Page 123 of The Secrets She Keeps

“Eastman, Claireson, Hennedys, Albright, Rush, Russell, Handley Barratt, Arnold, and the Scotts.” Gunnar looked at the names written in Jarrod’s distinctive scrawl. “They connect together. How?”

“Money, for one thing. Those names are all very high up the rich people of Finley Creek ladder. My gut says organized crime ring. But that can be anything going on that we don’t know about yet.” Daniel turned back to the board. He wrote another name on the list.Grundenman.

Then another:Coleson.

He drew a line to connect them.

“Wilson was a supervisor of some sort. Upper level. Kimball was clear that there was a hierarchy in place and had been for decades. Wilson and his pals weren’t old enough to have started this.” Kimball had made it clear that night in the FCGH parking lot. “We were lucky. Heather’s niece pulling her phone and recording everything that was said that night is damned strong evidence that Jarrod was right.”

Cashlyn, Samia, and Joy—along with Dr. Anthony Lake, Murdoch’s twin brother—had been among a handful of hospital personnel stuck in the parking lot when Sol Kimball had made his confession. Cashlyn had recorded everything Sol Kimball had said on her cell phone.

She’d turned that recording over to her brother-in-law—Murdoch—almost immediately after. Where it had been transcribed and entered into evidence as quickly as the forensics techs could make it happen. Almost everything that had happened before Daniel and the rest had gotten there that night. And Kimball had had a lot to say.

It was solid evidence against Steve Wilson, for a start—and the men involved in the choir hall shooting. They just had to keep tying everything together. To substantiate Kimball’s words. “It gave us a direction to go in.”

“I have photocopies of Kimball’s shift logs. Man kept records of everything he did on the job for twenty-plus years, Gun. Hell, if he had focused on being good at what he did—he would have been a better cop than he ever was. He was…wasted. He’s a damned tragedy. No denying that.” Daniel’s disgust was hard to miss.

Gunnar echoed it. What had happened to Sol Kimball was a tragedy. “It was of his own making. I’m just glad he grew a damned conscience at the end.”

“He didn’t have a conscience—unless it was a guilty one. Had Hope not looked so much like his daughter, Hope, Haldyn, and Madison would probably be dead right now. Probably Heather too.”

Well, Gunnar agreed with that. He tried to put his anger with Daniel away. To use the man’s skills to help end this once and for all. Something Heather and Miguel had said about thetimingof events around little Emilia’s birth had stood out to him. “I don’t think Wilson’s later attacks on Heather were based on a sexualobsession with Heather either. At least not fully—it might have just been aneasily visiblemotivator. What if it was something deeper than that? A way to control her, more than anything. I think it was his method of keeping her out of the way. Protecting his interests by directly attacking her and chasing her off. She said every major case she was working right before Wilson would attack was drug-related. I really want to look at those cases as soon as I can.”

“What if OPJ goes back a bit further than we realized? AndHeatherwas just a few steps away from discovering it multiple times?”

“She said he left her alone for almost two years after he beat her when she was pregnant with her older girl. We can safely assume he didn’t want parenthood and was avoiding that—maybe avoiding paying punitive support, that kind of thing. But within a few weeks of her having unknowing contact with Grundenman, and Wilson showed back up in her life to harass and hurt her again? And took his harassment one step further? I don’t buy that was coincidence at all. He was controlling and torturing his enemy, using the weapon that was the most damaging toherspecifically—and isolating her from her only avenues of help. He was sadistic. It was another volley in this war. As for Kimball and Wilson, now, I have no sympathy for either of them.”

If this was war those bastards responsible for all of this wanted, well, it was war they were going to get. Gunnar was finished screwing around.

It was time to go on the offense. Daniel and Elliot’s soft-footing wasn’t getting them anywhere.

It was time to be proactive instead of reactive here.

“Neither do I. I’m not going to let what Kimball gave us go to waste. We have a hierarchy in place, established. Camels—drivers are called camels. Then, there were supervisors. Kimballcalled Wilson a distribution captain. That implies there is definitely an organized aspect to it. Kimball said Wilson was connected to the Scotts. I’m still looking for that connection. But where?” Gunnar asked. “We have everything on the Scotts. The connections just aren’t showing up. I swear we’ve built a damned family tree—and I have nothing.”

“Kimball said the TSP are foot soldiers. But…does that stretch statewide? If it does, that’s not going to be good for the TSP.”

No. That it wouldn’t. “Mig told me we are on borrowed time. He’s had pals calling him for two days straight—with warnings. People he and Heather both know. Heather is very well liked out there, probably more than she realizes, and people are pissed. The other posts are getting beyond angry at this—if only because of the image problem it creates. It paints the entire TSP as dirty. We don’t need that. We have a hierarchy with ways to advance with these bastards. We have foot soldiers. The OPJ ring isn’t just a handful of people. I never truly thought it was.”

“So, why Heather and Powell?” Daniel asked.

“Powell said…they just unlocked the door and walked in. Those men were downstairs. In the basement hidden room. I think it was just an incredibly bad coincidence.” And it could have cost Gunnar everything. He would never forget.

“Those damned hidden rooms,” Daniel swore some more. “We’re going to have to get warrants for every empty property in that development.”

And that just wasn’t going to happen. Gunnar wasn’t stupid.

“There are over three hundred estates in that place. And the lake, lake house, golf course, four parks, the clubhouse and two gyms, the swimming pools and sports complex. We’ll never get warrants for all of them. Hell, I think half the judges in this county live in Hughes Heights. Because it’s supposed to besafe.They won’t play nice with us sullying their playground.”Gunnar tried to think about what he knew. Hughes Heights was supposedly the best, the safest, place to live in Finley Creek. Bullshit. “Powell owns nineteen or twenty houses there.”

Daniel’s father and fifth stepmother lived there, now too.

“They’d probably stick to vacant. How many are vacant?” Daniel asked.

“I think that is something we’d have to ask the president of the HOA. That’s…Brianna Claireson. Who, through Banks, another tie to OPJ. Imagine that. Powell might know. She was the president until a few years ago.” He was ready to get back to her.“And she keeps a close eye on property listings there.”

Before he could say anything else, Murdoch came almost jogging in. “Property searches finally came back. Grundenman’s got another place under an LLC. Get this. It’s in…”

They’d already searched Grundenman’s condo two blocks from Claireson Pharm—and found nothing. Not even more than a handful of photos—of his wife. Who looked eerily like a cross between Heather and Summer. But now…Gunnar just knew. “Hughes Heights?”

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