Meghan leaned forward. “Your Josh? Running drugs? That’s ridiculous.”
Aubrey swallowed. “I don’t know if it is, Meghan. I’m going to ask Chase for help. He’s a reporter. Maybe he can do some digging or something.” She sat back and watched the emotions course over her best friend’s face. At least Meghan didn’t laugh.
Meghan got up and poured them fresh coffees, then turned back to Aubrey.
“This is insane, you know that.”
“I do,” Aubrey replied. “You didn’t know him, Meghan. He was born to save people. He saved me. And all he wanted to do was help others. He wasn’t a criminal, didn’t have that kind of mind-set. If he got himself into something and got in over his head, and they killed him for it, and people are starting to talk about it . . . I have to know. I have to find out what really happened.”
“No one’s perfect, sugar. Especially saviors.”
Aubrey sighed. “I know. But he was pretty damn close.”
“What do you think Chase will say about all of this?”
“No idea. He’s been very interested in the story, as you can imagine. He may walk, he may want to help. I won’t know unless I ask.”
Meghan straightened the napkins on the bar. She shook her head while she thought, the small diamond in her left ear cartilage winking, like a star moving in and out of the clouds. Aubrey sat silently, waiting. Either Meghan would believe her and want to help, or she’d laugh her out of the store, and Aubrey would be forced to try elsewhere.
“Do you honestly think Josh could have been involved in an illegal drug ring?”
“Someone killed him, Meghan. At this point, anything is possible.”
“But don’t you think the police would have followed that trail back then? Do you remember them saying anything about Josh being involved in something?”
“They weren’t exactly talking to me, and it didn’t come up in the trial. But Josh was acting strange before he disappeared. I thought it was the stress from school, and his extra job at the ME’s office. He wasn’t getting a lot of sleep. Burning the candle.”
“The ME’s office?”
“Yeah. We needed extra money. He had changed his mind about his specialty. It was going to add time to his schooling, so he took the job at the morgue to supplement our income.”
Meghan looked at her strangely. “You realize no one has ever mentioned he worked at the medical examiner’s office.”
Aubrey stilled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean in every article I’ve ever read about Josh, none ever mentioned he had a second job. Did you tell the police this?”
“Of course. Why were you reading about Josh?”
Meghan laughed shortly. “Aubrey, you’re my best friend. Of course I read about your husband’s case. Knowing stuff about him helped me help you. When you were having bad times.”
“Let’s not go there.”
“Agreed. Though you start digging into this, you could end up right back in the hospital. You know that, right?”
Aubrey looked into the depths of her coffee. “I am a lot stronger now than I was.”
“All right. So maybe he lied to you about working at the ME’s office. Let me ask you this. Did you ever find anything odd, something that you didn’t know Josh had? Keys, notebooks, parking stubs? Drugs? Anything that might be suspicious?”
“Meghan, no. Not that I know of. I was grieving, though, and they put me through hell, interrogating me, harassing me. I wasn’t exactly looking for lost keys or parking stubs, and the drugs I was taking were my own. Then we packed everything up and Daisy took it. I don’t even have it anymore.”
They both drifted into silence. Meghan pulled out her laptop from under the counter, was clicking the keys. Aubrey didn’t know what she was looking up; she just kept shaking her head, muttering “This is crazy” under her breath over and over. Aubrey understood that sentiment. She felt the same way.
“Whoa. Look at this.”
“What is it?”
“Derek Allen. If this is the same guy, Aubrey . . . he was held for questioning in the murder of a drug kingpin out of Mexico.” She tapped away, then pulled up the Davidson County Criminal Court website. “I can plug in his name and see his arrest record.”
“Are there pictures?”
“Not in this database, no. And a Google search isn’t picking anything up.”
“What about DC Investigations? That was on the card he gave me.”
Meghan’s brows furrowed. “Nothing. Aubrey, I think you need to go to the police, and tell them he came to see you.”
“You’re kidding, right? Me, go to the police?”
“This Derek Allen guy is trouble.” She flipped the computer around. “Look at his sheet. His most previous arrest was for aggravated murder. He was sentenced, he’s been in jail. He’s no one to be playing with.”
“No police. No way.” Aubrey thought back to the conversation she had with Tyler. “This has to be the guy Tyler was talking about who was being released. But why would he come to me and say these things about Josh?”