The lights flashed with the beep of the vehicle unlocking, and she put Parker in the back before she climbed behind the wheel. Reid slid into the passenger seat. Maybe changing the subject would be the wisest choice about now.
He cleared his throat as she exited the lot and pulled onto the street. “I told Will he could go fishing with your dad.”
The glare he’d expected earlier shot his way before she turned her attention back to the road. Her jaw tightened, and her knuckles went white on the steering wheel. “You didn’t think to ask for my permission?”
“Uh, no. I assumed you’d want him to spend time with your dad.”
“My dad doesn’t deserve to be around Will, not after all the lies.”
“That’s not Will’s fault. He’s pathetically eager for a relationship with his grandfather. I know the feeling. I’ve been searching for my grandparents too.”
Too personal. He should have kept his mouth shut.
Her grip on the steering wheel relaxed. “Any luck?”
“Actually, yeah. I found my mother’s parents living in Indiana. I haven’t contacted them yet. I’m not sure if I should.”
Shut up, Reid.
“Any aunts and uncles?”
“Two uncles, younger than Mom. I just got the report from Kelly, my investigator. They’re both married with kids. One has two girls and the other one has twin boys. The older of the two, Randy, still lives in Wabash. The other one, Rick, lives in Wickenburg, Arizona.”
She turned into the parking lot of an industrial complex. “I found an online article this morning about Liberty’s Children.”
She was actually talking to him? “A recent one?”
“Dated last week. According to the article, the group has taken over an abandoned town along the Cumberland River in Kentucky.”
“That’s about as clear as mud. The Cumberland is nearly seven hundred miles long. Did the article say just where?”
“I don’t remember the exact details. It mentioned the headwaters? I don’t really know what that means.”
“I do. I did a documentary about the Cumberland about five years ago. Its headwaters are three separate rivers that converge near Baxter, Kentucky. The river is wild and turbulent throughout much of the area. Thick vegetation, not many people. Maybe we can find out more details and make a visit. See if your mom is still there.”
“I can’t see her ever leaving.”
Reid nodded. “You think this Price fellow will talk?”
“He won’t want any negative publicity.” She parked the vehicle near the front of the building and turned it off. “Let’s see what we can find out.”
She was all business again and would be unlikely to open up to him again. If only he’d had a little more time.
Six
Reid’s presence had her on edge.
Jane led the way and had only to flash her badge before being ushered into Steve Price’s office. The room was massive, and windows filled one whole wall that flooded the space with light. His desk was a sleek modern one, and the room was furnished with a sofa and comfortable armchairs on one side plus a long meeting room table with seating at the other end. Her whole studio apartment above the bakery would fit in this one room.
Steve stood from behind his desk and approached them with his hand out. “Jane, nice to see you.” He shook her hand, then petted Parker.
Jane had been around Steve at various events in town. He was about forty with wings of gray threaded through his dark hair at his temples. His tall, distinguished air attracted female attention, but since his wife’s death, she’d never seen him with another woman.
His gaze went past Jane’s shoulder to Reid. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
Reid held out his hand. “Reid Dixon, journalist. Your office gave permission for me to board the oil platform for a documentary. I was out there yesterday.”
Steve’s thousand-watt smile dimmed. “I suppose this is about our man overboard?” He gestured to the seating area to Jane’s left. “I have about half an hour before an important meeting, but I’m happy to answer anything I can. It’s tragic, just tragic.”
Jane waited until they were all seated, then took out her notepad. “Are you aware Keith McDonald feared a terrorist attack on the oil platform?” Might as well go for shock value and see what happened.
Steve shook his head. “Homeland Security contacted me about it, and I told them I’ve seen no evidence of anything like that. We have top security out there, and cameras all over the place. Our IT department reviewed every feed we have, and there’s nothing to indicate Keith was in contact with terrorists. Supposedly he overheard a conversation, but we’ve found nothing like that in our feeds. I wonder if it might have been an attention stunt. The young man had some, uh, issues.”
Jane’s ears perked. “Issues?”
Steve nodded and petted Parker, who laid his head on Steve’s knee. “He had taken my son under his wing after my wife died. Our families have been friends for years, and Tyler idolized Keith. But he’s been strange lately.”
“Tyler or Keith?”
Steve frowned. “Keith, of course.”
“I heard your son was having some short-term memory loss after a baseball accident.”
Steve gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Minor. The doctors say it will pass. Where’d you hear about that?”
“His ex-girlfriend, Megan.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call her a girlfriend. He’s only fifteen. They ‘broke up’”—he put the words in air quotes with his fingers—“over a month ago.”
“But Megan says he forgets they’ve broken up and has been following her. And stalking her on Snapchat.”
Steve’s brows drew together. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious. All she has to do is tell him to quit it.”
“She has, but he forgets.”
She clenched her fists at his dismissive attitude. “What about Keith? Do you have any idea what was going on with him? His mother said he wasn’t on any antidepressants. You think he deliberately jumped off the oil platform?”
“It was my first thought. He’d just been acting strange, paranoid even. He kept looking out the window and asking me if I knew the car going by. The last time he was at the house he insisted on keeping the curtains open, and he sat in the chair where he could see out to the front yard. I thought maybe he was working too many hours and offered to see if I could adjust his schedule, but he brushed that off. Now I wish I had.”
Reid leaned forward. “What if he was paranoid for a reason?”
“I just don’t buy it. Why would a terrorist want to blow up the oil platform?”
“Major contamination of the beaches,” Jane said. “And maybe quite a few dead.”
“Even Deepwater Horizon only killed eleven. Now, that’s a tragedy. I’m not discounting those lives, but it’s not like the attack on the World Trade Center. Most terrorists want at least a few hundred dead to make a point. Blowing up the platform would gain some attention, but not the kind that would make all the cost and planning worth it. At least not in my opinion. It’s not something you see much of, even worldwide.”