Family Sins(69)

“Sure thing. Won’t take but a minute,” Silas said.

Clayton sent the deputy across the street to his car to get an evidence bag, and then proceeded to bag, sign and date the disc before leaving the premises.

He and his deputy paused on the street.

“Good job, Wells. Head on back to the office, write up your report and enter this into evidence. Whatever you do, don’t talk about this, understand?”

Wells was a bit wild-eyed and nervous just talking about it with his boss.

“Yes, sir, I sure do. Mum’s the word,” he said, then took the evidence bag and headed to his cruiser as Clayton pulled out his phone and called Constable Riordan. His ingrown toenail wasn’t going to catch a break tonight.

Riordan answered quickly. “Chief! Do you have any news for me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do we have a witness?”

“We have something better,” Clayton said. “We have security camera footage showing Justin Wayne in the act of vandalizing both vehicles.”

“You’re not serious?”

“Oh, yes, sir, I am. I took the footage into evidence. My deputy is on his way back to the precinct to log it in. So how do you want to handle this? You worked the wreck, so technically this belongs to your case, not to mention it’s connected to the murder case you’re still working. Am I right?”

“Yes, but I want you there when I arrest him, because you discovered the evidence. I want the Waynes to know they’re not above the law anywhere—especially not in the town they think they own.”

Clayton sighed. “Yes, sir. When do you want to do this?”

“As soon as I can get an arrest warrant. Your day’s not over yet. I’ll let you know when I head your way. In the meantime, no talking about this, okay? And say nothing about this to Leigh Youngblood. I want Justin Wayne behind bars before she finds out her suspicions were true.”

“I already issued the no-talking order to my deputy, so you have no worries there.”

Clayton ended the call and headed back to the office. He could at least get off his feet for a bit before the arrest.

*

As soon as Bowie left the house, Leigh sat Jesse down at the kitchen table and fed him the lunch he’d missed.

While he was having a bowl of stew and corn bread, Leigh walked all the way back to Stanton’s office. She hadn’t been in there since before he was murdered and guessed there would be emails galore from clients. But first things, first. She sat down at the desk, then booted up the computer and retrieved the contact information for William Frazier. He was one of their clients, but he was also a rather well-known journalist out of Chicago. She gave him a call, then sat back with her eyes closed, listening to the phone ring. Just when she thought it was going to go to voice mail, he picked up.

“Hello!” he answered, sounding out of breath.

Leigh took a deep breath herself.

“Hello, Mr. Frazier, this is Leigh Youngblood.”

“Oh, hello, Leigh. What’s up?”

“I have something that I believe you would call a scoop.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes, deadly serious. Feel free to record this if you want, or if you’re going to take notes, I’ll speak slowly.”

“Oh my God...you are serious! Give me a second to get this recorder going and...uh...okay. It’s on now. You may begin.”

“My husband, Stanton Youngblood, was murdered. Before he died, he wrote the last name of his killer in the dirt.”

And then she proceeded to give him the whole ugly story. By the time she was finished she was sick to her stomach. The only good thing about reliving the horror was knowing it was going to destroy the Waynes.

Frazier was stunned at the scope of what she’d told him. Through all the years he’d been the Youngbloods’ client, he had never known the connection between Leigh and the Waynes. Although Wayne Industries was a private, closely held company, they had other holdings and had diversified off and on throughout the years. But the other investors in the resort were public and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Their shareholders, as well as government regulators, wouldn’t be happy about their involvement in the Wayne family’s problems.The ugliness of this story and the Waynes’ manipulation of the banking industry, causing poor people to lose their ancestral homes, wouldn’t play well in the press. As for East Coast Lending, which was owned by Wayne Industries and had cleared the way for them to buy up the land for a resort, this was enough to ruin both them and the Wayne family, and send people to jail for more than murder. He had a lot of investigating to do before he could break the story, but he sensed the need for haste.

“Thank you for this. I have a lot of calls to make for verification. If I can get what I need, I will run with it. I thought a lot of Stanton. I’m so sorry about what happened.”

Leigh’s eyes welled.

“Thank you,” she said, and as soon as their connection ended, she laid her head down on the desk and cried.

*

It was a few minutes after four when Andrew arrived at the mansion. He had a date with Nita, which would involve a couple of hours upstairs complying with her endless need for sex and whatever sex toys she wanted to play with, then dinner with the family, after which he was meeting Charles at the lake house for dessert. It wasn’t the first time he’d involved himself with more than one member of a family, but it was tricky.