Page 21 of Ground Truth

Flint laughed. “Aw, you missed me. And you’re just as sweet as ever.”

“I don’t know how Drake puts up with you,” Scarlett said, shaking her head with a grin.

“Yeah, me neither,” Flint replied. “Where is he anyway?”

“Helping a friend out with something or other.” Scarlett shrugged as she inched the SUV closer to the airport exit. “Gaspar went with him up to Orlando as a favor. It’s not a case on our books.”

Flint cocked his head. “Nice of Gaspar to help out. I thought he wasn’t doing fieldwork these days.”

“He’s not. Not on a regular basis, anyway. He’s got special skills. We need him in front of a computer screen. We’ve already got plenty of muscle on the payroll,” Scarlett said. “Before you ask, I didn’t approve the excursion because Gaspar didn’t ask me.”

Flint grinned. “Guess he’s got a mind of his own, eh?”

“Wouldn’t be any good to me if he didn’t.” Scarlett had finally reached the end of the traffic bottleneck and goosing the big SUV’s engine to enter the expressway.

When she got up to speed and merged into traffic, Flint said, “Where are we going?”

“A place called Frazier’s. They’ve got a contract with the state to handle cremations for certain classes of decedents,” Scarlett explained from behind her oversize sunglasses. She drove expertly and Flint was perfectly comfortable with her behind the wheel.

“I gather indigents who are being exhumed whose families have no money for burial is one of the classes Frazier’s has a contract to handle,” Flint said.

“Precisely.”

“So Marilyn Baker has no living relatives, then?”

Scarlett gave him a look that he couldn’t read from behind her dark glasses. “Aside from you, you mean?”

“I guess. Yeah. If we’re related. We don’t know that yet,” Flint replied.

“Easy enough to find out. Wouldn’t take that long either,” Scarlett said reasonably.

“Right. Are they holding the body?”

“I called in a couple of favors. So they’ll hold it a little longer. At least until we get there and tell them what to do,” Scarlett said, slowing as they approached the exit.

“Did you get a court order?”

“Didn’t need to.” She shook her head. “As long as we don’t tell Baz Shaw, we shouldn’t have to worry about permission here.”

By tacit agreement, they rarely discussed Sebastian Shaw. Mostly because he was one of Scarlett’s biggest clients and Flint was not Shaw’s biggest fan. Shaw had zero control over what Flint did or didn’t do. There were no circumstances under which Flint would ask Shaw’s permission for anything.

Flint frowned and said nothing. He was a belt and suspenders guy. He’d have felt better with a court order requiring Frazier’s to hold the body until he figured out what he wanted to do with it.

“Look, this is totally your call. But why did you come back here if you have zero interest in Marilyn Baker?” Scarlett asked. “Don’t you want to know? The woman is dead. She has no family. No one is going to interfere with your precious independence. There’s no downside here, Flint. Not that I can see.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Flint replied. “If I know she’s my mother, I’ll want to know other things.”

“Like what? Like who murdered her? Why they did it?”

Flint inhaled deeply and added, “Like who was my father, and did he kill her?”

-

Chapter 13

Orlando

Uncomfortably warm in the Orlando sunlight, Gaspar rested his forearms on his thighs and leaned forward. “This is a delicate situation, Ms. Brady.”

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