Page 7 of Call Back

“Honestly?” I asked, holding his gaze. “He makes me feel safe. Safer than I’ve felt in a long time. It seems to me that Brady’s a big boy and can handle himself, so tell me why you really want to know.”

He was quiet for a moment. “He’s a sucker for a damsel in distress, and we both know you’re caught up in something bigger—much bigger than a dead dentist. Brady needs to stay the hell away from it.”

His admission caught me by surprise. “And you think I’ll drag him into it if I stay.”

“I know you will.”

And suddenly I had confirmation that I’d only scratched the surface of what my father had gotten mixed up in. Something Owen clearly knew a thing or two about.

“And you?” I said. “You’re involved.”

“Yes, I know more than I’ve let on,” he said, scanning the street. “But I knew you did too when you didn’t contradict my version of how Lopez went down.”

“Do you know what he was looking for?” I asked.

His mouth tipped into an amused smirk. “Do you?”

I held his gaze. “Fair enough.”

“You’re going to keep digging,” he said flatly.

I could lie, but I saw no reason to hide the truth from him. I wasn’t some super sleuth who could fly under the radar. He was likely to find out what I was up to sooner or later.

After the inauspicious end to my meeting with Walter Frey, I’d started digging into the mystery of my father’s disappearance. For each answer I’d found, I’d surfaced a dozen new questions. One of those Pandora’s boxes was the plaster dog I’d given my daddy years before. I’d rescued it from the family garage, only to find those gold bars hidden inside, along with a note telling me to trust no one. At first, I’d presumed he’d hidden it fourteen years ago, right before his disappearance, but Colt’s friend had run the serial numbers, and three of the bars had been made four years after he vanished. There was more to be dug up, and I wasn’t stopping until I uncovered it all. “Yes.”

“I’d like to point out that it would be incredibly stupid and dangerous for you to keep meddling. There are people who don’t want their private business exposed.”

That gave me pause. I’d already realized how deadly this game was, but most of the key players were now dead, weren’t they? “I know the police version of my father’s disappearance is wrong. And I have proof.”

“And you learned this from Geraldo Lopez?”

“I have multiple sources, Owen.”

“Sources like Sydney Crowley? Shannon Morrissey’s sister?” He grinned, but it wasn’t kind. “You really suck at this. You’re not even trying to hide what you’re doing.”

“I never claimed to be a detective.”

His expression turned grim. “All the more reason for you to stay out of it.”

“I’m doing this to find out what really happened to my father. What’s your involvement?”

“I’m a police detective,” he said in a derisive tone. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

“To be delving into a fourteen-year-old mystery? And keeping it from your best friend?” I asked in disbelief, then shook my head. “No. It’s because your uncle was involved in my father’s case.” His uncle had been accused of being a dirty cop over his handling of the case. Was Owen trying to prove his uncle was innocent, like Brady had insinuated, or was he after the gold?

His eyes widened slightly. Perhaps he was surprised that I, with my shoddy detective skills, had made the connection. I wasn’t about to let him know that Brady had drawn the dots together too.

“You said you’re digging into this to find out what happened to your father,” he said. “Are you sure you really want to know? What if he wasn’t as clean as you think he was?”

I’d already asked myself that question more times than I could count over the last few days. “I could ask the same about your uncle.”

His face flushed with anger. “Your father’s integrity may be in question, but my uncle was a good cop.”

“Then why do you care if I keep digging? Scared I’ll find out something about your uncle that you don’t want known? You’ve been on the force for eight years, so forgive me if I find it coincidental that you’re only now trying to prove his innocence—after I was the one who pried the case open again.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Magnolia,” he said dryly. “Finding a couple of dead bodies doesn’t make you a crack investigator.”

I shifted in my seat. “That reminds me of something. When I found Walter Frey, he had a cell phone and a note in his hand. But Brady said there was no mention of either of those things in the police report. In fact, the report says he didn’t have a cell phone at all. You took them, didn’t you?”

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