Page 29 of Long Gone

“I don’t see how it could. They were two entirely different things.”

“A source told me that the reason Hugo was developing the land for a Japanese automaker was because he wanted to move the money into Sunny Point.”

His brow lifted. “A source?”

I shrugged and started to lift the glass to my mouth, then stopped. I lowered my hand but still couldn’t bring myself to set the glass on the table.

Malcolm didn’t let on that he’d noticed, but I knew he had. I was pretty damn sure nothing escaped him.

“I don’t know about any plan to move money around,” he said, “but I do know Burton was accused of cheating the investors on the neighborhood project.”

“What about the auto parts project?”

“I didn’t hear much about it other than he hadn’t gotten enough land to suit the car maker. After Hugo defaulted, Brett Colter bought the land from the bank. Rumor has it he tried to revive the Japanese auto parts plant deal, but they’d already moved on.”

“So what did he do with it?”

“He built a warehouse and leased it to an online pet supply distributor. Dudley.”

Interesting. I had more questions to ask Brett Colter in the morning.

“What about Sunny Point?”

He paused. “It was sold to a corporation. Larkspur Limited.”

“Who owns Larkspur Limited?”

“That’s the question of the hour.”

“You can’t track down who is behind Larkspur Limited?” I asked in disbelief.

“Didn’t waste the time and resources to do so.”

More bullshit. But Malcolm and his henchman Carter Hale seemed privy to a lot of information. It was surprising they couldn’t track down this particular fact. I suspected that was why he was interested in my investigation. But why? “What did they do with it?”

“Not a damn thing that I know about.”

While I planned to verify the transfer of ownership, for now I decided to switch gears. “What do you know about Brett Colter?”

“He’s a well-respected citizen of Wolford and Lone County. He’s on the board of commissioners for the county and sponsors several youth sports teams.”

I gave him a wry look. “Is he dirty?”

He laughed. “How can you accuse such a civic-minded man of being dirty?”

“You just claimed to be civic-minded and you’re rolling in shit.”

He didn’t look offended. “Not anymore.”

“Does what happened to the Sylvester brothers change that claim about being clean?”

I hadn’t meant to bring that situation up, but I’d had multiple beers and the opportunity had just presented itself.

His eyes grew cold. “No. I was making the world a better place.”

We stared at each other for several seconds before I mentally said fuck it and took a long sip of the whiskey. Especially since I couldn’t bring myself to mourn the brothers’ passing. The whiskey went down smooth, and I resisted the urge to groan with satisfaction. “This is good whiskey.”

“I don’t drink that Jack Daniel’s shit,” he said, his voice tight. “And I wondered when that topic would come up.”

---