Page 86 of Stone
Stone shuffled more than stepped but did as asked. He lifted his T-shirt high enough for Lowery to see the band of his jeans, then deliberately turned in a slow circle. When he faced Lowery again, the man nodded toward his feet. Lowery might be a politician now, but he hadn’t lost his comfort with guns.
Stone lifted a leg, then tugged his jeans up over his ankles enough for Lowery to confirm he wore no ankle holster. When Lowery nodded again, he repeated the move with his other leg.
“Very good. Kudos to you both for following directions,” Lowery said. His gaze flickered to Juliana, swept over her fitted jeans, exposed ankles, and silky tank top, then lingered on the file she held.
“Why don’t you show him what you brought,” Stone said, shifting to face Juliana. He needed to retrieve the gun from her before the others arrived. Goddess that she was, she didn’t hesitate. Stepping forward, she held the file out. As she moved, Stone set his hand on the small of her back—a gesture ofintimacy to anyone who watched—then slid the gun out of her waistband.
“Here,” she said to Lowery, holding the file out. She also took a diagonal step forward and to the left, blocking the man’s view as Stone shoved the gun into his own waistband, ensuring his shirt covered it fully.
“Not yet,” Lowery barked.
Juliana froze. Glancing back, Stone gave her a tiny nod. “It’s okay,” he said, touching her arm, letting her know he’d completed the transfer. “I guess Lowery wants to wait for the others.”
“Yes, we do have a plan,” a voice behind them said. Stone had heard the soft crunch of car wheels on the gravel drive and knew the other two had arrived. Even so, he flinched at Polinsky’s booming voice. Juliana reacted more strongly. She startled, jerking back and almost losing her grip on the file. Stone reached out and steadied her before turning around.
“Polinsky. Gregor,” he said. With Lowery now at their back and the two men fanning out, he and Juliana were indeed surrounded. Slipping an arm around her waist, he shifted so they faced the room and he could keep an eye on the three men. The move also had the added benefit of putting his back to the wall. He didn’t think Polinsky or Gregor would see the weapon tucked into his waistband, but he didn’t want to take the chance.
“Now that we’re all here, let’s be quick about this. The file?” Lowery held out his hand.
Juliana looked over her shoulder at him, and he nodded. Rather than walk to Lowery, though, she bent down and slid the manila envelope containing the evidence across the floor. It didn’t quite make it to Lowery, who scowled but took the four strides needed to reach it before picking it up.
“How much do they know?” Polinsky asked.
“I haven’t even opened it,” Lowery shot back. “If you’re so anxious, why don’t you ask them.”
Juliana shot him another look, and he gave a tiny nod. The relationship among the three was fraying, just as they’d hoped.
Polinsky turned to them. “You heard us that day, didn’t you?” he asked Juliana. Stone set a hand on her back again. The point of all of this was to get the men talking enough to incriminate themselves. He’d be more than happy when the day was over, but for now, they had a job to do.
“I did,” Juliana said, her voice quiet. She cleared her throat, then repeated her answer more loudly.
“You should have let it go,” Gregor said.
Juliana’s brow furrowed. “It would have been easier to let it go if Leandro Brown hadn’t shown up at my door the next day. You waved a red flag with that move and left me with no other choice.” She’d started looking into it before then, but hinting that whoever had made that decision was responsible for escalating the situation was one more way of breeding dissension.
The three men looked at each other. “So you do know things,” Polinsky said.
Juliana couldn’t help but snort. “I’m a librarian, I know a lot of things. But about this? Yeah, I do. I know that you two”—she pointed to Polinsky and Lowery—“stole about seventy-five pounds of gold each during Desert Storm. I know that Supervisor Lowery used it to buy an apartment and put himself through college and that Lieutenant Polinsky used it to buy a house. Not terrible ways to spend the money. Especially not when you consider that until Gregor came along, you both were on the straight and narrow. Hadn’t so much as received a speeding ticket.”
Polinsky and Lowery shared a look, as if jointly, and silently, agreeing that Gregor was responsible for the whole mess. They’dstolen the gold, but their current predicament rested entirely on Gregor’s shoulders. It wasn’t true, of course. They could have made other choices. But again, driving a wedge between them was their goal.
“And now, here we are,” Juliana said. “Gregor is blackmailing Lowery for votes on key land use decisions. Polinsky is being blackmailed to look the other way when Gregor allows drug dealers to use his development sites for their business.” She paused, then shook her head. “I’m not a killer, not without good cause, but I can’t really blame you two for wanting to off Gregor,” she said. “Not only is he making a shit ton of money on the developments, but I assume he’s getting cuts of the dealers’ profits. While what do you all get? Nothing but the specter of your crimes coming to light.”
“I like how you’re trying to turn us against each other, Ms. Morganstern,” Gregor said.
“Dr.Morganstern,” she shot back.
Gregor almost rolled his eyes. “It might have started that way, but things change. I’m hardly likely to turn them in when it would implicate me as well.”
Stone shifted behind Juliana, a subtle acknowledgment that Gregor had just implicated all three of the men. He didn’t know if that would be enough for Callie, but it was something.
“That may be true,” Juliana conceded. “But Lowery and Polinsky obviously don’t see it that way. Why else would they keep giving in to your demands? Why else would they think that killing you was the only way to end things?”
The answer to that question piqued Stone’s interest, too. Why did Lowery and Polinsky feel they needed to kill Gregor rather than just refuse his requests? As Gregor pointed out, reporting them to the authorities would implicate him as well.
All eyes turned to Gregor. A bird scratched at the roof, a truck rumbled by, and in the distance, a siren sounded.
He opened his mouth, but whatever words he intended to say were swallowed by an earsplitting bang that ricocheted and echoed through the room.
