AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sabrina pulled up the secure folder Freddy shared with her a few months ago. When Kurt was stalking Veronica, she’d gotten ahold of a file that no one had been able to make sense of, though it wasn’t like anyone had spent much time with it, either. Between the leaks, new security procedures, repairing the Chinese submarine, and keeping up with the usual, everyone at Taylor Industries was working long hours and feeling the stress.
“Hey, Freddy?” she snagged his attention from where he was reorganizing command sequences in his notebook beside her.
“Yeah?” He turned toward her while keeping his pen resting on the paper where he was in the middle of writing.
“Have you looked at that file from Veronica?”
It was enough for him to put down the writing implement, shove aside his notebook, and turn his full focus to her. “What file?”
She nodded toward her screen where she’d pulled it up. “This one.” It was currently showing the hospital file discharging Josh Baker after he’d taken one hell of a beating. “Why would Veronica or anyone at TI care about Josh Baker?”
Freddy’s face scrunched in thought, and Sabrina gave him a minute while she flipped to the financial report. It only showed an account number, so there was no way to know who the account belonged to, but whoever owned it was in serious financial trouble. The report provided monthly balances going back twenty years. When she scrolled all the way back to 2003, the account was healthy, but over time it diminished. Then, almost ten years ago, the balance dropped quickly, month after month, until the account became overdrawn.
“Flip to the pictures,” Freddy broke into her thoughts.
She did, though Sabrina had no idea what to make of the images. Two were obvious proof that Kurt had been watching Veronica and taking her picture without her knowledge. The third seemed innocent enough. It just showed TI’s headquarters, but it was recent. Considering Patrick asked everyone at the company, only to learn no had any idea about who may have taken it or when. Most of them figured Kurt had taken it while hunting down Veronica.
Freddy pointed to the fourth, and final, photo. “That’s Josh Baker,” he said, shocking her.
It showed a Jeep that was older than dirt and required a stick shift, but the focus was on the driver sprawled across the front seats with a blossom of red staining his shirt where he’d been shot.
“Wait, didn’t someone say this accident happened back in, like, 2002?” Sabrina checked.
“Yeah, it was the same night he and my dad secured venture capitalist funding for their company. We were all told he died in a car accident, but obviously that was bullshit.”
“So how does he have a medical bill from just a few years ago?” Sabrina asked.
Freddy squinted as he thought. “Joshie. It has to be.”
She raised her eyebrows and waved at him to provide a better explanation.
“Mr. Baker named his son Josh, too. He was always Joshua or Josh, while his son went by Joshie.”
Sabrina snorted. “I’m pretty sure that changed as he grew up.”
Freddy rolled his eyes at her but agreed.
“Everyone thought Josh Baker died in a car accident, but really he was shot?” She checked that she was understanding correctly. “What about his son? And what happened to his wife? They, or I guess she, at least had to know he was murdered, right? Was this a murder?” There were so many questions.
“I have no idea,” Freddy admitted. “I would think Mrs. Baker, Ellie, would have known the truth.” He frowned and thought. “I was young, but I remember the funeral. I joked about wanting to touch a dead body, but the casket was closed.”
“Is anyone looking into what really happened to him?” she asked wondering why this was the first time she was hearing about this. She’d have expected it to be a big, gossipy scandal as soon as Veronica got the picture and shared it with Patrick.
“That’s why Patrick only shared the file with me.” Freddy must have read the expression on her face.
“What about your dad?” Sabrina frowned and tried to imagine how Nathan Taylor would react to learning his friend and partner was shot. Or did he already know?
“I keep telling Patrick he needs to share it with him, but…” he shrugged.
“Why do you think he was killed?” she asked. That was the part that bothered her most.
Sighing, Freddy’s response was less than helpful. “No idea. Hell, it could have been random road rage for all I know. And until Patrick’s willing to talk to Dad about it, I don’t think there’s any way for us to learn more.”
His expression shifted, and Sabrina knew he was done talking about it.
Sure enough, Freddy turned back to his computer as he said, “Let’s worry about this whole thing with DS first, and then we can try to figure out how a guy died twenty years ago,” he suggested kindly. Then he stood, stretched, and added, “I’m going to get more coffee for both of us.”
As much as she wanted to argue, Sabrina’s thoughts drifted to the tree in her home and her mother’s situation. Freddy was right. She had more pressing problems to solve.
