Rich Blood (Jason Rich #1)(62)

He threw up again. And then again. “Please go away.”

“It’s 6:15 in the morning, and Nola will be getting up soon. Don’t let her see you like this. She’s got enough on her plate and doesn’t need to know that her uncle’s a drunk.”

Jason gritted his teeth. “Go away, Chase. Please.”

Another round of nausea gripped him, and he vomited again. When it ended, he looked in Chase’s direction, but she was gone.

“Damnit,” he whispered as he beat his fists on the dock.





47


At 9:00 a.m., Jason walked through the doors of the sheriff’s office. A few minutes later, he was shown into the consultation room. Jana wasn’t there yet, but he was told they would bring her in shortly.

Jason waited, trying not to think about his pulsing hangover, which still hadn’t gone away after three cups of coffee and several Aleve. Once Jana was shown in, Jason held his tongue until the officers exited the room. When they were alone, it was all he could do to keep his voice in check.

“I want you to tell me what you did with the $15,000 you took from the bank the day before Braxton was murdered.”

She blinked. “I told you. I gave it to one of Tyson’s men at the strip mall down from Fire by the Lake.”

“All of it or some of it?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Bullshit. You’re lying to me. I want to know exactly what you did with that money.”

She wrung her hands, and Jason couldn’t tell whether it was an act or genuine emotion being expressed. Like everything with his sister, he wasn’t sure. “It was a lot of cash, J. J. I think I took out about five grand.”

“Weren’t you keeping up with it? You owed the bastard fifty thousand, didn’t you?”

“All I could think about was doing a line of coke, OK?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, fuck you then. I don’t care.”

“If that’s the case, then what happened to the rest of the money?”

“It should still be in an envelope in my car.”

“Well, it’s not, Jana. I’ve looked at all the inventories. Of your house. Your car. Everything. There was no cash found in your vehicle.”

“Then it was stolen, like I said before. I bet one of the sheriff’s deputies took it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He took a seat across from her. “What did you do with it?”

“I told you, I left it in my car.”

“Is it possible that Waylon Pike could have gotten the cash from your car? Is it possible that he thought you’d left it there for him to keep if he killed Braxton?”

She shook her head but said nothing.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever tell Waylon Pike you wanted him to kill Braxton?”

She blinked but didn’t answer.

“Jana?”

“I mean, I may have kidded with him some.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, but all wives do that. Braxton was screwing around on me. I was lonely. Waylon was at the house a lot. I might have had a couple glasses of wine and said something like ‘I wish you’d kill Braxton’ or something like that.”

“So his statement’s true?”

“No, it’s not.”

“The part about you asking him to kill Braxton in the past.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled it out. “This part here. ‘On several occasions, Ms. Rich told me that she wanted me to kill her husband.’”

“I guess so, but he knew I was joking.”

“Did you ever put a number on it? Did you ever tell him you’d pay him $15,000 to kill Braxton?”

Her eyes fluttered up at the ceiling. “I may have asked him how much killing Braxton was worth, and he may have mentioned a number like that.”

“Good lord. You did it, didn’t you? You paid that sonofabitch to kill Braxton.”

“No, I did not. I’ve been framed. I definitely joked with Waylon about it, but I would have never gone through with something so horrible. I got to where I hated Braxton, but I would never have taken my girls’ father away from them.”

“Did you tell Waylon anything on July 3 and 4 that might have made him believe you were serious about wanting him to kill Braxton?”

“Not that I can recall,” she said.

“That’s not good enough, Jana.”

“No,” she said.

“Is it possible that Waylon Pike found that money in your car and felt like you were making the payoff for him to kill Braxton?”

“No,” Jana said, and Jason was relieved that she hadn’t hesitated. “I think Waylon must have told someone else about my jokes, and he and that person set me up to take the fall. Someone who had as much or more reason to want Braxton dead than me.”

“Who could that be? I’ve investigated Trey Cowan and his family, and they don’t have the money.”

“What about the bitch Braxton was screwing?”

“Colleen Maples,” Jason said. “She could have paid Pike, but have you ever known the two of them to be around each other?”