Page 58 of Velvet and Valor
June laughs. Dane grunts. I’m not sure if that’s because he finds my quip funny, or he just agrees with my assessment.
“I’m supposed to take you back to the beach house,” Dane says.
“We’ve got something more pressing than that,” I counter. “We need to find out what these guys want with June, once and for all. I’m tired of hiding away playing defense.”
Dane looks puzzled.
“Platinum admittedly hasn’t been able to gather much info on the Triads or Moorcrock. The Triad made sure to cover their tracks once they were done having their fun with the woman from the airport, and with Moorcrock in the wind, we are out of leads.”
“I know we’ve gone over this before June, but is there anything you can remember? Anything she said to you when you clashed at the airport?” I prompt gently.
“Aside from the fact that she wanted to beat my face in until she realized she was bleeding, and calling me some colorful names, no. Nothing that seems significant.”
“She probably got nervous about leaving a DNA trail, not that it makes much of a difference to her now,” I say somberly.
“Someone has got to know something. We just aren’t asking the right people, or the right questions. You have connectionswith that Hollywood guy who used to be a Cuban mobster, don’t you Dane?”
Dane snorts. “You are overestimating the efficacy of that particular font of information,” Dane says. “But I’ll try.”
We pull off the highway and eat in a deserted sandwich shop. It’s not exactly great food, but we’re not likely to be found here, either.
Dane makes some calls, and I look up some old contacts. June spends her time dozing in the booth. I stop and take off my long-sleeved shirt and drape it over her slumbering form. Guilt plagues me. I almost got June killed. Again. If she died, I’m not sure what I would do. I haven’t known her that long, and yet I feel like I’ve known her forever.
Dane taps me on the shoulder and holds his phone toward me.
“Check it out.”
I turn the screen around so I can see it clearly. A photo of Moorcrock, grinning ear to ear, appears in black and white next to an obituary headline.
Sidney Phelps—Navy veteran and loving uncle
“Wait, is this Moorcrock’s dad or something?” I ask. “I mean, he’s got shorter hair and looks younger.”
“No, check the date,” Dane says. “It was from a few years ago. It’s definitely Moorcrock.”
“How is that possible?” June asks.
“He must have faked his death,” I say, shaking my head and sighing. “That makes things more complicated. No wonder we can’t find anything solid about Moorcrock. He’s a fictional character!”
“Yes,” Dane says. “But Sidney Phelps is real enough. And take another look at that headline—he’s survived by a nephew he apparently thought the world of.”
“What makes you say that?” I ask.
“Phelps, AKA Moorcrock, left his nephew Ricky a marina and a yacht in his will,” Dane says.
My heart quickens in my chest.
“Oh man, do we know which marina?”
“Yes, we do,” Dane replies with a grin.
June leans forward eagerly.
“Do you think we might be able to find some information on the yacht??” she asks.
“There’s a pretty good chance of it,” I say. “If Moorcrock really is close to his nephew, he might have kept Ricky in the loop about his plan to fake his own death.”
“Like you said, if nothing else we can eliminate Moorcrock as a suspect for the most recent attacks,” Dane adds.
