Desolation Road (Torpedo Ink 4)

By the time she was done with him, Robert Jr. had wanted to put his head in the noose. He couldn’t think straight anymore. It wasn’t uncommon for the recipient of that kind of torture, if prolonged over several hours or days, to be so disoriented they would do anything, including take their own lives. He was deprived of water and, in the end, he would have been babbling, and any suggestion from Scarlet’s calm and reasoning voice would sound good to him.

“Holy shit.” Czar looked at Absinthe. “You were alone with her. She had weapons on her, and you would have hesitated. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have. I know you. You like her. You would have hesitated, and she wouldn’t have.”

That pissed Absinthe off. “Don’t make her out to be any different than we are. She’s not. She’s trained to kill, the same as every person in this room. We all have backup, she doesn’t. Even if she’d gotten to me, she wouldn’t have lived through it. If I had killed her, no one would have known. She had every right to go after those men. They took years away from her and then her family, just the way our families were taken from us.”

The others nodded. Absinthe could see even Czar agreed with him. How could he not when it was the truth?

“That isn’t the point,” Czar said calmly. “They deserved everything they got and more. I applaud her for her ingenuity and the fact that she planned so carefully step by step and carried out exactly what needed to be done. The point I’m making, Absinthe, is that you were not safe with her. My concern is that you behaved recklessly and out of character and it can’t happen again. None of you can do that kind of thing, taking chances with your lives. We’re responsible for one another. All of us. We’re family and we’re all needed even when it feels as if we’re not. You get me, all of you?”

He looked around the table with his piercing eyes. Not singling out any one of them, but touching on Savage, Lana and Absinthe, on all of them. Absinthe felt the heat and weight of that gaze. He nodded, just as the others did. It was a fair assessment. He couldn’t argue with Czar. In the end, he was right.

“What happened when Robert Jr.’s body was found?” Steele asked, diverting attention away from Czar’s very real concerns.

“Robert Sr. found the body. He was beside himself and then the letters were made public. At first, he was told about the letter by the owner of one newspaper who was a friend of his. But two others published the letter on the front page of their newspapers. The chief of police showed him the letter sent to them. Holden Sr. claimed it was a forgery. Then he claimed it was written under duress, that someone held a gun on Junior. The investigation was very thorough. I went over the police files,” Code said. “There was zero evidence that anyone had entered Robert Jr.’s home. He had a detailed diagram on his computer of how to make the clapper dating back two years earlier. It’s not difficult to make and he had seemingly put together the device using his own tools.”

Absinthe had to admire Scarlet. She had planned so carefully. Clearly she had planted evidence on Robert Jr.’s computer two years earlier and then taken the time to break into his home on more than one occasion to use his tools to construct the clapper.

“The materials were gathered from construction sites around the estate. Everything traced back to Robert Jr. Holden Sr. refused the findings and went to his friend the governor, insisting Scarlet Foley was involved. The governor had the Feds take a look into the case and they came to the same conclusion as the first investigators.

“This time, Scarlet took exception to once more being dragged through the mud at Holden Sr.’s whim. With her attorney by her side, she stated that while she felt terrible for the man, she was tired of him trying to ruin her life. She sued him and won a very large amount of money and he was court-ordered to stay away from her and stop harassing her. She moved to Sonoma and became the librarian there,” Code continued.

Absinthe looked at him sharply. Code didn’t sound like he was finished. The report should have been, but clearly it wasn’t. A worried Code meant all of them should be worried and in this case, especially him.

“What is it?”

Code reached back and rubbed at the nape of his neck. “In my opinion, from everything I’ve read about him, Holden Sr. isn’t the type of man to just fade away. One of the things his son wrote in the letter was that his father told him to do whatever he wanted with women now while he could and then marry as much money and advantage as possible. From that point on, you had to be careful, protect that, but it wouldn’t be near as fun. It didn’t much matter what the bitch you married looked like, you had money enough to pay for whatever you wanted, just make certain it never came to light, no matter how you had to do that. Holden’s wife didn’t like that much, and she initiated divorce proceedings.”