Read Online Tina Whittle_Tai Randall Mystery 01 by The Dangerous Edge of Things - Free Book Online Page A

Landon’s office was the epitome of masculinity, like a plush cave. Bigger than Trey’s, it was stuffed with heavy dark furniture, including a library table scattered with official-looking detritus—maps, files, memos.
    Landon was already on the phone when we arrived. He waved us in, and I seated myself in front of his half-acre desk. Trey, however, remained standing at my side, arms folded. He checked his watch.
    Unlike Trey’s blank walls, Landon’s featured a hodgepodge of portraits and diplomas and certificates, mostly from the Air Force. The photographs were telling: Landon and Ron Reagan, Landon and Colin Powell, Landon and Dubya, all candid shots, not staged grip-and-grins.
    Trey took a seat, checked his watch one more time. I leaned his way. “What’s the AFOSI?”
    “Air Force Office of Special Investigation. Landon worked there before starting his own agency.”
    “Phoenix?”
    “No, a smaller one. He sold it when Marisa offered him a partnership here.”
    “Oh.”
    “Hold on a second,” Landon said into the phone. “I’m putting you on speaker phone.”
    And then I heard my brother’s voice. “Are you there, Tai?”
    I took a deep breath. “Yeah, Eric, right here.”
    “God, it’s good to hear you.” He cleared his throat. “Look, I know you guys have lots of questions. So go ahead, fire them off. I gave Kent here the short version—”
    “How did Eliza Compton end up dead in front of your house?” I cut in.
    Eric sighed. “I figured you’d start with that.”
    ***
    According to Eric, Eliza met him at the Mardi Gras ball. She told him she was a receptionist at Beau Elan, talked about her psychology class at Georgia State. It was a polite conversation—party chit chat—and he thought nothing more of it until she dropped by his home office Wednesday morning.
    Which was very different story. She was nervous, upset, asking if there was a place they could talk. She said it was urgent, but she didn’t want to do it in his office. She insisted they go someplace in public, maybe that evening. She kept repeating the word “urgent.”
    “She said it had to be someplace where no one from work would see us,” Eric explained. “She was very specific about that.”
    Eliza then quizzed him about the ins and outs of therapist-client confidentiality, especially—and this was the interesting part—whether it applied to criminal wrong-doing. Eric told her privilege was a complicated matter and suggested that if she knew of something illegal, she should talk to the police. She told him she couldn’t go to the police, and that if he would just listen to her story, he would understand why. In the end, he agreed to meet with her that evening at a restaurant several miles out of town in Duluth.
    Trey leaned toward the phone. “Did you meet her?”
    “No. She never showed, so I went back home. I never saw her again. But here’s something strange. When she pulled out of my driveway on Wednesday morning, this dark blue pick-up truck that had been waiting at the curb pulled right after her.”
    I stared at the phone. Why had nobody mentioned this before now?
    “Did you see the driver?” Trey said.
    “There was a guy behind the wheel, but I didn’t pay attention to him until the truck peeled out and took off down the street right behind her.”
    “So he was following her?” I said.
    Landon frowned. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
    “I didn’t actually
see
anybody, just a guy in a truck,” Eric insisted.
    But I wasn’t letting this one go. “Do you think this person knows you saw him?”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    “It matters if he figures out you can ID him.”
    “But I can’t ID him!”
    “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Landon interrupted. “Eric, listen to me. Have you mentioned any of this to the cops?”
    “I told them exactly what I’m telling you.”
    “You didn’t tell anyone when Eliza first came to you?”
    There was a long pause. “No.”
    “Why