Sedona Law 5 by Dave Daren (romantic novels in english .TXT) 📕

“Okay,” I said decisively, “I want to find that. I want to talk to all of the guys who worked for them.”

It was after eleven p.m., and if we didn’t have all of these tapes, we wouldn’t be here this late. So, I just made a note that I would talk to the Wright’s about an employee list in the morning.

Then I spent the rest of the night researching the Wright’s.

Chapter 12

Friday morning came in a groggy state of panic. I didn’t even realize we were still in the conference room. We’d all fallen asleep over Hindu techno and Internet research. When I came to, AJ was awake working on her play, I guess.

“How long was I asleep?” I mumbled as I rubbed my eyes.

“Not long,” AJ replied. “About an hour or two.”

“Did you sleep at all?” I asked with a feeling of guilt.

“A little,” she shrugged, “on and off.”

I looked over, and Vicki was dead asleep on the table. I needed to take charge of this. I checked my phone. It was six a.m.

“Alright,” I sighed, “let’s take a break. We’ll reconvene at ten.”

“Sounds good,” AJ yawned as she switched off the tape.

The sound of silence was so sweet after subjecting myself to the endless barrage of bad music. The change woke Vicki, and she groggily sat up as AJ slipped out without much comment.

“Let’s go home,” I whispered. “We’ll come back in a few hours.”

“Uh-huh,” Vicki mumbled and rose.

We stumbled out of the door in silence, and in the pink and purple dawn, I drove us the three minutes back to our cottage. I set my phone alarm, and then we both fell into bed fully dressed. After spending the last God only knew how many hours slumped in the dining chairs in our conference room, I’d never been so grateful to stretch out on a soft, roomy mattress.

But we had a deadline looming and no real answers, and I was starting to get anxious. We were really out of time. In all honesty, I could give Chet what we had, make a case for probable cause, and get Alfred moved to just a person of interest, instead of a suspect.

But I was after that smoking gun.

I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. Then my phone alarm beeped, and I groaned. I rose and showered, and Vicki had not moved from her position since we’d arrived home.

“Vic,” I whispered and shook her.

“Leave me alone,” she snarled as she waved an arm in the air to ward me off.

I forgot how grouchy Vicki could be when she’s tired.

“I’m leaving,” I murmured into her ear with a fond smile. “I’ll see you at the office.”

She didn’t respond, so I just left. Then I texted AJ to see if she wanted breakfast from Jitters, but she didn’t reply, so I just got a coffee and went in.

AJ was back firmly in place, in fresh clothes, and with coffee, although she still looked a little tired. The Hindu techno was still going, and I started to wonder if we would find anything on those tapes at all. But I knew we had to give it the best shot we could.

After all, the prosecutor only gave us a week.

“Did you get any sleep?” I asked, and my voice came out hoarse.

“A bit,” she replied before she took a sip of her coffee. “You?”

“Same,” I sighed. “Vic’s down for the count.”

“Wuss,” AJ teased, and I laughed.

“She’s a diva sometimes,” I admitted goodnaturedly as I took a sip of my own black coffee. “Where are you?”

“I’ve been cataloging all of the tapes to see if I can find any patterns,” AJ answered. “I found this app that translates foreign audio files.”

“Nice,” I commented. “Is it giving us anything?”

“No,” she shook her head and frowned, “just a lot of dead ends. He just wrote a lot of sad and angry break up songs, and then there’s some love songs on here, too. The app’s not perfect, though, so I’m just getting the gist of the content. But now I’ve got a spreadsheet of topics, dates, and languages, so maybe it will help us find something.”

“Good thinking,” I said, but then my phone reminder popped up to call Wright Way, so I got on the phone.

“Hello?” a deep voice answered.

“Hi,” I said, “I’m looking for Paul Wright.”

“Speaking,” he replied.

“Hi, Paul,” I began cordially. “This is Henry Irving. I’m an attorney working with SPD. I wondered if I could--”

“If this is about Jerry Steele,” he interrupted me brusquely, “I don’t know anything.”

“I know you talked to AJ Castillo, one of our associates,” I told him, “and she mentioned a couple of things I wanted to clarify, if I could.”

“I told the girl everything,” he argued, and his voice took on a sharp edge. “Look, Jerry Steele ruined me, my career, my family, my financial future. Everything. And it’s unfortunate he passed before he could make things right, although I don’t know how he would have done that. But now, I want to stay far, far away from anything to do with that man. He is chaos. You open the door to him, and all hell comes flooding in with a vengeance.”

“I know that’s true,” I said. “I’ve worked with him a bit myself.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he grunted.

“Look,” I tried a different tactic, “I’ve done my homework on Jerry and the case with Morales. I know all about it and how he screwed you, and I don’t blame you for wanting to stay away. I would, too. But--”

Suddenly, the line went dead.

“He hung up on me,” I muttered with a frown.

I tossed the phone on my desk, and then it lit up with an incoming call