Miguel Lopez drove an old beater Jeep that Shauna thought might be older than she was.
“Nineteen seventy-four,” Miguel confirmed when she asked.
They drove back toward Austin as the sun broke Wednesday’s horizon, all the scenery in her mind rather than on the road. The highway of her brain was littered with questions, and she didn’t know which to ask first.
What was the huge secret Miguel had tried to expose?
Where should they go?
What should they do next?
Miguel started the conversation for her by answering a question that she had abandoned eons ago. “I was in the car with you that night.”
Her breath caught in her throat and she turned to him.
“That was what Corbin was trying to tell me.”
“I don’t know what Corbin was going to tell you. He did a lot of things without caring whether I wanted him to. He found me a couple weeks after the accident—I’m still not quite sure how. He was a better bloodhound than I, truth be known. What happened to him . . .”
Dashed white lines reflected the Jeep’s headlights rhythmically.
“Shouldn’t have happened to anyone,” Shauna whispered.
“He did what I couldn’t. He kept a close eye on you.”
“Through Khai,” Shauna thought aloud.
“The housekeeper? Yes, she might have helped. He thought that I shouldn’t take Wilde seriously, that once you were well again and safe, we could go pick up the story again, see it through, go public with the whole nine yards.”
He fell silent for a quarter mile.
“But you doubted that.”
“It was what I didn’t doubt, Shauna. I had no doubt Spade would kill you if he had to.”
“You ever threaten Wayne with a gun?”
“He tell you that?”
Shauna was noncommittal.
“I did. I went back home once before going to Victoria, to get a few things I needed. He was there, ransacking the place. I sent him on his way.”
“And that was it?”
“Until now. Other than disappearing, I didn’t know how to guarantee your safety. Really”—for a split second he lifted both hands off the steering wheel in a shrug—“I still don’t.”
He rubbed his beard again and looked out the window. His silence was loaded with far more than regrets over an abandoned exposé.
“It’s drugs. The reason I can’t remember. Experimental drugs.” She fiddled with the armrest on the door.
She guessed Miguel also pondered the ramifications of that over the next mile that lapsed in silence.
“I’m a clean slate now,” she finally said.
He half smiled.
“Wayne didn’t recognize Corbin when he confronted me outside the courthouse.”
“I doubt their paths crossed before then. I don’t think Wayne was ever on the campaign trail.”
“How important was the story we had?” she asked.
“Not as important as you. I couldn’t have predicted what would happen . . .” Miguel shifted lanes to pass a slow car.
“What was the story, exactly? I’m guessing it has something to do with my father’s campaign. Dirty money? Finance law violations? Illegally bundled contributions?”
“Almost. Money laundering. MMV was moving funds into your father’s campaign without a clear paper trail.”
“How much?”
“Nearly forty million, last count.”
“Forty!” Shauna angled her body toward Miguel, trying to piece together what information she could drag up from the distant past. “That’s how much he’s contributed from his own pockets.”
“Exactly.”
“You think it’s not his money?”
“We thought it was not his money. Not technically.”
“Why? Landon’s worth more than ten times that much.”
“His worth is wrapped up in assets, not cash.”
“Well, MMV had a record-breaking year last year.”
“They’ve broken records for seven consecutive years, in fact.”
“There you go then.”
“What could explain that besides good luck, considering the state of the economy and the public records of other corporations like MMV? Not one in the field has had similar growth in the same time frame. Like I said, I don’t subscribe to luck.”
Shauna sighed and ran a hand through her tousled hair. She probably looked terrible.
“So you started covering Landon’s campaign—when?”
“Two years ago.”
“And you got suspicious? Did some number crunching?”
“You did the number crunching. Forty million made a lot of people suspicious. It’s over-the-top. Most candidates aren’t even able to raise that much. Jeffrey Billings is worth more than three hundred, and even he only contributed four and half million to his own campaign.”
“Was the story scheduled to run?”
“No! We hadn’t gotten that far—for all we knew the money was legit.”
“But you don’t believe that now.”
“I didn’t ever believe it. But we never proved it, either.”
She faced the dashboard and leaned back into her seat.
“Okay. Let’s back up a little bit. How did we meet?”
Miguel cleared his throat. “How much do you want to know?”
“You’ll have to start with the bones. I’m already on information overload.
These past twenty-four hours have been . . .” She didn’t have words.
“Campaign stop in Houston. May this year. McAllister brought the family out for a public appearance. Not something you typically did. But Rudy really wanted you there. Talked you into it.”
“I’d do anything for him.”
“He didn’t deserve what happened to him either.”
Tears sprang to Shauna’s eyes. She swallowed. Miguel noticed and squeezed her shoulder. Shauna put her defenses up quickly, to prevent herself from opening a channel to his memories.
She said, “So we met, and . . . ?” She moved out from under his touch.
“And you were captivated by my wit and charm, and I was captivated by the fact that you worked for the CPA who audited MMV’s books.”
She chuckled. “I never would have disclosed that to you, Prince Charming.”
“You didn’t. I knew the firm. You only told me you worked there. I talked you into the rest.”
“No you didn’t. Landon and I have our issues, but I wouldn’t have betrayed him like that.”
“You did it to prove me wrong, Shauna.” She looked at him. Well. Yeah. She might have done that. “You love the truth, you know.”
The first rays of light broke the horizon on Shauna’s side of the car. “So, what convinced me that you were right?”
“The facts convinced you: A profit-sharing structure that shifted the quarter immediately preceding MMV’s first profit spike. Exponential profits in certain MMV subsidiaries—eight, to be precise—rather than across all nineteen. International subsidiaries that looked more like shell companies than legitimate businesses.”
Shauna blew her mussed-up bangs off her forehead. “That’s all?”
“The shift in profit-sharing reduced employees’ takes to a stunted rate that was much slower than the actual growth. In theory, the executive officers took the balance, but in reality, the sum total was tipped into McAllister’s coffers. And not one of them objected.”
“That kind of thing is hard to hide.”
“Not when everyone is in on it. They’re being compensated some other way.”
“What did we learn about the subsidiaries?”
“That they’re nearly phantoms. We got far enough in investigating one of them to find a residential address. That’s it.”
Shauna let these details sink in before she said, “Wayne found out. I tipped him off somehow.”
“He’s not stupid. And you asked a lot of questions. I still have some things to teach you about subtlety in investigating.”
“Guilty, and sentenced to time already served?” She apologized with a smile.
“I’m not blaming you, lovely.”
Shauna returned to the trail of her thoughts. “Money laundering isn’t something most people commit murder to hide.”
“No. It’s not. Although it’s also true that people murder for far less.”
“But we’re family,” she murmured.
“You are.”
“And Rudy. No one loves Rudy like Landon and Uncle Trent do. What happened to him nearly dashed Landon’s will to run. Why would anyone hurt Rudy?” Shauna let her question hang for several seconds. “Maybe I have this all wrong. Maybe the accident was a freak coincidence? Wayne jumped on the opportunity? I was upset that night—”
“That’s not what happened.”
She turned toward him again. The morning sun revealed the strong lines of his face, his certain jaw.
“Rudy wasn’t supposed to be in the car. He insisted on riding back with you after you argued with McAllister.”
“Landon and I fought about the money?”
“You challenged him on where it came from. He kept reciting the party line.”
“Of course he would.” She sighed. “You were with me—you let Rudy come?”
“Rudy was so good for you, Shauna. He was always cool when you were hot. I zipped my lips and let him work his calm on you. Where I went wrong was letting him talk me into taking the backseat. If he—”
“No ifs. None of those. It’s all I can do to handle the facts. So Rudy wasn’t supposed to be there.”
“If the argument hadn’t taken place, it would have been just you and me in the car. Someone had a plan in place. A plan that they couldn’t retract.”
“Not Landon. Not even Trent. I can’t believe it. They would have called it off.” Wayne, of course, could think up something that heinous.
“You came down onto the bridge. An SUV swerved into the oncoming lanes.”
“A black SUV.” She saw it in the memory she had taken from Deputy Cale Bowden. The witness leaning impatiently against the rear fender. She gasped.
“That’s where I saw him.”
“Saw who?”
“The guy drinking scotch in the hotel. He was driving the SUV. And I saw him one other time—at the park. Barton Springs. He had a knife. The knife you picked up.”
“You sure? How could you have IDed him? He flicked on his high beams and blinded all of us. He straddled the lane lines so you couldn’t veer right. You went left.”
“Directly into the truck behind him.” She still didn’t remember any of it though she knew the scenario by heart.
“I swear, he didn’t try to dodge you.”
“No. I don’t think he did. He works for Wayne—” Several possibilities clicked together in Shauna’s mind. “He told me Wayne owes him money. Do you think it’s because I didn’t die in that accident?”
“It’s possible. No pay for an incomplete job. If it’s true, you can bet the man didn’t get paid for keeping an eye on you at the hotel, either.”
“I’m not going to lose any sleep over that. How did you avoid being hurt, Miguel? When we went off that bridge.”
“The back window popped out. I can’t explain how I was thrown. I was in the water—that part is not clear to me. By the time I made it back to the car, they had you in the ambulance. If only I’d—”
“No ifs.”
Miguel took a deep breath.
Shauna said, “Tell me about the deal you made with Trent Wilde.”
“How did you know about that?”
“I . . . am putting things together in my mind.” If she was right, he would remember this part—the details of their agreement hadn’t appeared in the memory she’d taken from him. “You disappeared to protect me, you said.”
“I promised to drop the story, stop pursuing it to the end.”
“Not enough for the man, I’m sure.”
“I also promised to disappear, sever all ties to you. Your family.”
“In exchange for my life.”
Miguel nodded.
“And if I died?”
“I told them I had hidden the information I’d collected so far, and that if either one of us died, the person who held it for me would release it.”
“Corbin?”
Sadness crossed Miguel’s features. “No. But they probably thought so.”
“Who had it?”
“It was a bluff, really. You had it.”
She had it. Of course she did. Her mind went to the papers Khai had rescued for her. Shauna leaned forward. “So what’s to prevent us from reopening the story now?” she asked.
His mouth fell open. “Uh, the fact that it nearly killed you the first time? The fact that I don’t give a rip anymore about where the money comes from? They can keep it.”
“But I still have the information.”
He ran a hand through his hair.
She shot her question to him with her eyes.
“If they had killed you . . .” he said. The possibility thickened the air. “If they had killed you, that story would have been the last thing in the world I cared about. I only need them to believe someone has it.”
“I have it. Khai brought me some papers—”
“No, Shauna.”
“Listen, Sabueso. I would have—”
“I mean no, it’s not in those files.”
“Then where is it?”
“Shauna, don’t. We can leave this all behind us.”
“And never know the truth. And never feel safe. Don’t tell me you don’t care about that. I wouldn’t believe you.”
He hit the steering wheel with the flat of his hand.
She put her hand on his shoulder, ready to pull it away if she had to.
“Don’t you see? This isn’t about money laundering. It can’t be. Murder doesn’t make sense otherwise. This is about something much bigger, about a father who’s trying to kill his children, and a criminal who’s sitting in the White House.”
“That is well outside the scope of anything we can prove, and you know it. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s beyond what you even want to believe, Shauna.”
“Call me lovely. Please.”
His shoulders dropped a quarter inch, and Shauna sensed him soften.
“Tell me where I hid it. Because if everything you’re telling me is true, I’m certain I would have told you.”