Thirty minutes later, Mason and Ray were headed south out of Portland. Two coffees in Mason’s sedan’s cup holders and a file from Lee Fielding’s murder trial on Ray’s lap.
Mason was wearing an orange polo shirt. It had the damned little horse on it and everything. He felt like he glowed. Ray had offered him three different polo shirts. Pastel stripes, solid yellow, or solid orange. He went with the lesser of three evils. The shirt wasn’t as baggy as he expected, probably because Ray had a tendency to wear them a little on the snug side.
Ray had referred to his shirt color as “tangerine.” Mason had stared at him.
“It’s orange.”
“No, I have an orange one at home. This one’s a little different.”
Holy shit.
“You buy this stuff or does your wife shop for you?”
Ray looked hurt. “I buy my own stuff. Jillian likes how I dress. She’d tell me if I looked like an idiot. What the hell’s your problem? There’s other clothing in the world besides button-down collared dress shirts. Other colors besides blue, gray, and white.”
“Drink your coffee.” Translation: I’m ending this stupid line of conversation.
Ray took a sip of his Venti black coffee and dug through the papers in his lap. He cleared his throat. “Since all the stuff from Gary Hinkes’s trial has vanished, I’m getting what references I can from Fielding’s case.”
“Right.”
“We’ve already been through the transcript. Now I’m just looking at all the letters sent between the DA’s office and Fielding’s attorney and the judge. I can’t believe how formal and longwinded all this crap is. It takes ten pages of letters to get everyone to agree on one little thing. It’s like that over and over. No wonder attorneys rake in the big bucks. They charge three hundred dollars an hour to write a letter. I could send a text in ten seconds that accomplishes the same thing.”
Mason grinned. “If only texts were nicely kept legal documents.”
“Anyway, they spend a lot of time arguing back and forth. Most of this shit doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m just looking for the Hinkes name. He’s in here quite a bit. The prosecutor reprimands Fielding’s attorney every time he mentions him. Says his case is separate and to keep his focus on Fielding only.”
“Fielding’s attorney was appointed, right?”
“Yeah, he couldn’t afford one. Same with Hinkes. Glad to know we paid for their trials.”
“Same guy from the DA’s office prosecuted both?”
“No…” Ray shuffled through papers. “I’d thought so at first, but there’s a reference somewhere for Fielding’s attorney to take some issue up with a different prosecutor…I’m looking for it.”
Ray sucked in a breath. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Gerald jogged up the stairs from the parking area below the house. He’d let himself into the secured parking area and tapped the security code to disarm the house. He knew all the security; that was his job. He also knew that at five in the morning on a Saturday, his boss would still be asleep and the house empty of employees.
How was he going to be received? The boss wasn’t going to be happy that he hadn’t taken out Chris Jacobs. But he’d found some good bait to bring the man out into the open. Once Jacobs heard about his missing sister, he’d have a good idea who took her. And if the word about the pile of Twinkies got back to him, Jacobs would have no doubt.
Jamie had said she contacted her brother by leaving a phone message. He could get the number out of her and do the same if things didn’t move fast enough.
He liked the idea of Jamie being locked in his trunk. And tied up. He’d experimented a bit with the bondage-type play but had never gotten turned on by it. But the long-haired woman in his car was sticking in his brain and distracting him in a big way.
Even if she never led him to Chris Jacobs, he still came out ahead.
He needed to find a different place to take the woman. He’d considered and rejected his own home or a hotel, and there was no way he could go back to the bunker. His boss had a few private vacation homes in the state that he could drive to in a couple of hours. He just needed a thumbs-up from his boss—and a key.
The big house was quiet and dark. Feeling a bit like a burglar, Gerald quietly sped through the halls and up another flight of stairs to the boss’s bedroom. He raised his hand to quietly knock and then froze.
What if he wasn’t alone?
He’d never walked in on his boss with anyone, but that didn’t mean this couldn’t be the first time. Gerald was often in the home at night, the boss knew that, but they’d never established a protocol for him needing to talk to the boss during sleeping hours. He still wasn’t answering his cell phone.
The intercom.
There was an intercom system through the phone extensions on the house landline. He’d call from one of the other rooms first. His boss hated mornings. The man was a night owl and always struggled to wake up even on normal mornings.
He tiptoed away from the door. The intercom was a bit obnoxious sounding, but that should be better than Gerald appearing at the door if the boss wasn’t alone. He headed back to the kitchen.
Nearing the kitchen, he stopped and sniffed the air. Coffee? Clinking of dishes told him someone was up. He pushed through the swinging door. His boss stood at the counter in front of the coffeemaker, his back to Gerald.
“Oh, I thought you’d still be asleep,” said Gerald.
The man whirled around, his mouth in an O.
Not his boss.
“Sorry, Senator. I didn’t know you were in town,” Gerald apologized. His boss’s brother was a common visitor in the governor’s mansion. He tugged his jacket’s sleeves down an inch and wished he’d worn his usual driving gloves.
“You scared the shit out of me, Prentice. You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”
“I didn’t know anyone else was in the house.”
“We’re leaving for the airport in a couple of hours. I should wake Phillip up.”
That would take care of Gerald’s dilemma. “Good, I need to talk to him real quick. I was about to call him on the intercom. I’d rather you did the honors.”
The senator chuckled with a smile, and Gerald understood why the man had never lost an election. He knew how to appear completely charming and relatable. “Phillip’s never been a morning person. I‘ll let him know you’re waiting to talk to him. Must be urgent if you’re here this early on a Saturday morning.”
Gerald shifted on his feet and pulled his sleeves again. “A personal matter, actually.”
The senator nodded. “Got it. I’ll let him know.” He poured two mugs of coffee, adding plenty of cream to both, and backed through the swinging kitchen door. “A little peace offering. We were up till one last night packing and talking. Coffee should wake him up easier.”
Gerald sincerely doubted coffee was going to help after his boss found out he hadn’t completed his mission.