All He Has Left(42)



Brent cursed. “Jake?”

“Stay calm, Brent. I just need information from you.”

His mouth dropped open. “You’re the most wanted man in Austin right now, Jake. There’s a citywide police hunt going on for you. And you want me to stay calm?”

“None of it is true.”

“Is that why we’re here? You need a lawyer?”

“No, it’s about Sarah.”

Brent visibly swallowed. “What about her?”

“How long had the affair been going on?”

Brent pitched his head. “What affair?”

“Please don’t make this harder on me than it already is. I saw the text messages between the two of you in the two days before her death last year. I know you were seeing each other. I also know you had eyes for my wife for a long time. So you can stop the damn act already. I don’t have time for it.”

“Why the hell are we having this conversation right now? Sarah has been gone for over a year, and you’re on the run from the damn police. And your daughter is missing.”

“I don’t have time to explain.” Jake stepped aggressively closer, got within a few feet of Brent. “I need the truth from you, Brent. Right now. My whole world has collapsed. Do you understand me?”

Brent put up a defensive hand. “All right, settle down. But it’s not at all what you think. Look, it’s true. I always had a thing for Sarah. I’m not going to lie. But we were not having an affair last year.”

“But you were seeing each other secretly. I saw the texts.”

“Yeah, I know. We were. But it was about something else. I swear.”

“What was it about?”

“She needed legal advice about a work situation. That’s all.”

“You expect me to believe that? The night she died, you told her that you both needed to be careful, especially because of your job.”

“It’s complicated. I have attorney-client privilege and all. I really shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

Jake felt anger surge within him. Brent had answers. He knew it. So he wasn’t going to allow some legal technicality to put up a roadblock. He reached up with both hands and grabbed Brent’s jacket in tight fists. “You think I give a damn about that? I swear, Brent, you better start spilling it. While I’m innocent in those other two deaths, I may have my first victim right here, right now, if you don’t start talking.”

Brent’s eyes flared up. Jake could tell his message was getting across.

“Look, it was about one of her brothers, OK?”

“What? Which brother?”

“Steve.”

“What about him?”

“Sarah had discovered that Steve had been stealing money from the family firm for years. I’m talking about millions of dollars that he’d been stashing away in offshore accounts. Sarah wasn’t sure what to do about it, both from a legal and familial standpoint. That’s why we were meeting. We were trying to figure it out. I swear, that’s all.”

Jake released his grip, took a step back. Steve? Embezzlement? He was stunned to hear that. Steve was the youngest of the brothers. He was kind of the black sheep of the family. Steve was never as smart or as academically accomplished as his two older brothers or his younger sister. According to Sarah, her father had to make significant donations to get Steve into Dartmouth but also to get him his finance degree. Because of this, Lars treated Steve differently from the others—like he was more of a nuisance. And Lars had never given him the same high-level company platforms as his siblings. Steve’s relationship with his father was always strained. Still, Jake was surprised to hear that Steve was willing to steal money from the family. Steve feared his father. They all did.

“Did Steve know about Sarah’s discovery?” Jake asked.

Brent shook his head. “I don’t know. Sarah was going to speak with him. But I don’t know if it ever happened. She died before I got the chance to talk to her about it again.”

“What did you do with this information?”

Brent shrugged. “Nothing. The whole family was already crushed about Sarah. I didn’t feel like it was my place to roll another grenade into the situation. So I just let it go and figured it would work itself out on its own.”

Jake’s mind was racing. “You ever tell anyone about it?”

“Not a soul, until now. I didn’t want to complicate my life.”

“Did Sarah tell anyone else?”

“I don’t think so. But how could I know that for sure?”

Jake stood there silently, his mind spinning, trying to process this new information. Did Sarah confront Steve? Could Steve have actually done something to harm his own sister? Was his brother-in-law capable of such a horrible thing? Steve was passive. He was not overly aggressive like his father or his two brothers, who were all dominating figures. So it was difficult to imagine him making a dangerous move like that on his own sister.

Then again, Jake knew money and power could make people crazy.





TWENTY-NINE


Gervais stood behind a climbing wall at Alliance Children’s Garden wearing a gray running suit and a black ski cap. His gun with silencer was tucked in his hidden waist holster. Across the way, he put eyes on his target for the very first time. With the baseball cap and goatee, the football coach looked different from the photos—but it was definitely him. His build was the same. He stood in front of the other man, who wore a black trench coat and dress shoes. Their conversation looked heated.

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