Page 38 of Deadly Revenge

“Why does that not surprise me?” She matched his grin. “What else do you have? A secret decoder ring ... shoes with a phone ... thermal camera?”

“If I told you—”

“Yeah, yeah. Just get the lockpicks.”

He laughed. “Be right back.”

A few minutes later he returned with a small leather case and shined his phone light on the lock. “This should be a piece of cake.”

It didn’t take long for him to unlock the drawer and open it. Jenna sighed. Four more ledgers. “They look just like the other ones I found. Why would he lock these up?”

Max picked one up and flipped through it. “Looks legit. Maybe he was hiding money from his wife?”

She pulled on the drawer to take it out, and it caught on something. Jenna bent over and shined her light, trying to see what it might be. “I don’t see any reason it won’t come out.”

Max tugged on the drawer underneath it, then felt along the bottom. “There’s something here.” He pressed on the bottom of the drawer. “Pull now.”

She did, and it released. After taking the ledgers out, they turned the drawer over and discovered a padded envelope taped to the drawer.

“Probably need to get Dylan or Taylor up here to document this,” Max said.

She agreed and yelled for them, and soon the two were examining the drawer and taking photos. Once they finished, Dylan peeled the envelope off and drew out a sheet of paper.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Max said.

Jenna stared at the words cut from magazines and newspapers—“You’ve lined your last pocket”—a replica of the letter Harrison Carter had received. “Well, this ties Joe Slater to our former mayor, and if we find a similar letter at Paul Nelson’s ...”

“Might not need a letter. Nelson’s pockets were cut out,” Dylan reminded them.

Jenna stared at the letter. “Maybe the ledgers hold more than we thought.”

“Ledgers?” Dylan said.

Jenna pointed to the books she’d laid on the desk. “He had them locked up.”

“We’ll need a forensic accountant to go through them,” the CSI tech said.

“It looks as though there’s more to the threatening letter than Carter is admitting,” Max said.

19

Max checked his phone as he descended the stairs behind Jenna. When they’d separated to search the house, he contacted an administrator in the prison system and asked him to check on Rick Sebastian’s status in prison. He’d hoped to hear something by now.

“Find anything else?” he asked when they joined the CSI team.

Dylan shook his head. “I looked over the journals. You were right—it’ll take a forensic accountant to decipher what’s in them.”

“I’m not an accountant, but my bet is riding on kickbacks Slater and probably Nelson and Harrison Carter received.”

In Max’s initial interview, Carter had quickly let him know he’d never been involved in any type of illegal activities. It looked like the state senator had lied to him.

“We’re going to check the newspaper archives, but I want to find someone who can give us the lowdown on Carter’s administration,” Jenna said.

“That would be Sheriff Stone or his wife, Judith, but they’re in Kentucky with Mark Lassiter,” Dylan said. “Next would be Mae Richmond, but she’s with them too. But you could call the sheriff. Maybe get them all together on a call.”

That was a thought. What he wanted to do was confront Harrison Carter, but that would have to wait until he had a few more facts.

“Wait ...” Taylor turned to Dylan. “What’s the old hermit’s name? The one who used to work at city hall?”

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