that, I have to stash you some place safe.”
“I can’t go into hiding. In case you’ve forgotten, I have a case to try.”
“Get a postponement.”
She shook away his hands. “I can take care of myself.”
“Really? So why’d you call me in the first place?”
“That’s not fair.”
He shook his head. “You’re right. It’s not fair. I don’t play fair when I’m scared.”
“You’re scared?” She didn’t believe it. Salvatore Santonni was the bravest man she knew.
“What do you think? Someone wants you out of the way. Do you think anything else matters?” He took a long breath. “When I saw that man put his hands on you last night, I nearly went ballistic.”
Sal was right. Her exhilaration of last night had faded, and in its place was the stark reality that someone wanted to hurt her. Or worse.
She and Sal were no closer to finding out who had kidnapped Calvin than they had been a day ago. Just as unsettling, the more she was with Sal, the more she remembered how much she enjoyed his company. Even with bad guys following them and not knowing if Calvin was alive, she liked being with him.
With an impatient shake of her head, she reminded herself that she had work. Now wasn’t the time to dwell upon how much she was beginning to care about him. Again.
The part of her that yearned warred against the part that needed to protect herself from being hurt. She had given her heart to Sal two years ago and it had ended in disaster. She didn’t know if she had the courage to risk it again.
What she needed was a distraction, something to take her mind off Sal. Work would do that. The case was ongoing and didn’t stop just because someone had abducted Calvin and was trying to kill her. She doubted the judge would grant a continuance even if Olivia asked for one. Which she wouldn’t. The parents deserved justice now.