The Killing Game(28)

Fear wormed through her insides. No . . . no . . . it wasn’t . . . was it? No. She watched as the man got into a black sedan and turned out of the lot.

Then she grabbed up her cell phone and punched in Luke’s cell number.

*

“. . . barely a slap on the wrist,” Iris moaned. “Now there’s no record of those forged confessions? Jesus, Luke. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you did it for him. How can Bolchoy get off scot-free?”

“He lost his job,” Luke reminded her. He was holding the cell phone away from his ear because when she was upset Iris’s voice could damn near shatter glass. He heard the beep of an incoming call and said, “I’ve got another call.”

“He said he forged those documents and now they’re missing. Who do you think did it? Amberson?”

“Opal would never compromise a case. Doesn’t matter if it was Bolchoy or someone else.”

“Would she for you?”

“No. I gotta go.”

“Well, that confession just didn’t walk out of the department.”

“There was no confession. Bolchoy lied about there being one. Corkland knows that and so do you.” Luke hoped that was true.

“There was a forged paper!”

“Come on, Iris. We’ve been playing this game for months. It’s over. Bolchoy’s out of the department. No one there wants him back in, and I don’t think the union’s looking out for him either. Being outside of it all is hell for him.”

“Playing what game,” she said in a deadly voice.

“None of us have ever believed the Carreras confessed to coercion or whatever else Bolchoy put in that document.”

“You admit Bolchoy did it.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But it would be just like him to draw up a fake document, wave it in front of their faces, and tell them he was going to use their forged signatures to convict them.”

“That’s coercion.”

“Whatever it is, it lost him his job. His identity. I’m just glad your boss was smart enough not to take this any further.”

“You still think Bolchoy’s a badass, yet he’s no better than the Carreras,” she fumed.

“He’s a whole lot better than the Carreras,” Luke stated flatly, his temper spiking. He switched over to his other call, but by then they were gone. Realizing it was Andi’s number, he felt a jolt of awareness that made him think, Huh. He hadn’t plugged her into his contacts list yet, but the digits were fresh in his mind. She hadn’t left a message, so he called her back, and this time he got her voice mail. “Hey, I’m here,” he said. “Sorry I missed your call. I’m going to try to see Bolchoy today. I’ve got a call in to Peg Bellows, but I haven’t heard from her yet. Take care not to move boxes yourself.” He paused, then added, “Call me back.”

*

The movers arrived at one and started loading up their truck with Andi’s furniture. She thought she’d be happy to begin emptying the house, but she was tired and uneasy after seeing, maybe, one of the Carreras in the Wren Development parking lot. And even if it wasn’t either Blake or Brian, Andi recognized how threatened she’d felt.

Though she hadn’t lifted anything heavier than her purse, her back and her head ached a bit. She carried a bottle of water around with her as she helped direct which pieces to haul out. The van was going to her storage unit first with most everything but her bed, one small dresser and a nightstand, a love seat and two occasional chairs that shared an ottoman. She was going to have to purchase a smaller table; the dining table she and Greg owned was too large for the cabin.

It took two hours for them to load and head to the storage unit. Andi hadn’t called Luke back because she’d felt embarrassed about jumping to conclusions and phoning him with her fears. She didn’t want him to think she was half-hysterical, crying wolf at every opportunity. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure she’d let her fears take over.

Don’t let your pride make you stupid, though.

“No,” she said aloud, picking up her cell and listening to Luke’s voice-mail message before returning his call. He answered on the second ring, though he sounded distracted. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“Okay. I guess. But . . . oh, damn. Maybe I shouldn’t have called. Do I seem kind of panicked? Sorry. It’s just that . . . I thought I saw one of the Carreras in the Wren parking lot, but I could be slightly paranoid. Now I’m not so sure.”

“You aren’t panicked. You have a right to worry.”

“So, you haven’t heard back from Ted Bellows’s widow?”

“Not yet. One of the reasons I want to check with Bolchoy is that he was working with her. I don’t know how much help she was. I think there may have been some medical problem. Ray got frustrated, and well, we know the rest of that.”

She wanted to ask him if he would come by the house afterward. The desire to have him with her was almost overwhelming. She kept that thought to herself and instead said, “I’ll be at the cabin tomorrow, when the movers take over the pieces that belong there. I hope the lock’s fixed.”

“It is. I went to take a look at it, and it was taken care of.”

“You went to the cabin?”