"It's not about you and me, Sam. We're both doing our jobs," Mason said. "That's all."
"No, Lou," she said, holding the steering wheel like it was a life preserver. "It is about us even if there isn't any us anymore. I don't want to find your body behind one of those doors. Don't make that part of my job."
Samantha reminded Mason of the difficulty he'd had letting go of his ex-wife, Kate. Mason didn't stop loving Kate because she stopped loving him. If anything, it made him love her more and want her more. It was a long time before he could think about her without feeling the hole in his heart. Self-pity filled the hole for a while, giving way to a dull emptiness, not healing until he met Abby. Mason hadn't understood the depth of Samantha's feelings for him when he let their relationship wither. After Kate, it was easier than a straight-ahead breakup, but it was cowardly, and he wasn't proud of himself.
"I'll do my best," he said.
"So, how's your new?" she asked him.
"Her name is Abby," Mason answered. "She's fine."
"That's nice," Samantha said, shifting the Crown Vic out of neutral.
It was mid-afternoon when Mason walked into Daphne's, followed by Samantha. Mickey, Claire, Harry, Blues, and Rachel Firestone were sitting at the dining room table, each poring over pages of the ledger. Daphne was circling the table, pouring lemonade.
"Oh, Dear Lord!" Daphne said when she saw Mason, blood-soaked and ragged. The pitcher slipped from her hand, shattering when it hit the hardwood floor.
Rachel bolted from her chair, grabbing Mason by the shoulders. "You're all right?" she asked.
Mickey slapped the table with an I-told-you-so thump. Blues and Harry permitted themselves small grins, while Claire waited quietly, her eyes filling. Mason walked to her side, putting his hand on her shoulder as he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, whispering in her ear.
"I'm fine," he assured his aunt, squeezing the hand she placed over his.
Mickey and Rachel retrieved paper towels from the kitchen and began soaking up the lemonade. Daphne covered her mouth, regaining her composure.
"Samantha," she said. "Welcome back. I'm so pleased to see you again, especially with Lou," she added.
"It's good to see you again too, Daphne," Samantha said. "But this is a business call. I'm just dropping Lou off and picking up some papers. This looks like what I came for," she said, gathering the pages of the ledger from the table. "Is this it?" she asked Mason.
"That's it."
Looking at the people around the table, she said, "Looks like my list just got a little longer."
Mason didn't answer. Abby and Jordan were standing in the entry hall at the bottom of the stairs. Jordan backed away from Samantha, edging behind Blues. Abby took Mason's face in her hands.
"I'm sorry," Abby said, and kissed him softly, not caring about the crowd.
Daphne flushed and said, "Oh, my, I didn't realize," and took refuge in the kitchen.
Samantha cleared her throat, drawing Mason's attention. "I guess I better add another name," she said to him, and left.
"What list is she talking about?" Abby asked after Samantha drove away.
"I don't think it's her Christmas list," Blues answered. "Where the hell have you been and whose blood are you wearing?" he asked Mason.
Mason described the car-jacking and the dogfight. "Detective Greer thinks that if Centurion was willing to kill me because I kept a copy of the ledger, anyone who knows about it could be at risk."
"Since when did Sam become Detective Greer?" Mickey asked.
Rachel answered, "Since Daphne welcomed her and Lou home and Abby kissed and made up with Lou."
"Oh, my," Daphne said again. "I'll make some more lemonade."
"By the way," Mason said, aiming his cross-examination at Mickey. "What are Abby, Claire, and Rachel doing here?"
"Hey," Abby snapped. "Don't blame Mickey. Blame yourself for getting car-jacked and shot at instead of answering your phone. I got worried when I couldn't find you or Jordan, so I called Rachel and Claire. They guessed you would bring Jordan here. Apparently, you're something of a regular," she added with a sharp edge.
"Abby's right," Claire said. "You disappeared without a trace after you told Mickey you were going home and going to bed."
"This is a helluva story," Rachel said.
"Well, you can't write it yet," Mason told her. "Not without painting a bull's-eye on everyone's backs."
"Samantha is a good cop," Harry said. "Let her handle it."
"That would make sense except for one thing," Mason said. "Sam has a different agenda. She thinks Jordan killed Gina Davenport and Trent Hackett. She may look at Centurion for the car-jacking, but she won't try to tie them together and consider someone else in the murders unless I can convince her it's all connected. The ledger is the only link and we don't know what it means. Terry Nix said it was a list of donors, but that's public information and this ledger is in code."
"Question is," Blues said, "what did they donate?"
"Or buy," Harry suggested. "Centurion was one of the biggest drug dealers in the region until we took him down. He would have gone away for the rest of his natural life if he hadn't rolled over on the people he was buying from. I'd say that he's still dealing and that ledger is a list of his preferred customers."
Mason said, "I admit that's the logical choice. But why risk the sweet deal he's got with Sanctuary to sell dope? He's paying himself a salary of three hundred and fifty thousand bucks, driving a Mercedes, and living large in the country."
"Then if he's not selling drugs, what is he selling?" Abby asked.
"Babies," Jordan said from the corner of the dining room.
They had ignored Jordan, almost forgetting that she was there. She captured their attention with a single word that none of them had considered.
"What are you saying?" Abby asked her.
"It's a list of illegal adoptions. Centurion sells babies."
"How do you know that?" Mason asked.
Jordan looked at them, hugging herself as she abandoned her corner. "Because he sold my baby girl. I want her back and I'll do anything I have to do to find her. That's why I took the ledger. Centurion is the one who should be worried, not us."
"Mickey," Mason said. "Did you make an extra copy of that ledger?"
"You know I did, Boss."
"Pass it out," Mason told him.
Chapter 22
Mason chased Jordan's ghosts and demons as he prepared for her preliminary hearing. He didn't trust Centurion to let matters lie, and convinced Jordan to remain at Daphne's. Mickey, Harry, and Blues continued their rotation. Abby found excuses to drop by, but didn't ask Jordan for a DNA sample, settling instead for Jordan's face-splitting smile each time Abby walked in the room. At Samantha Greer's direction, a patrol car cruised the neighborhood every couple of hours. It was, she told Mason, the best she could do.
Mason found Centurion's ledger easy to understand and hard to decipher. He assumed that the initials shown on each entry were those of the adoptive parents; that the date shown was the date of the adoption; and that the amount listed was the purchase price for the baby. Either the letter P or B followed each entry, citations he couldn't interpret.
Abby broke that code at Mason's house Monday evening where she and Mason were observing the oneweek anniversary of Gina Davenport's murder. Tuffy was stretched out between them as they sat on the living room floor, rotating her head from one lap to the other, displaying a politician's loyalty to whoever did the better job of scratching behind her ears.
Abby sat up, plunking Tuffy's head on the floor. "P is for pink and B is for blue. Girls are pink and boys are blue," she announced. Tuffy stuck out her tongue, cuffed Abby on the thigh with her paw, and abandoned her for Mason. "I wish we could identify the adoptive parents," she said.