Lucy groaned loudly. "And you didn't tell me this earlier?"
Kaz risked a glance at Michael. His expression was set and furious, but she'd deal with him later. "Think about it," she insisted. "Someone else has to be involved, or I wouldn't be getting phone calls. Gary would have no reason to do that."
Lucy looked seriously unhappy. "Dammit, Kaz, you could be in real danger."
"I keep telling her that," Michael growled.
"We need more information," Lucy said. "I can start running checks on the finances of some of the fishermen—look for recent changes in lifestyle, that kind of thing. But we need hard evidence."
"A discussion with Gary right about now would be very useful, to find out what else he knows," Ivar mused.
Kaz stood up. "I'm heading home."
"No," Michael said firmly. "You'll wait right here until I get a change of clothes from my place, then we can go together."
"The cops have a surveillance team at my house, in case you've forgotten." Her voice was cool. "And Sykes and Jackson will be right behind me to search the house. I don't need you."
He strode over to her and knelt, taking both her hands in his. His grip was warm, his expression serious. "I didn't know about the search warrant, I swear," he said, keeping his voice low. "Don't do something foolish because you're upset with me."
Before she could react, Lucy grabbed Michael's arm. "Excuse us." She yanked him to his feet and walked him several feet away. "You're getting too close," Kaz heard her tell him in a low voice. "Back off."
Michael's expression turned hard. "Are you questioning my objectivity?"
"Maybe I am."
He took a step forward, and Kaz rose to intervene, then stopped at his next words. "Bottom line, I'm going to protect Kaz," he said, his voice tight with anger. "And I'll do my damn job." Then he turned to include Kaz. "Don't you two think it's about damn time you trusted me?"
#
"You're taking my laptop?" Kaz asked Sykes, shaking with fury. He and Jackson had arrived just after she'd gotten home. Michael was only a half hour behind, still angry that she'd refused to wait.
She and Sykes were standing in her living room while Jackson carried out boxes of files, printouts, and equipment—all of her records on the fishing business, as well as the records for her consulting business down in California. All of her bank statements, all of Gary's correspondence, all of her personal emails to Phil, for God's sake. She reached for the phone. "I'm calling my attorney."
"You'll get it all back, don't worry," Sykes replied, gathering up the loose stacks of printouts that had been strewn across the coffee table. He tossed her keys back to her, looking angry.
He and Jackson had practically torn the house apart, becoming increasingly destructive as they failed to find anything incriminating, yet refusing to answer when she demanded to know what they were looking for. And Clint had seemed to get an almost prurient satisfaction out of going through her personal belongings.
As Sykes walked out with her laptop tucked under one arm, Clint told her, "We're going to nail Gary this time, Kaz. Count on it."
She slammed the front door and stalked into the kitchen, yanking open the freezer and staring at her choices for dinner without really seeing them.
Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. Who in the fishing community was capable of running drugs? Bjorn was one of the more successful fishermen in town. He hadn't taken the government's buyout offer, and he was still operating several boats. But she couldn't imagine that he would be tempted by anything illegal. And if he were in trouble, she would've seen some sign—maybe that he wanted to sell one of the boats. Of course, it was possible the reason he was doing so well was that he had a second, very lucrative source of income.
She shook her head, slamming the freezer door. This was getting her nowhere. Bjorn was the last person she should be suspecting. So far, he was the one who was the most supportive of her, though that wasn't really saying much. After all, what had he really told her? Certainly nothing that could be substantiated. Maybe that was his strategy—sound helpful while keeping her in the dark.
She walked over to the window and stared out at the dark, empty street. Were things so bad that she was wondering whether one of the nicest guys in the fleet—the father of eight children, for God's sake—was a cold-blooded murderer?
When it came right down to it, the only fisherman she could stand to accuse of drug smuggling was Karl Svensen. He had refused to press charges against Gary six months ago, but recently, he'd been neither helpful nor friendly. And according to Steve, he'd had some kind of run-in with Ken. She wasn't privy to Karl's finances, but they couldn't be all that great if his boats came back into port on the light side. Of course, that could be said about every fisherman in Astoria, including her.
She sighed. She was going in circles, and those circles were bringing her right back around to Ken. He was the only person who'd had obvious financial pressures. Chemo and hospital stays like Bobby's were expensive, and she'd never been under the impression that Ken's mother was all that wealthy.
On a hunch, she pulled the Portland phone book out of the kitchen junk drawer, looking up the number for the hospital where Bobby was being treated. The clock on the wall above the stove indicated that they were well into the dinner hour, but maybe hospitals kept their offices open later than usual. She dialed the number. When the receptionist answered, Kaz asked for the business office and was informed that it was closed. So she asked to be transferred to the children's oncology ward.
While she waited, she rehearsed what she would say. She jumped when the head nurse answered on the second ring. "Um, yes, hi. This is Julie Lundquist, and I wanted to check on the status of our account. I think I may have paid one of the bills twice, by mistake—"
"I'm sorry," the nurse said, "but it's after hours, and the office is closed. If you could call again tomorrow morning—"
"Um, I knew that," Kaz said. "But it's kind of an emergency. See, I've overdrawn my account, and I know it's late, but I'm trying to reconcile my checkbook while Bobby gets a little sleep—he's having so much trouble sleeping right now—and I'll be getting overdraft notices that I can't afford—"
"Oh, poor thing," the nurse said, her voice instantly sympathetic. "It's so hard to watch children go through chemo."
"Yes," Kaz agreed quickly, feeling a giant twinge of guilt at her deception. "It would really help if you could pull up my records on the computer and take a peek at the last payment I sent you, you know, so I could verify the amount?"
"I'm not supposed to—"
"Please."
"Well, I don't see how it could really hurt…" The nurse seemed to come to a decision. "Hold on and I'll see what I can do." After tapping on the computer keys for a moment, she said, "Please verify the last four digits of your social security number for me."
Kaz froze, trying to remember Julie's number from when she'd filled out the insurance forms for them last week. "8166." She held her breath.
"Okay, here we go. You haven't sent us anything for a long time. Your last check to us was dated four months ago."
"I see," Kaz said hesitantly, amazed that it had been so easy, and then said, "Um, I thought that I might've overpaid. Can you give me the outstanding balance?"
"Well, that's odd. You don't have a balance." The nurse tapped some more. "Oh, right! I remember now. We just received that anonymous donation that wiped out your outstanding balance. Our bookkeeper told us about it. We were so excited that someone would do that for Bobby."
"Anonymous?" Kaz repeated, dumfounded. Then she realized the woman had to be talking about Ken's mother. "Oh, you must mean the payments from my mother-in-law."