Lance wasn’t sure how he left the sheriff’s station. Suddenly, he was outside. The sun broke through the clouds, blinding him.
Morgan took his arm and led him across the parking lot. “Your mother doesn’t have to comply with the sheriff’s request. He doesn’t have a search warrant, nor does he have the grounds to get one.”
“She’ll give him whatever he wants, and he knows it.” Lance put both his hands on his head. “He’ll tell her not providing the information will slow his investigation. But giving him access to her personal records will upset her.”
His mother wanted nothing more than to find the truth. She’d been waiting more than two decades to move on with her life.
“You can go for a power of attorney and block him from seeing her,” Morgan said.
Lance shook his head. “I’d have to convince her psychiatrist that Mom is incompetent at the same time that she’s been making improvement with her new therapist. It won’t fly. And she would feel that I’d betrayed her.”
And that would hurt her more in the long run than anything the sheriff could do.
“Then let her comply.” Morgan stopped next to his vehicle. “He won’t find anything. He’s just spinning his wheels.”
Lance swallowed a lump of anger the size of a volleyball in his throat. If Morgan hadn’t dragged him out of King’s office, he might have taken a swing at the sheriff and ended up spending the night in jail. Losing control would help no one.
But was he losing his shit because the sheriff’s theory was way off base?
Or because it was all too logical?
Sharp came out of the building and crossed the parking lot. “The sheriff is a dick. You want to get even with the SOB? Let’s find out what happened to your dad before he does. King will never get over it.”
Lance breathed. Angry air hissed out of his chest. “As much as I don’t want to, I can follow the evidence to the sheriff’s theory that my father killed Mary. In fact, if I wasn’t too close to the case, I would have already considered it. But to suggest my mother conspired with him is too much.”
“Your mother did nothing wrong, and she will be fine,” Sharp said. “She’ll send him copies of her e-mail and phone records. Hell, she’s better than any forensic computer tech I’ve ever worked with. Even if she had been in contact with your dad, the sheriff would never find the evidence in her permanent records. All communication would have been routed through some village in Turkey.”
Lance paced a tight circle in front of his Jeep. His mother was in no danger from Sheriff King. Right?
“I might not have been right about my parents’ relationship when I was ten,” Lance said. “But I know that my mother hasn’t been in contact with my dad since that night.”
“Of course she hasn’t.” Sharp waved off his comment. “The whole line of inquiry is ridiculous. Unfortunately, it makes me think the sheriff is desperate, and that he doesn’t have squat in evidence or leads to follow.”
“Did the background checks reveal anything useful?” Sharp asked Lance.
Lance looped a hand around the back of his neck. The hours he’d spent online the previous night had given him a stiff neck. “Brian and Stan both have multiple mortgages on their homes. Stan is the more leveraged of the two by far.”
“Brian had a sports car in his garage,” Morgan said. “Maybe he has other expensive toys. Stan has a big house, a Mercedes, and expensive furnishings. But as a partner in an established accounting firm, I’d think he’d be able to afford those things.”
“Maybe the firm has problems,” Lance said.
“It’s worth a deeper dive,” Sharp agreed.
“Then let’s get to work,” Morgan said. “Lance and I will talk to Crystal Fox’s neighbor.”
Sharp nodded. “I’ll go to PJ’s when it opens this afternoon and see if I can track down anyone who knew Mary. I’ll see what I can dig up on Stan Adams’s accounting firm as well.” He headed for his car.
Morgan held her hand out for Lance’s keys. “I’ll drive. You are too angry to get behind the wheel.”
Lance dropped his keys in her palm. They climbed into the Jeep. Lance called his mother and explained what the sheriff wanted. He didn’t elaborate on the whys of the request. “I’ll stop by later and pick up the documents,” he told her.
She sounded confused but steady as she agreed. He lowered the phone.
“Was she upset?” Morgan glanced at him.
“I don’t even know anymore.” He leaned his head against the seat. He could tell Morgan wanted to talk. She was desperate to help, to share his burden and lend him some of her tremendous strength. But Lance was unable to process any more emotion. So he took the cowardly way out. He closed his eyes and didn’t say another word until they arrived at the farmhouse down the road from Crystal Fox’s house.
Morgan parked on the shoulder of the road.
Lance lifted his head. The farmhouse sagged under the weight of its history. The structure seemed wobbly and precarious, as if the removal of one cinder block from its foundation would bring the whole building crashing down like a giant Jenga tower.
“Looks like the kind of place where the residents cook meth in a shed.” He scanned the tall weeds that surrounded the property. The carcass of a barn, its timbers exposed like the ribcage of a skeleton, lay behind the house. “Maybe this is a mistake.”
A low throb started in Lance’s leg. The memory of approaching another rural house with an abandoned air hovered in the periphery of his mind, the way a predator hides in the shadows. He surveyed the windows, looking for movement but saw nothing.
No shifting of a curtain. No silhouette of a man. No rifle barrel.
No criminal waiting to shoot him in the leg and nearly kill him.
“We’re just going to ask a few questions,” Morgan said.
He rubbed his leg. He’d been shot approaching a front door to ask some simple questions. He shook off the memory of lying on the grass, bleeding out, but his bullet scar continued to ache. “Maybe you should wait in the car.”
“No one answers the door when you knock.” Morgan got out of the vehicle.
Lance followed her to stand in front of the Jeep. “Sure they do.”
She shook her head. “You don’t look casual. You still look like a cop. You intimidate people.”
He glanced down at his clothing. Black cargos, T-shirt, leather jacket. “This is casual.”
“Sure. For a SWAT team. It wouldn’t matter what you wore. You just have that look in your eyes, and your muscles bulge out all over.” Shielding her eyes with one hand, she surveyed the house. “Looks abandoned to me, but tax records say the house belongs to Elijah Jackson. He must be related to Ricky Jackson.”
Which made the meth lab even more likely.
“There’s only one way to find out.” She walked toward the porch.
Lance tamped down his emotional turmoil as he refocused on the house. Ripped screens covered the windows. A gust of wind blew through a set of rusty wind chimes. The high-pitched metallic pings lifted goose bumps on Lance’s arms.
He checked his weapon and tucked Morgan behind him as they walked up the driveway and approached the sagging porch.
“Watch yourself.” He steered her around a hole in the porch step.