Page 32 of Coveted Justice

Seth grimaced. “Shit, that looks bad.”

“The spouse is always the first suspect,” Logan said with a shrug. “Sam has to look at Abby. The fact that she’s now come into a windfall of cash is simply a distraction. You can’t get any higher on the list than number one. She’s already there. Money or no money.”

“The press can make Tanner’s life difficult,” Dare warned. He hadn’t said much since they’d sat down. “If Abby is top of the list, that just paints a bullseye on his back. They’re going to eat him alive until we clear her. And that Arnold Hudson is going to use all of this shit to his advantage. He loves seeing his ugly mug on the nightly news, and he doesn’t much care how he gets there. Lies. Truth. It’s all the same to him from what I’ve observed.”

“Then we better get to work,” Reed said. “Tanner’s going to be pretty busy with his campaign so we need to fill in the gaps where he can’t be. We can start with digging into Marty’s finances, business and personal. We also need to get background on his partners, friends, and family. We need to talk to everyone at the inn, also. I know that Sam will have done all that, but I’d like to hear what they have to say for myself. We divide and conquer.”

“Let’s get this done,” Jared said, levering to his feet. “The sooner we get this wrapped up, the better. I can bring in some of our guys to help, but I’m also going to work on this one personally. It’s too important not to.”

“Me, too,” Logan echoed.

“Me, as well,” Reed said. “We can also get Chris on this. I assume he has an existing relationship with Abby’s stepchildren?”

Tanner shook his head. “Actually, he doesn’t. Listen, I know Chris is a damn good investigator but I’d like to not pull him in unless we have to. Abby is his mother and if we find out something that might implicate her…”

His voice trailed off, not really wanting to say out loud what he was thinking in his head. He didn’t believe Abby had killed her husband, but he’d been wrong in the past. Sometimes life was full of surprises. He didn’t want to put Chris in a position to have to help put his own mother behind bars.

Jason nodded in agreement. “That’s a good point. This could all go sideways and evidence could point in a direction that we didn’t anticipate. No son should have to dig into his own mother’s life. We can send Chris back to Seattle unless he wants to take a few days and stay with Abby.”

“He hasn’t said what he plans to do,” Tanner replied. “And I haven’t had a chance to ask him.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Reed offered. “We’re fine if he wants to stay here for his mother, but I think that you need to be prepared that he’s going to want to help with this investigation because Abby is his mom. I know they haven’t always seen eye to eye but there’s no way he’d just let her go to prison without trying to clear her name.”

“If Chris wants to help, we can have him do some of the research,” Jason said. “Let’s try and keep him out of the field on this if we can. In the meantime, we need that list of people so we can divvy out the assignments.”

Tanner tucked his phone back into his shirt pocket.

“I just sent it out to the group along with a few notes on my conversation with Abby.”

“How are we coordinating with Sam?” Dare asked. “Does he know we’re about to stick our noses into his murder investigation?”

“That’s my next stop,” Tanner said. “But I don’t think he’ll be surprised. He’d be shocked if we didn’t.”

“Abby has the right to hire a private investigator,” Seth pointed out. “And Sam knows that we’ll share any information that we find.”

“I don’t think Sam is going to have any issues with us doing this. He’ll be fine with it.”

Tanner wasn’t as sure about Maddie. He hadn’t yet told her that he’d agreed to help Abby.

His wife might not be thrilled with the news.

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