“They want more tests.”
“And?”
“And tests cost money.”
Connor closed his eyes for half a second.
There were men in the city who owed him amounts large enough to buy this entire building, and Thomas Hail’s daughter had been sixty-three cents short for bananas.
His phone vibrated.
Connor looked at the message.
The gray car was registered to a man named Daniel Mercer.
Sarah watched his face.
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
The next message arrived seconds later.
Mercer worked for a small private investigations firm.
Connor frowned.
That changed the shape of the problem.
Private investigators did not usually spend weeks watching a struggling widow for entertainment.
Someone had hired him.
Connor typed one question.
Who is the client?
The reply took longer.
Sarah folded her arms.
“You’re doing that thing Thomas used to complain about.”
Connor glanced up.
“What thing?”
“Going completely quiet while everybody else has to guess whether the building is about to explode.”
For the first time that afternoon, Connor almost smiled.
“He said that?”
“Constantly.”
“He exaggerated.”
“He said you always said that too.”
For one second Thomas was in the room with them.
Connor could hear his laugh.
See him leaning back in a chair, talking about the crib he had assembled badly and refused to admit was crooked.
Then Connor’s phone vibrated again.
The smile disappeared.
The investigator had been hired through an attorney handling an old financial file connected to Thomas Hail.
Connor read the message twice.
“Sarah.”
Her face changed at Thomas’s name before Connor even said it.
“What?”
“Did Thomas leave anything unresolved financially?”
“Everything was unresolved.
He died at twenty-nine.”
“Insurance?”
“A small policy.
It paid for the funeral and kept me home after Gracie was born.”
“Bank accounts?”
“Nothing significant.”
“Property?”
“No.”
“Business interests?”
Sarah shook her head.
“Thomas worked with his hands.
You know that.”
Connor did know.
But he also knew Thomas had spent two years helping Connor with businesses Connor preferred not to connect publicly to himself.
