Not One of Us(81)

I blinked at him in surprise. Drug smuggling? I’d had no suspicion my uncle was involved in that. “What about Louis Cormier?” I asked. “Was he in on this too?”

“Mr. Nice and Clean? Hell, no.”

I glanced out the window where Cash paced by his truck. How much longer did I have before they permanently silenced me? The longer I kept the conversation going, the more time it bought me to try to figure out an angle to save myself. “I’m confused,” I said quickly. “Why did you kill the Cormiers?”

“Ray started demanding more money. He upped his game, hinted that he had more dirt on me besides the drugs. I called his bluff and cut him off. Ray was furious. He called me from prison to say he’d hired Louis to look into Jackson’s adoption and he’d soon have proof that I’d stolen a baby for money.” Uncle Buddy snorted in derision. “Stupid bastard never guessed that I’m the one who killed Jackson and set him up for the crime.”

My pain and fear momentarily subsided as I absorbed his calm confession. I’d guessed he’d done it, but to hear him say it aloud still shocked me. “You killed your own nephew,” I whispered.





Chapter 34


TEGAN


I opened the text from Jori, heart drumming with excitement and full of optimism after the successful drug bust. Really, it was greedy of me to want more. How incredible if Jori could identify the voice on the recorder and solve an old mystery.

It’s Buddy. Help.

Buddy Munford? Her uncle? I stared at the screen in stunned disbelief. Was she in danger? Surely she hadn’t been so foolish as to confront her uncle with the truth. The text had been sent at 11:27 a.m., nearly forty minutes ago. I started to hit the dial button, then stopped. What if her uncle had the phone? Calling might place Jori in even more danger. Best to track her location. Oliver stood nearby talking to a few cops from Mobile. I caught his eye and signaled him over.

Quickly, I identified Jori’s phone carrier and called the company, identifying myself as a law enforcement officer and that I needed the current location of that phone ASAP for an emergency. In training, I’d learned that the phone company could immediately identify a phone location based on tower triangulation, but until today I’d never had occasion to test that fact. I was relieved when seconds later they informed me where the phone, and hopefully Jori, was at this very moment. By the time I disconnected the call, Oliver was at my side.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“We have to get to Jori Trahern right now. I’ll fill you in on the way.”

I raced to my unmarked car, and he ran alongside me. Inside the vehicle I hit the accelerator, and we sped out. I estimated it would only take five minutes to get to the location. If only I’d opened the text sooner . . . no, I could self-recriminate later. Right now, I had to focus on what might lie ahead. If I hadn’t provided Jori that recording, she wouldn’t be in danger. I should have waited to let her hear it in my presence and then gone after her uncle once she’d identified his voice. I filled Oliver in as I drove. I expected an explosion of anger when I told him I let Jori listen to the old recording, but he took it in stride. I might catch hell later, but that would have to wait too. Nothing Oliver could say to me would make me feel worse than the guilt now eating at me.

I gripped the steering wheel tightly, the road almost seeming to rush up to meet me, as Oliver radioed for backup and asked who owned the property located at 8859 Shadow Wood Road.

Seconds later, we had our answer. Buddy Munford. Jori was with a killer, and she’d texted me for help. Chills slithered up and down my back.





Chapter 35


JORI


I gaped at Uncle Buddy, astonished at his callous nonchalance. He was determined to put his own spin on the murder of his nephew.

“Had to. Jackson was hitting me up for money. He’d intimidated Tressie into admitting that I’d illegally taken a baby from a drug addict. I mean, come on! Jackson should have thanked me for delivering him into a family that loved him. Ardy had the money to spare—his business was going well. Tressie just told Ardy that the fifty-thousand payment went for legal fees and court costs. To be honest, her husband didn’t look too close at what was happening. It was a win-win all around.”

I’d been right. Everything had stemmed from there. The drug smuggling he’d mentioned wasn’t the real issue. The baby stealing was at the core of the matter.

“Tressie paid you for a baby. There was no adoption and no official papers. And you were the middleman between her and Grace. Does Tressie know you killed Jackson?”

“Hell, no,” he chuckled. “Tressie was always a little tiger, even as a kid. If she thought I’d killed her precious son, she’d have either killed me or told the cops.”

That fit into what I now knew about my aunt. She was an outrageous liar and manipulator, but it didn’t go further than that.

“Like I said, it served us all well,” Uncle Buddy continued. “I got the seed money to start my business, Tressie got the baby she desperately wanted, and Grace got the means to fund her drug habit. You should have stayed out of it. I tried to warn you,” he said, shaking his head sadly, as though I’d disappointed him. “But you had to keep going and talking to everyone.”

I scanned the cabin, searching for another subject to distract him and get him talking longer. “Is this where you kept Zach when you took him?”