Stephen shrugged. “He thought he owned it all. After all the planning we’d done—someone told him he didn’t. So he went there to talk to Emmitt and have him walk off the property. This is all on that chicken-shit surveyor. Emmitt panicked and called me when he saw John’s deed. He’s in debt up to his ears. This job would stave off creditors and put his company at the top of the list with big contractors, kind of a gift that keeps on giving. He kept raving about the deed not being the right one, that there had to be more.”
Jax rubbed his nose and tried not to look at Evie. “So Emmitt conspired with the mayor to steal all the lots with an older deed and tried to get the Posts to agree?”
“I don’t know what happened. All I ever knew was that Emmitt called and said the Posts had agreed to sell and were vacationing in the islands, waiting for the proceeds. I wanted proof. We argued. Emmitt pulled out the high card when he said he and the other investors would sue me and the firm for non-performance if I didn’t sign off on the deal. I already had the Posts’ signatures on the agreement-to-sell documents. I’d just been holding off while John satisfied his curiosity.”
“But he didn’t call you and say sell?”
“No, and I couldn’t reach him if he was sailing. I needed my commission on the land sale to pay off my more pressing debts. Emmitt provided a title search and deed. When I received a message with the name of the bank where the proceeds should be deposited, I set up a cash transfer from Lakeland. After today, I’m guessing Emmitt must have stolen John’s ID and e-mail and gone down to establish an account in the Caymans. I thought I was transferring the funds to John.” Stephen fumbled for the water on the side table.
Jax held the cup for him while his soul crumbled. He’d been living a lie of privilege for years. He’d believed Stephen was there to take care of Ariel in the wealthy privacy and comfort she needed. If he’d taken her away sooner, would Stephen have sold the house, paid his debts, and not been in the grip of a greedy killer?
“But after you knew the Posts had disappeared and were most likely dead, you didn’t do anything,” Evie said matter-of-factly. “You could have reported it all to the police, but you didn’t.”
“I was trying to save my firm!” Stockton protested. “I was trying to protect Jax and Ariel. Once I realized the land sale money was in an account no one knew about but me and Blue, I changed the passwords and locked it up. I didn’t know what else to do. Emmitt was the surveyor and claimed the deed was fine. The other investors thought they’d paid for the land. They had no suspicion of hanky-panky. I was the one Emmitt had threatened. I was the only one who was suspicious. They were busy organizing the start-up.”
Jax closed his eyes and wished he could close his ears to what would come next, but his lawyer’s mind already knew what had happened.
Stephen continued. “I thought I could use the funds to pay off my clients, get that monkey off my back, and then I could let the police know about my suspicions.”
“That’s theft, pure and simple. And then you tried to pin it on me by transferring your stolen gains to my name!” Jax tried not to shout but he was sitting on a mound of lies and couldn’t shovel fast enough.
“That’s just what was left after I paid the escrow funds to their owners.” Stockton pushed the cup away and looked exhausted. “I wanted you to get Loretta away from this damned town before I did anything, but you wouldn’t do it. I figured I could clear it all up later, but I needed something to hold over you to make you leave, so you wouldn’t get involved. I taught you to listen to me, but you’ve not been the same since you came home from the service.”
“You can brainwash a child but not a man,” Evie said. “Jax may be loyal to a fault, but he has the ability to keep an open mind and question orders. I assume he got that from his father and not you.”
“Evie, not now,” Jax said wearily. It had been a long day. He knew he wasn’t processing everything as sharply as he should. He just didn’t think he could handle more. The funds in the Caribbean would have to go back to Lakeland’s investors. He didn’t know how much extra he’d need to replace what Stephen had stolen from them to pay his debts. He hoped there might be some means of paying people back and covering all this up—but not withholding evidence on a murder. That was one step too far.
“Yes, now,” Evie said more sharply than he’d ever heard her speak. “Your father died after this man had him fired—for discovering his Ponzi scheme. You have no reason to be loyal to a thief and fraud.”
“I had nothing to do with Franklin Jackson being fired! I didn’t know he was uncovering my trail until afterward,” Stephen protested, regaining some color. “The partners discovered your father was not who he said he was. I don’t know what he was after, but his name wasn’t Jackson, it wasIves, and he was from California, not Georgia. The credentials he gave us were stolen.”
Jax flung the water glass against the far wall.
Twenty-six
By the timeEvie reached Jax’s team, Jax had sped off in his Jag. Reuben offered her the last of the lobster Ariel had delivered to the truck. Evie was hungry enough to eat but upset enough not to enjoy it.
“Beans and rice are more my style.” She folded up the container. “I guess the fun is all over, huh?”
She’d known Jax would have to go back to his real life. She just hadn’t expected it to be so abruptly. But he’d been poleaxed. She certainly couldn’t blame him for his reaction. His father hadn’t been his father? Had used an alias?
“Did we ever tell you why Jax left the service?” Roark slowed down as they approached Witch Hill.
“Something about fraud in high places. There seems to be a lot of that going around.” Evie studied what she could see of the pond. The thunderstorm had partially filled it but not enough to hide the broken grasses. Water seeped across the road from the break in the small embankment. She thought she heard a frog though.
“Way more fraud than us poor people will ever understand,” Roark agreed. “But this involved selling military equipment for drugs and cash. We were arming the enemy so headquarters could buy whiskey and women and keep the troops high. Jax was in headquarters, in the legal department, when he received our report. He took the evidence to the highest command since our officers were involved. Next day, the MPs came in and found drugs in our tent. They had a witness who swore me and Rube sold him arms. They threw us to the locals, who staked us out in a desert hellhole where we baked. It took him a while to find out, but when he did Jax literally went ballistic.”
Reuben rummaged in the restaurant bag and found a box of cookies. He offered them to her. “Because he had friends in high places, they wanted to keep him quiet. They offered him a tour of duty in some cushy place, thought he’d take the payoff rather than protect a couple of insubordinate scumbags like us. We were already classified as renegades with so many black marks against our names that we weren’t ever getting out easy anyway.”
“Jax recorded every bribe they offered,” Roark said in satisfaction. “Then he took troops out to the desert hellhole and blew out the walls. He threatened our command with his recordings if they didn’t send us home. He resigned his commission, sent all his evidence to DC, and came home with nothing to show for himself. He’d had high hopes of rising in the ranks and going into the diplomatic corps. Instead, because of us, he had to settle for a position under the daddy he tried to escape.”
“And he’s going right back to that firm now to put all the pieces back together again.” With a sigh, Evie bit into the cookie—decadent chocolate chunky.
“That’s the way we figure it, except with your mic, we heard what Stockton said. Jax will need us to find out about his real daddy. Give him time. He’ll come around.”
His real daddy—Jax wasn’t actually Jackson, he was anIves. Could Stockton be telling the truth? There wasn’t any good reason why he shouldn’t.
The house was dark and quiet when they returned. Jax’s room had been emptied; his laptop and suitcase were gone. Reuben and Roark insisted on returning to their camp near Ariel, not knowing how much Jax had passed on to his sister, if anything.