Fool Me Once

“Yeah, it’s why I’m here.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and swipe through the photos that were just sent to me by Scott Cronin, my partner. “It’s enough to warrant a search of that shop.”

“There’s no way he’s distributing from there,” Dad argues. “We need to watch. If we get a warrant now, sure, we’ll find some drugs, but then we have to bank on him giving up his connection.” My dad gives me a knowing look and continues. “We can pull Brenton over for suspicion, but if he doesn’t have anything on him at the time, it’s going to raise alarm. And even if he is carrying, again, it’s not guaranteed he’ll give up the connection. Since you’ve been following him, we’ve found out he’s making deliveries to some of the wealthiest, most influential men in the city. There’s no way Brenton and his brother are running this operation on their own. We have to be patient. What do we know?”

Damn it, I know he’s right. I need to calm my ass down, but it’s hard when I feel like every time I talk around the truth to Blakely, I’m slowly losing her.

“We’ve gone over everything.” I sigh in frustration. “Maxwell Travers a.k.a. ‘Brenton’s brother’ who isn’t really his brother owns the shop. We know they can’t be brothers because they’re both only children and neither of their moms remarried. Maxwell has no dad on his birth certificate, and Brenton’s is an alcoholic living in New York.”

Throwing myself back in the seat, I scrub my face with my hands, trying to piece together the last of this fucking puzzle. We’re so close. All we need is that final piece for it to all click together and show us the entire picture.

My phone rings, and I grab it. It’s Cronin. “Reynolds.”

“Maxwell stopped at a new location.”

I sit up straight and pull my dad’s laptop over to me, ready to type the address into the database. “Go ahead.” Cronin relays the address, and the information on the house comes up. “I’ll call you back in a minute.”

“It says the home is owned by Patricia Sterling.” I pull up her information. “She has one daughter, who died five years ago. Paula Sterling.” I click on the police file and read what it says out loud. “She was found in the woods just off I-95. Cause of death: internal injuries caused from being beaten. She had drugs in her system, but not enough to kill her. Her boyfriend…” My eyes flit back and forth between the screen and my dad. This can’t be right. Fuck! This is too much of a coincidence.

“Her boyfriend, what?” Dad asks.

“Her boyfriend was brought in for questioning but never considered a suspect.”

“Okay…” Dad gives me a confused look, but that’s only because he doesn’t know what her boyfriend’s name is.

“His name is Miguel Sanchez.”

Dad stands, his chair knocking over backward in the process. “Are you fucking sure?”

“It has his license right here.” I turn the laptop so he can see it for himself. “It’s him, Dad. It’s the asshole who killed my brother.”

It takes my dad a minute to compose himself, but once he does, he flips right into police mode. There’s a reason he’s been Carterville’s Police Chief for the last twenty years. He knows how to compartmentalize. “We need to find out if Patricia is living there. My guess is she’s renting out her home to her deceased daughter’s grieving boyfriend.”

I run a search on Patricia, and sure enough, it shows her homestead property is in Daytona. “Why wasn’t she questioned when you were looking for Miguel?”

“Because he was never arrested,” Dad says with a shake of his head. “It didn’t come up. It’s only coming up now because you did a direct search of the address. He was only brought in for questioning in hope of finding out some information to help move the case along. We were at a dead end.”

Dad scrubs his hands down his face in frustration. “We questioned Miguel’s family and not a damn person mentioned the name Paula. I would’ve followed up.”

A text comes through from Scott. “Maxwell left the residence.”

“Damn it! They have to be connected. My guess is Miguel is hiding out in that damn house! He’s probably been there for years.”

“Did Miguel’s family mention Maxwell or Brenton?”

“No, whatever connection he has with them was kept under lock.” Dad picks up his office phone.

“Who’re you calling?”

“Judge Pruett, to give us a warrant. Between Maxwell going there, and Patricia owning the home and being connected to Miguel, it just might be enough to get a warrant.”

The phone rings, and I inhale a deep breath. We’re so close. This might be over soon. And then, not only will the man who killed my brother be finally brought to justice, but I’ll be able to tell Blakely everything.