Page 42 of Hold a Candle

“But also very foolish,” Pauley scolded. “Didn’t it occur to ye that Belton might be in on whatever was going on?”

“I knew he was selling uh...merchandise, but I didn’t know what to think about the truck and Ruskag,” he confessed. “I just knew he was my friend, and that he was trying to make money on the side to help his mum take care of expenses after his dad left them. His little sister has cancer and although the treatments are paid for, they don’t cover his mum’s losses from not working. He would never tell me anything though, even though he knew I was snooping. But he looked scared that night.”

“What did ye find when ye went back?” Pauley asked.

“Belton was fine, but he told me not to come back to work until I heard from him. He said I needed to lay low because they might decide to clean house once the news that Ruskag was dead got out. So, I changed my clothes and put the others in my locker, then I went home to sleep. I wanted him to come with me, but he said that would just make Ruskag’s partner even more suspicious. And then Mica showed up to arrest me,” he finished.

Pauley held out her hand. “Can I have yer phone, Luca?”

Luca smiled sheepishly at Darro and Angus, and then took his burner phone out of his boot and handed it to her. Both men shot him an identical stern look with folded arms across their chests.

Pauley took the little black phone and flipped open the top. Finding his pictures, she pushed the gallery button and they opened up. She could see the white box truck, like an oversized panel van in one pic, and the license plate in the other. There were no markings on the truck, but there were many such trucks around Inverness. Nothing special about it at all, and nothing that would make a person question it’s right to be at the back of any given business.

“I’m going to send these pictures to Mica and Quinn,” she told Luca, after sending them to herself first.

He eyed her suspiciously. “Are ye really saying that Brodie is dirty?”

“Nay, I’m not saying that,” she replied with a frown. “But Brodie was sniffing around one of the county line gangs when he was still here in Inverness. He would disappear for hours at a time and never explain where he’d been. These rural areas with access to sea ports are a great way to export drugs to the bigger cities. On the surface, he appears clean.”

“If ye don’t think he’s dirty, then why don’t ye trust him?”

Why indeed? How did she count the ways? Aloud she said, “I have my reasons, Luca. Nothing I can put into words, exactly, but just a strong feeling that he’s up to no good.” She handed the phone to Darro with a meaningful look.

Darro nodded and took the phone, sending Luca a steely glance.

“Now ye sound like great Gramma Caulfield,” Luca snorted, flushing slightly but not asking for his phone back. “Remember how she was always talking about someone walking over her grave, and then something weird would happen?”

Pauley glanced over at Jamie and his eyebrows shot up. “Aye, of course I remember,” she replied with a chuckle. “That’s why she wanted to be buried in a crypt and not in the ground. Said she didn’t want her sleep disturbed every time someone stepped on her grave.”

“She could have just had herself cremated,” Luca added with a helpful grin. “It would have cost a lot less than the concrete crypt she had built.”

The others had to chuckle at that one.

“No disrespect intended, but yer Gramma sounds like an interesting woman,” Darro said. “Reminds me of some of my ancestors. Supposedly, my three greats Uncle Albert is buried somewhere in Kelly Woods. He swore his gardener to secrecy as to the location of his grave because he didn’t want any family or visitors moaning and crying over his bones. He just wanted to be left in peace. Or so the story goes. Kelly Woods is supposed to be haunted anyway from the ghosts of fairies that were hunted down and killed. Even the Ghillie Dhu himself is said to visit the woods and moan in sympathy for his lost comrades.”

“Sounds like yer Uncle Albert chose the wrong resting place,” Lucerne snickered. “Especially if he hated moaning and crying over corpses.”

“Cripes,” Jamie muttered, rolling his eyes.

Lucerne giggled at her father. “I forgot ye don’t like talking about spirits, do ye, Dad?”

Jamie frowned at her. “There are more pleasant subjects,” he replied.

Pauley arched an eyebrow. “Is there a particular reason why ye feel this way?” she finally asked. Jamie seemed like such a controlled, no-nonsense person that she couldn’t see him feeling squeamish about things that go bump in the night, but he’d already reacted once to the idea. She was truly curious now.

“I think that’s best left for another time and place,” he replied, shooting his daughter a warning glance. “Lucerne, I think it’s time for some tea if ye don’t mind me making some?”

“There’s already some hot if ye want to move to the kitchen,” she replied with a gentle smile at her dad.

The spooky atmosphere evaporated as they all stood up and headed out of the study. They were just gathering around the kitchen table when Pauley’s cell phone rang.

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