Causing a Commotion (28 page)

“You slipped me your address and told me to come here after I got Colin some place safe. I assumed you planned to tell me what the hell is going on.”

* * *

Despite his scrambling his log-in, Colin knew it was possible the police might track his location when he logged into his email account. Still, he had to see if his informant had contacted him.

The bogus yahoo account appeared in the subject line just as he suspected it would.

The email suggested he contact a particular man who worked for the company awarded several large military contracts. It also suggested he check deposits made to Senator Bill Thomas’ account around the same time. An account not kept in the U.S.

A Swiss bank account.

How Hollywood-ish, Colin couldn’t help but think. For that matter, he felt like he was in a bad movie. One where he was being hunted and lacked the superhero abilities needed to save his hind-end.

Still, the email contained account numbers and dates. Whoever his informant was, they’d either done their homework or was sending him on a wild goose chase. At this point, he had to believe there was something to the emails and that by finding whatever his informant knew he’d also be proving his innocence.

The cell phone in his pocket rang. Not a normal ring. Of course, Jessie wouldn’t have a normal phone ring. Instead, Steven Tyler’s voice screeched out the words to
Dude look like a lady
. Apparently, she hadn’t been kidding when she’d said Aerosmith was her favorite band.

He looked at the number display. A number he didn’t recognize came up. He dropped the phone back into his pocket. It immediately burst into song again. If it wasn’t Jessie, he could always pretend it was a wrong number. If it was, she’d keep calling. Or worse. She’d come to the boys home.

“Hello,” he said into the phone, trying to disguise his voice. Just in case.

“Hey, if you think that ridiculous voice will fool anyone you’re sadly mistaken.” Jessie giggled.

Despite the craziness of the day, Colin smiled. Smiled because her voice calmed the raw edge to his insides and was full of emotion and energy. Pure Jessie.

“No, this is the part where you say, I’ll be right there, then you run your sexy bottom to this back door, let me in, and kiss me like you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you.”

Colin swallowed. “I’ll be right there.”

He printed the email, stuck the paper in his pocket, closed down his online search and headed for the door where Jessie and J.P. dropped him off so many hours before.

Let her in and kiss her like he’d missed her, he could handle that.

Only when he got to the back door, Jessie wasn’t alone. A tall, lanky blond man was with her. One wearing a police uniform. Oh hell. What had she done?

“Where’s my kiss?” She puckered her lips, closed her eyes, and waited with apparent expectation.

Colin flicked his gaze from her to the man. The guy didn’t look comfortable being here. Didn’t look friendly.
And he was wearing a police uniform.

“Mmmm, that’s better. Although not your top-rated kiss.” She ran her hand across his cheek, then pushed past him to go into the building. “Come on, boys. We’ve got work to do.”

Chapter Nineteen

Having an ex-lover who worked for upper level military came in handy. Real handy. A call to Steve and Jessie got information Colin said he needed and put Steve in contact with the man Colin’s informant told him to contact. Steve promised to call soon with the rest of the information he couldn’t immediately access and to let them know how his meeting with the contact went.

“This guy is your ex?” Colin asked, shaking his head when Jessie hung up her cell phone.

“Yes. Nice guy, good se—” she stopped, grinned sheepishly. “We decided just being friends was best a week or so before I met you.”

“Right.” Colin exchanged a look with Dan, who’d spent the last two hours going over what Colin had uncovered on Senator Bill Thomas over the past few years, and in particular over the past few months. Fortunately, his unfriendly attitude loosened up a little after Colin told him about the emails and the connection to the story Colin had been working on during the time Karen died. A trail Colin admitted he’d dropped without realizing. A trail an anonymous email put him back on.

“You’ve got to turn yourself in,” Dan advised. “Right now, you won’t be held for anything more than questioning. It’s been less than twelve hours. You can say you’ve been here, at the boys home and had no way of knowing the police were looking for you. Jessie and I will follow-up on what you’ve discovered and figure out if there’s a connection to what’s going on at Wolf.”

Jessie gave Dan a disbelieving look. “What’s he supposed to do? March into the police station and say he heard the news over the ten o-clock news and is turning himself in? I don’t think so.”

Jessie and Colin’s eyes met. As much as she didn’t want to believe it, Dan was right. Colin couldn’t keep hiding. Not if he ever wanted his life back. “You did leave with a woman. Me. Except for my drive to San Padre, we’ve been together.”

“And a lot of guilty ones to walk free,” Dan said from where he watched them. Jessie shot him a silencing look. Surely by now he believed in Colin’s innocence. And if not, he’d never betray her trust. Not Dan.

“If you run, you’ll look guilty as hell in front of any jury you go before,” Dan added, not paying any heed whatsoever to Jessie’s warning glance to let her handle this. “I’ll go over this information, see what I can come up with. Steve Jernigan has more inside military connections than the pentagon. If there’s foul play on those contracts, he’ll get the needed proof. In the mean time, the police have issued a warrant to bring you in for questioning on Tamara’s disappearance. It’s plausible you’ve been with Jessie, but with every minute that passes that plausibility dwindles.”

Colin nodded, turning his head as the computer beeped to indicate a new email. From the bogus Yahoo account.

He opened the email. Jessie read the information along with him. Maxwell Arnold paid the lease on Tamara and Jessie’s apartment. Several large deposits had been made into Tamara’s account recently. Deposits that could be traced to Maxwell.

“Why would Maxwell pay your rent?” Colin turned suspicious eyes onto Jessie.

“I don’t know. The apartment was Tamara’s. I sort of moved in on her when she was having financial problems.” Jessie’s gaze dropped to the screen, to the amount of the deposits. “Apparently not that much of a financial problem.”

Dan’s cell phone rang. He answered, and Jessie could tell by his face that the news wasn’t good.

Dan had put in a call to his buddy on the L.A.P.D. to let him know the second anything happened on the case. He’d made the request under the guise of looking out for his partner’s little sister who worked at Wolf and happened to room with the missing woman.

He closed his cell phone. “Tamara’s been found.”

“Her body?” Jessie gulped, praying her friend was okay.

“No, she’s fine other than a few bruises. Apparently she was found in one of Wolf’s empty studios. She’d been knocked unconscious, tied and gagged, and left for dead inside a packing crate. When she came to she gnawed through the gag and screamed bloody murder until someone heard her.”

“Oh my God,” Jessie’s hand covered her mouth, trying to imagine the terror Tamara must have gone through. “Did she say who hit her?”

Dan nodded, a gloomy expression on his face. “She told the police Colin Crandall did.”

* * *

Jessie’s ex came through. Took the information Colin uncovered, the data his informant sent, and the ex-military man used his vast resources to fill in the missing blanks and apply pressure to the right people to get tongues wagging.

Military contracts were being fixed and Senator Bill Thomas was getting huge kickbacks on the process. Kickbacks he’d do anything to protect. Between the account numbers and the data Steve uncovered, along with Colin’s research on the man, the prosecution would have a strong case. Hopefully Senator Thomas wouldn’t weasel out of his wrong doings the way he had when Colin uncovered his illegal campaign contributions.

Senator Thomas had been arrested earlier in the day. As had Tamara Harrison, although Tamara would be released later in the day. Tamara swore that she really thought Colin had been who’d hit her because she’d smelled his cologne before being hit. Only she admitted the fragrance was much stronger than Colin usually wore his. Apparently, Maxwell hired her to spy on Jessie, but as best as the police could tell that was Tamara’s only crime, and she couldn’t be held for that.

Apparently if you had the money of God, or Senator Bill Thomas, you could buy your way onto most any board of directors and the senator had bought himself an anonymous position on Wolf’s. Which was the connection that Colin pulled up during his impromptu online search. Already the senator had been applying pressure through other board members. It was no wonder Maxwell wanted to get rid of Colin. Being rid of him would get the senator off his back.

Only Colin’s contract was airtight. Maxwell’s plan to get rid of Colin backfired when J.P. and Jessie turned a show that was supposed to fail into a huge success.

Maxwell hadn’t committed any crimes per se other than spying on Jessie and turning a blind eye to all the problems plaguing first Colin’s show and then
Causing A Commotion
. It was unclear if Maxwell had anything to do with the problems, but the police were reviewing all the evidence. Colin suspected Maxwell had been behind each and every one. Which made him want to strangle the man for risking Jessie’s life.

Maxwell may have failed to be arrested, but the arrogant man would be punished all the same. With Marian’s father at her side, Wolf’s board almost unanimously voted in Marian Rosewood Arnold to replace her fired husband as Wolf’s president.

Now Colin sat in Maxwell’s old office and waited for the lovely woman to finish explaining to him why she’d insisted he meet with her and arranged for her limousine to pick him up from the jail. Because of the media hoopla, Marian’s limousine provided a quick getaway and he’d accepted.

“Although I hope you’ll choose to stay at Wolf, I’m releasing you from your contract.” She smiled with a graciousness and intelligence Maxwell never had. “You’ll be free to renegotiate your terms or to leave Wolf if that’s what you so choose.”

“You’re releasing me from my contract?” Surely he hadn’t heard right?

“Yes, if that’s what you wish.” Marian sighed, then gave a rueful look. “I was the one who insisted upon the terms of your original contract. At the time, I thought I was protecting you.”