Page 15 of Justified Fear
“So, we have a bunch of dead dinner guests, a missing bartender, and one survivor who didn’t see anything?”Del asked.
“Did she remember anything else?”
Ryan shook his head.“No.She mostly complained about being at the hospital.They wouldn’t release her without a family member or at least another adult to take care of her.”
“You could have volunteered,” Nikki said.
He rolled his eyes.“Do you know if the canvassing helped?”
Seth shook his head.“The closest two houses are up for sale and empty.We managed to contact two of the other owners.They are off the island on vacation.The other one was dead asleep and didn’t hear anything.”
“I heard from my cousin that it took forever to get them to come to the door.They had the TV on while they slept, and it was so loud, they didn’t hear the cops at the door,” Adam said.He was Hawaiian, born and bred on the island.His family had served in HPD for decades, so he had connections all throughout the ranks.
“That couldn’t be on accident,” Kap said.“This feels as if it had been planned for a while.”
“When was Keely booked to do the dinner?”Rami asked.
His tone had Ryan narrowing his eyes at his team member.“She’s not a suspect.”
He shrugged.Rami had a very cynical view of the world.Of course, it had a lot to do with being a former SEAL.Ryan still didn’t know what had happened, but Rami left the service after a few people on his team had been bribed, and Rami barely made it out of the situation with his life.
Ryan glanced at Seth.“So, the idea is that she ran through the forest for hours to throw us off the scent.”
“I don’t think so, but you know we need to look at every avenue.If it is connected to her, it could be that they were after her.With her connections to Lulu Singh, she might have been paying back the attorney.We need to tear apart Keely’s life and her godmother’s.”
Ryan nodded, but he didn’t like it.He always felt protective of the people he’d saved, but there was something completely different with Keely.There seemed to be a connection on a deeper level.
“Elle called in some help from the HPD since there are so many bodies, and with Charity and Hammer here, we should be able to find out more faster.With a missing bartender and one survivor, we need to cover all our bases, folks,” Del said.“Let’s get to work.”
Four
Hours later, Ryan was ready to pull his hair out strand by strand.
Charity had found nothing nefarious, and neither had Hammer.There seemed to be no connection between the dinner guests and the Kellys other than a few above-board business dealings.Yazmin had no ex who had shown up to kill people, and there had been no affairs between the Kellys.They had no children, and all their money was bequeathed to charities they had helped during their time in business.The four dinner guests owned various companies, but again, it seemed to be all above board.Nothing was coming up that helped them figure out just what the hell the shooting was all about.
They were all meeting in the common area to discuss their findings.Ryan knew it would be nothing.
He stepped into the common room and noticed a bit more activity.Team Charlie trainees were in Del’s office with their captain, Marcus.Team Alpha wasn’t officially on the case, but they hadn’t been called out today, so they were helping Team Bravo.
“Where’s Dumfries’ girlfriend?”Graeme MacGregor called out to Ryan.Dumfries was Graeme’s massive Irish Wolfhound, who was enamored with Maya.Maya was playing hard to get and, for the most part, ignoring any idea that she would lower herself to play with Dumfries.
“She’s taking a nap,” he said, but he felt her walk out of the office.He looked down at her and noticed she was looking around.Yeah, she was playing hard to get, but he realized that his partner might have a thing for the wolfhound.
“So, what do we have?”Seth asked as he walked into the room, Adam hard on his heels.
“A whole lot of diddly and shit,” Hammer said.“When Charity can’t find anything, you know there’s nothing there.”
Charity made a rude noise as she continued to work on her laptop.“There’s something here, I just can’t figure out what it is.Something is way off.”
“Okay,” Seth said.“Kap, you talked to a few of your connections.Anything we should know about these people?”
Kap shook his head.“They had never even heard of the Kellys.I had a friend who still works with NCIS run a few things through their filters on the dinner guests.Nothing.”
Ryan rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension.
“You have something to add?”Seth asked.
“No.”
