Golden Trail (28 page)

“Tripp said Melody was here then she was
gone,” Jasper noted.

Layne kept his gaze steady on his son and
stayed silent.

“It’s not fake, is it?” Jasper asked softly
and Layne studied his son thinking he had vastly underestimated
Jasper too.

“It was, Jas, it isn’t anymore.”

Jasper nodded.

Layne continued. “She doesn’t know that yet,
though.”

Jasper stared at him then his mouth twitched
before, very slowly, it spread into a smile.

Then Jasper shocked the shit out of Layne
and walked straight into him, he bumped the side of his chest
against his Dad’s like Layne had seen him doing to his buds.

He stepped away, looking to the floor,
mumbling, “Later, Dad.”

“Later, Bud,” Layne returned.

Layne stared at the door for long minutes
after it closed. Then Blondie sauntered up to him and sat at his
feet, head back, tongue lolling, the invitation to pet her or,
preferably, give her a rubdown, opened.

He turned and surveyed his house from the
kitchen thinking he was beginning to like the place.

He looked down at Blondie and asked, “You
wanna go to work with me today?”

She had no idea what he was saying but she
got up on all fours, her body shaking with excitement and she
barked.

Layne decided to take that as a yes.

* * * * *

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what the fuck is
that?” Devin asked when Layne came through the door to his office.
Devin’s eyes were on Blondie.

Blondie ran forward and jumped on Devin’s
wife beater covered chest.

“It’s a dog, Dev,” Layne answered then
ordered Blondie to get down.

Blondie whipped her head toward Layne,
whipped it back to Devin, aimed a lash of her tongue at his face,
got nothing but air and then jumped down, put her nose to the
ground and started her voyage of the discovery of his office.

Devin scowled at her and then looked at
Layne. “Jesus, boy, next thing I’ll find out is you drive a
mini-van.”

“That’s another reason I called you here all
the way from Cleveland, Dev. I wanted you to help me pick the
color,” Layne returned and Dev rolled his eyes.

Then Devin walked to the reception desk and
picked up a white cup of lidded coffee. A Mimi’s coffee.

Devin was wearing a pair of dress pants he
should have thrown away probably five years ago, a pair of scuffed
shoes and his wife beater. Thick, gray, chest hair could be seen
out of the top of the wife beater and the shock of white-gray hair
on his head looked like he hadn’t even run his fingers through it
after getting up from the couch. Total bedhead.

“You didn’t get me a coffee?” Layne asked,
walking into the room.

“What am I, your nanny?” Dev asked back.

Good to know Devin hadn’t changed. Layne
knew the man would take a bullet for him but he’d give him lip the
entire time he was doing it.

“You go to Mimi’s in your wife beater?”

Devin moved away from the reception desk to
his bag spread open on the couch and Layne moved to the desk,
dumping the folder with TJ Gaines’s file on it, turned to Dev and
leaned back into it.

“Woman runs that joint ain’t difficult to
look at,” Dev muttered rather than answering Layne’s question which
did answer Layne’s question that, yes, Dev wandered into Mimi’s
wearing a wife beater like he’d wander up to his own kitchen
counter and pour himself a mug of joe.

“Yeah,” Layne agreed, “and her husband used
to be center on the football team, he’s no less solid twenty some
years down the line but his devotion to wife and family, coupled
with his gun collection, means you should not go there.”

“Can a man pay a woman a compliment?” Devin
asked cantankerously and shrugged on a shirt.

“Sure,” Layne replied and Devin buttoned his
shirt, his eyes locking on Layne.

“Well, now that we got all the heartwarming
reunion shit outta the way, you run off what you got for me. I’m
goin’ to the po-lice station to take a shower and I’ll want it
ready when I get back.”

It was clear Devin took some time last night
to get the lay of the land. He’d never been to the ‘burg but he
knew where to get coffee and where the police station was, two
things Devin Glover was sure to take note of on any assignment.

“Dev, no one knows you at the Station,”
Layne reminded him. “You can’t waltz in there and take a shower.
You can shower at my house.”

“Your house two blocks away?” Dev shot
back.

Layne grinned at him. “No.”

“Be back,” Dev stated, grabbing his coat and
hoofing it out the door.

Blondie barked at it.

Layne tagged the file and walked into his
office, hitting the power button on his computer as he picked up
the phone to call the Station and tell them a crotchety old man was
going to stroll in like he owned the place and take a shower and
their best play was to let him. Kath picked up at reception at the
Station, Dev showed up while Layne was talking to her and she
instantly agreed.

Layne went to his e-mail and found Merry’s
intel about Astley and he also found that Natalie didn’t fuck
around. As promised yesterday, she’d sent an e-mail with the names
of people at work she thought might be able to help. She added
addresses, phone numbers and copious commentary and she even made
notes of who she’d already contacted to let them know someone would
be calling them, helping out by making cold contacts warm. Checking
the e-mail, Layne noted she’d sent it by eight o’clock last night
and there were fifteen names on her list, eleven of them she’d
already contacted.

Natalie, Layne had discovered yesterday, did
not
like Dr. Jarrod Astley, this e-mail was added proof and
indication that she
really
did not like him.

He printed off the e-mails and put them in
the file he’d created when he’d done his searches two weeks ago,
making notes on the searches of what was probably now bogus due to
Astley’s recent activities. He needed to start looking into TJ
Gaines and he unfortunately didn’t have time to re-run Astley’s
shit.

He’d begun work on Gaines, and was not
liking what he was finding, when his cell rang. The display said
“Colt Calling”.

“Layne,” he said after he put it to his
ear.

“Hey Tanner, you busy today?”

“Yeah but what’s up?”

“Merry gave us the rundown on Stew. I got a
guy you might wanna talk to.”

Layne sat back in his chair. “When?”

“I gotta go with you. He’s not fond of
strangers,” Colt told him.

“Right. When?” Layne repeated.

“How’re you fixed to meet me at the Station
at one?”

“I can do that,” Layne replied.

“Got it. See you then.”

“Later.”

Layne flipped his phone shut and Devin
walked in carrying another cup from Mimi’s.

“That for me?” Layne asked.

Devin looked him in the eyes and took a sip,
this being his answer.

Then he walked to the desk opposite Layne,
held out his hand and grunted, “File.”

Layne grinned, picked up the Astley file,
reached across the desk and gave it to Devin.

Devin weighed it with his hand moving up and
down and asked, “How long you been workin’ this?”

“Haven’t really. There isn’t much
there.”

Devin put his cup down on Layne’s desk and
opened the file, his eyes skimming the paper on the top. “Rely too
much on computers these days,” he grumbled.

“It’ll get you started.”

Devin looked at Layne. “How deep do you
wanna bury this guy?”

“So deep he won’t remember what oxygen feels
like.”

Devin studied him. Then he nodded, grabbed
his cup and turned to go.

“Dev,” Layne called and Devin turned back.
“Dinner, my house, be there at five thirty so I can introduce you
to the boys and try to talk you into behaving yourself so my girl
Rocky and my son’s girl Keira don’t run screaming into the
night.”

Devin’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “Only
person I can be is me, boy.”

“Why don’t you try on a different
personality for tonight?” Layne suggested.

“Women love me,” Devin shot back.

Layne grinned and muttered, “Right.”

“You wait and see, I’ll have them eatin’
outta my hands.”

“Just as long as you don’t try to do that
literally.”

Devin grunted. Blondie, standing next to him
looking up at him and likely wondering why he wasn’t petting her,
barked. Devin glared at the dog and then he disappeared.

Layne chuckled and turned back to his
computer.

An hour later he’d run through every scrap
of information in TJ Gaines’s personnel file twice because he could
not believe what he’d found and he’d printed it out. He’d also made
some calls based on info from the file, typed up quick notes and
printed those out too. He was in Mimi’s and Mimi was handing him
his Americano when his phone rang.

The display said, “Raquel Calling”.

Seeing Rocky’s name on his phone, he made a
decision, smiled at Meems, turned toward the door, flipped the
phone open, put it to his ear and greeted her with, “Hey
sweetcheeks.”

“Hey Layne. Did you run the searches?”

“Yep.”

“Well?” she asked when he said no more.

“You get a break?”

“Sorry?”

“Do you get a break, Rocky?” He walked
through the door, gave a quick, sharp whistle and Blondie, waiting
outside for him with her nose pressed to Mimi’s glass the entire
time he was inside, likely wondering if Layne was getting her a
seriously gourmet dog treat (Mimi’s coffees were great but her
baked goods were so fucking fantastic, Layne wanted to watch Rocky
eat one, guaranteed orgasm). Blondie wagged after him as he headed
down the sidewalk to his SUV. “I wanna talk about what I found face
to face,” Layne finished.

She was silent. Then she asked, “Did you
find something?”

“Do you get a break?” he repeated.

She hesitated then said, “Yes, right now. I
have third period free.”

“Can I walk right in or do I need to sign
in?”

“Layne –”

He cut her off. “Answer me,
sweetcheeks.”

“I’ll meet you outside the office,” she told
him on a sigh.

“Be there in ten.”

He flipped his phone shut, shoved it in his
back pocket, opened the door, Blondie bolted up into the cab and he
swung up after her. He was at the school in ten minutes. He left
Blondie in the truck with a window cracked and her nose shoved out
of it, sniffing at the outside air like she’d never experienced it
before. He walked into the school and saw Raquel was standing
outside the office, which was right at the entrance.

She was wearing another one of her
to-the-knee, tight-and-sexy-as-hell skirts, this one light beige
topped with a thin, tight sweater in deep pink with a matching
scarf tied around her neck and high-heeled pumps that also matched
the pink. Her lips were glossed in a color that looked like
raspberries and he wondered if it tasted the same. Her hair was
coiled in a twist at the back of her head.

He smiled at her. When he did, her eyes went
immediately to the windows of the administration office that faced
out to the halls that Layne was certain was filled with colleagues,
mostly women, all who were watching avidly. Then she looked back at
him and smiled back tentatively, telling him she was at work and he
needed to behave himself.

He walked up to her and stopped close,
closer than he should, not as close as he wanted, not close enough
to be inappropriate but definitely close enough to give their
audience something to gossip about and he tipped his head down.

“Hey Roc.”

“Hey,” she whispered, staring up at him.

“Can we talk private?” he asked.

She nodded. “We’ll go to my classroom.”

He followed her down the corridor in front
of the office then down the hall of lockers, four doors in, she
turned left, opened the door and he moved in behind her. She closed
the door and turned to him as he scanned the room. A narrow window
by the door, a row of windows with views out to the front of the
school, other than that, privacy.

He wanted to take in more but she asked,
“Well?” so he turned to her then he moved into her space again. She
held her ground and he grinned down at her. She stared up at him
and she was off-balance, he could see, so off-balance she didn’t
even try to hide it. She didn’t understand his game.

This was good.

“What did you find?” she prompted.

“The whole thing is a lie,” he answered and
watched her blink.

Then she breathed, “Sorry?”

“Not one thing he put on his application is
the truth. Not even his fuckin’ address.” Layne moved closer to her
and his voice dropped lower. “Not even his name, Rocky.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

“Thomas Jameson ‘TJ’ Gaines, as far as I can
tell, is a Youth Minister at a Baptist Church in a suburb of
Chattanooga, Tennessee. He’s been employed there for two years and
still lives there, or he did last night, when he took his family
out to dinner and charged it. So, unless he’s discovered a way to
clone himself, the man who’s Youth Minister at the Christian Church
is
not
TJ Gaines.”

She was staring up at him, lips parted, eyes
huge. Then she swallowed before she asked, “Are you going to give
it to Merry?”

“Only one I could probably give it to
is
Merry since we came into the possession of his personnel
file by breaking and entering and then stealing confidential
documents.”

“We didn’t break and enter, I had a key!”
she snapped.

“A key you stole, sweetcheeks,” he shot
back.

Her teeth instantly sunk into her lip but
her eyes were shooting fire. Then she stated, “Merry would run with
it and keep us out of it.”

Layne shook his head. “We gotta send Tripp
in.”