Page 90 of Sting
His folksiness didn’t impress or faze her. She kept glaring at him, demanding a no-bullshit answer.
He surrendered with a sigh. “I heard from your brother.”
“What?” She exhaled so hard that her chest went a little concave. “When?”
“Last night. He called me directly on my cell phone while I was beating the bushes—literally—looking for him.” He explained the circumstances. “This was before Morrow summoned me to deal with Kinnard and your rescue.”
“Where was Josh? Was he all right? What did he say?”
“Well, he didn’t give himself up. Last he was seen, he was on foot. This morning they brought in track dogs to try and pick up a trail.”
“Dogs?” she asked in horror.
“He’s a fugitive, Ms. Bennett. Thumbed his nose at me. Told me we should give up looking for him. Swore we’d never catch him and that he’d never surrender. But he’s still trying to cut deals. This one? If I would guarantee your safe return, he would give me Panella’s last known whereabouts.”
“He’s known all this time and has been keeping—”
“That surprises you?”
“If he knew, why’s he held back?”
“Because he’s a felon. He hasn’t been convicted of his alleged crimes yet, but you and I both know that he’s a damn crook. He’s an even better liar and manipulator.”
She didn’t defend or argue those charges, so Joe continued. “All along I’ve figured Josh was holding a few aces, so that if and when he got in a tight squeeze—which your abduction was—he’d have something to play. He pulled one out of his sleeve last night.”
“What did you play? You couldn’t guarantee my safe return.”
“No, I couldn’t. Honestly? At that point in time, I thought you were probably dead already and your body sunk in a swamp somewhere. I told Josh that. The only guarantee I could give him was to do my best to find you, dead or alive, and I promised to keep at it until you were either rescued or your remains recovered. He hemmed and hawed. Waffled. You know how he is. Eventually, he took the deal.”
“He told you where Panella is?”
“He claims not to know that, but he told me where Panella was headed when he took off. Costa Rica.”
Joe watched her for a reaction, and when she didn’t register so much as a blink, he went on. “It was to be only his first jumping-off spot on his way to South America, according to Josh, who said he knows this because his last official duty while in Panella’s employ was to wire some walking-around money to a bank down there.”
“At least you’ll know where to start looking for him.”
“We’ve already started. What we’ve turned up so far?” He rubbed his brow as though it pained him to tell her what he must. “The only time on record that Billy Panella was in Costa Rica was about a month before we busted open his scam. He spent a long weekend at a swank resort outside of San Jose.” He lowered his hand and looked at her directly. “With you.”
Her lips parted, but nothing came out. Eventually she closed them.
Joe gave her a ten count to see if she would deny it, qualify it, something. When she didn’t, he got out, opened the backseat door, and reached in to take her arm. “Till we get to the bottom of this, you’re registered here under the name of Ms. Jones, and your roommate is a federal marshal named Gwen.”
Chapter 23
Late Sunday afternoon, the Terrebonne Parish SO determined that all the evidence had been collected from the now-famous bar. The crime scene tape was removed and the establishment was permitted to reopen.
Word spread quickly, and soon the parking lot couldn’t accommodate the customers who drove for miles to see where Friday night’s drama had taken place.
The bartender recruited customers who could be trusted with the cash register to help him fill orders while he retold his story that contained the juicy details media sources had omitted from their reports.
But the evening really belonged to star witness Royce Sherman. The pool table where he’d been playing with his buddies when he decided to approach Jordan Bennett became center ring.
“Little did I know that my move on her would sic the feds on my ass. Not to mention”—he slung an arm across his live-in’s shoulders in a gesture so broad that he sloshed his third Jack and Coke on her new tank top—“getting me in dutch with my old lady here.”
His old lady wasn’t amused, but his audience was spellbound as he gave them a spectacularly appended version of his conversation with Jordie. He relished his newfound celebrity. No one would ever call him a loser or ne’er-do-well again. His name had appeared more than once in the Times-Picayune. Even his mean ol’ daddy had been impressed when an interview with him was aired as the lead story on the ten o’clock news Saturday night.
As the evening wore on, the crowd became thicker. No one noticed the man who came in with a group to which he didn’t belong, then separated himself from it and sought out the darkest corner of the bar in which to lurk.
