Page 105 of Ground Truth

Chapter 50

Four days later

Houston

Scarlett Investigations occupied the fourth floor of an historic downtown Houston office building. Flint thanked his driver, left the car at the curb, and hustled up the front stairs. His concussion had healed itself, apparently. He felt better than he’d felt in days.

As he approached the entrance his face triggered security cameras which quickly compared his image to approved visitors and unlocked the door. He slipped inside and the door locked automatically behind him.

He took the stairs to the fourth floor two at a time, his boots pounding the marble floors like John Bonham played drums. When he reached Scarlett’s office, he stepped through the open doorway without knocking.

She was waiting. Curly black hair swirled wildly around her shoulders. Reading glasses perched on her nose magnified her eyes to the size of the boulder marbles he’d owned as a kid.

The marbles she’d stolen from him because she liked them. The ones he’d fought to get back and still had the scars to prove she’d won.

He grinned and plopped down in one of her client chairs and picked up the square paperweight of those same cat’s eye marbles encased in glass from her desk.

“Well?” he asked. “What have you got?”

She gave him a once-over and didn’t much like what she saw. “You look like hell.”

He didn’t argue with her. The last symptoms of his concussion had resolved, but he still felt wrung out. Instead, he grinned. “You’re too kind to me.”

Without another word, she strode toward her conference room. He followed and closed the door and stood in front of the big display screens.

“Thanks for all your help, Gaspar,” Flint said when he saw Gaspar’s image on one of the screens, waiting.

Gaspar grinned and shrugged off the gratitude. “Hey, it’s what I do.”

“Seriously, man. I owe you.” Flint cleared his throat. “We’d have died without you. More than once.”

“One day I’m sure I’ll need to call in that favor,” Gaspar replied lightheartedly, although neither of them was joking. “How’s Drake?”

“They removed the hematoma inside his skull and stopped the brain bleed,” Flint replied. “They think he’ll fully recover, but it may take longer than we all hope.”

“We’ve got around-the-clock security at the hospital,” Scarlett said. “Just in case Hedinger decides to try anything.”

“And Hedinger?” Gaspar asked. “He’s not the kind of man who gives up gracefully.”

Flint shrugged. “Like she said, Drake’s got around-the-clock protection. I can take care of myself.”

Silence settled on the conversation until Scarlett pushed a couple of buttons to wake up two more big screens. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Gaspar.”

One screen showed an idyllic fishing village perched along a verdant coastline abutting the ocean. The homes overlooking the beach were definitely not new construction.

“This is the village of Portmahomack. Population about seven hundred. It sits on the north coast of Scotland. That’s the North Sea,” Gaspar explained. “You can see the Tarbat Ness Lighthouse there. It’s about three miles from the village at the end of the headland. Ballone Castle is a mile or so away. Portmahomack’s been there for centuries, but lately it’s become a tourist destination. Swimming, golf, dolphins, and whales. The usual seaside stuff tourists like.”

After watching the short tourism video on the screen, Scarlett said, “It’s lovely but very remote.”

“Extremely remote.” Gaspar put another image on the third screen. A whitewashed farmhouse surrounded by a lovely garden. “This home is a small farm about two miles from the village itself. It’s owned by a man named Avery Tumbler. He inherited the house from his father, who inherited from his father, and so on.”

Gaspar had pulled several images and satellite videos of the house and the people who lived in it. He displayed the first image.

“This is Avery Tumbler. A man we’ve all seen before. On the video of the royal wedding that brought Hanna Campbell to Drake,” Gaspar said. “Here’s a video from last week.”

Tumbler stood in the garden of the farmhouse playing with a child.

“That’s the boy with the balloon?” Scarlett asked, leaning closer to the screen.

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