Page 29 of Call Back

Lack of sleep didn’t keep me from circling around the problem again and again, questioning everything I thought I knew. Was it too dangerous for me to continue seeing Brady, or should I take a chance and tell him about my stalker? About what I’d seen all those years ago? But could he protect the people I cared about?

Taking my tea to the sofa, I grabbed my laptop and pulled the afghan over me like I had the day before. Brady had interrupted me last time, but now I had hours before I needed to meet Belinda for breakfast.

I decided to do a search for the failed land development project. Jackson Project was an outdoor shopping mall and condominium complex that had been intended for a location in northeast downtown Nashville. The project had faced opposition from the start because it planned to clear out everything and build fresh, destroying several historical homes in the process. Winterhaven, the corporation in charge, had gotten approval to bulldoze the homes, but it soon emerged they’d only obtained permission through bribery. The project halted before anything had been built, and all the investors’ money had been used for legal expenses.

Next I did a search for Winterhaven and discovered that Max Goodwin had been a board member, and Walter Frey had been the CFO, but I saw no mention of my father’s name.

Wasn’t it enough that he’d been involved in selling shares?

I’d started to look up more about Winterhaven when my phone dinged with a text from Belinda.

I’m fine. Still on for breakfast?

I closed my eyes, dizzy with relief. She was okay. I composed myself and texted back.

Yes. See you then.

I glanced at the time on my phone—5:30. I still had an hour before I needed to get ready to leave. And I wouldn’t expect to hear from Colt for another couple of hours.

I stood up and stretched the cramping muscles in my back. I’d just spent an hour looking up a corporation with a failed land investment nearly twenty years ago. Was I wasting my time? But I couldn’t ignore the fact that my father had ties to a lot of dead men—too many for it to be a coincidence.

I continued searching, discovering that Winterhaven had dissolved after the land project, and even though the company had shown a profit, they’d paid off their board of directors, filed for bankruptcy, and closed. Multiple lawsuits had been filed and settled out of court.

I shifted my focus to Neil Fulton. He’d been in his early sixties at the time of his murder, with a long history of representing recording studios. At the end of his career, he’d helped Max Goodwin win multiple lawsuits filed by disgruntled clients. I suspected whatever trouble Daddy had been mixed up in dated back to the Jackson Project.

How was I going to dig into that?

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