A Good Kind of Trouble (A Trouble in Twin Rivers Novel Book 1) (39 page)

No one was watching, so she opened the door and let herself in.
 

The office was dark and Lindsey started to feel for a light switch.
 

"Lyle?" she whispered into the dark.
 

"Don't turn on the light!"
 

Lindsey gave him an exasperated sigh. "No one can see us here," she said and flipped the switch.
 

Lyle blinked in the sudden glare of the fluorescent flicker from above.
 

"What's going on? What's taking the council so long? Are they going to vote on the bonds tonight?"

Lyle jerked his head in both directions as if he expected someone to jump out at him. He was even more nervous than usual, alternating between wringing his hands together and pulling at his necktie as if the silk was strangling him.
 

"It's all a mess," he said, his voice low. "Ms. Schulman is gone. Missing. Didn't show up for the meeting. Left this afternoon and no one has seen her and there are all sorts of problems. The council is just sitting in there, waiting for her. They're not even talking. They don't know what to do."
 

Teri Schulman was missing?
 

"What do you mean missing?" Lindsey asked. "Is she in danger?"

Lyle shook his head. "I think she's in trouble. Like, legal trouble. The FBI is asking about her."
 

Lindsey grabbed at her purse and scrambled for a pen and paper. "When? Where? Who was it? What did they want?"

"Aaaugh!" Lyle slapped the pen out of her hand. "I'm telling you this off the record, Ms. Fox!"
 

She startled as the pen flew out of her hand and rolled under a shelf. "Hey!"

He put his hand to his head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is all a huge mess."
 

Lindsey patted his arm. "It's going to be all right. Just tell me what's going on."

She'd figure out a way to confirm it later. He took a shaky breath.
 

"The agent was asking about Ms. Schulman's financial disclosures, property she owned, and what her relationship was with EFB, Inc. and with the mayor and Rae Waters."
 

Was Teri Schulman being paid off? But why? To push the bonds through without scrutiny? Was that why the council didn't care what interest rate the city was paying? The bank was really the only entity that would benefit in getting the high-priced bond contract approved. Well, except for Bear O'Bannion, who would probably build the structure.
 

"Tell me everything," she said, dropping to the floor and groping under the bookshelf for her pen. "I'll keep it on background."

Lyle paused. "That means my name is out of it?"

At Lindsey's nod, Lyle took a deep breath. "The agents asked what I knew about her prior job and whether she ever talked about buying and selling real estate and if I knew about her sources of outside income."
 

"What about the other income? Is that allowed?"

He nodded. "We can have other income, but it has to be declared. She didn't report any outside income in the last three years since she's worked here." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a dozen pieces of paper stapled together and folded lengthwise. "Here's her financial statements since she's been here. She lists her husband's law firm, but no consulting work or anything improper."
 

"Where did she work before she came to the city?" Lindsey took the pages and scanned them quickly.
 

"She was in real estate law in Los Angeles," Lyle said. "I guess she moved up here after she married Frank Derry. Left a big practice to take this job."
 

Oh, man, what was Teri up to? She was a real estate lawyer. She could have plotted this herself, or she could have worked with Gregory Stanton. And how did Ms. Petrie fit into this scheme?
 

"What else did the FBI ask about?"

"Just regular questions—how long had she worked for the city, what she did as city attorney. Oh, and if she had traveled out of the country for business."
 

Lindsey tilted her head. "Why would she travel internationally on city business?"

"She didn't, but the FBI was interested in a trip she took last year to the Cayman Islands," Lyle said. "I didn't know she'd gone there. No one in the office did. That seems like something you'd mention to your coworkers, right?"

He peered at her from behind his thick lenses. Lindsey nodded.
 

"Unless you were hiding something," she said.
 

Lyle nodded. "Now she's gone. Her car left the parking garage around lunchtime and she never came back."

"How long will the council wait before starting the meeting?"

"I don't know." He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at his forehead. "If she doesn't show up, I'm going to have to sit in for her. I hate doing that."
 

"Did the FBI talk to anyone else?"

Lyle grinned, joy briefly overtaking the intense distress. "Yeah, this afternoon they tried to interview Mayor Darlington. I've never seen anyone sweat so much. They also wanted to talk to Rae Waters. Both of them claimed they were too busy, but they weren't. I saw their schedules."

Lyle put the cloth away and checked his watch. "I have to go. The council's going to come in soon," he said, turning to the door.
 

Lindsey waited for the door to close behind him before she pulled her cell phone out and called Sam. She was going to need reinforcements.
 

Sam answered on the first ring and Lindsey gave him the new information about the FBI investigation.
 

"You got that on the record?" he barked.
 

"No, not yet. It's on background only. The FBI probably won't confirm, either."
 

"Get someone else in that building to corroborate it and we can use it," he said. "I'd run it by legal to be sure, but apparently, Ms. Petrie's flown the coop."

"What?" Lindsey asked. Her head spun—with what she'd learned about Lara Petrie and Teri Schulman, the pieces were coming together and the full picture started to emerge.
 

"Cleared out her desk this afternoon and left," Sam said. "Her husband came looking for her. She was supposed to meet him at a restaurant for lunch and hadn't arrived and when he came here, he found that she'd cleared out her desk as well as their joint bank accounts. I hear the fireworks that followed were pretty impressive."
 

"Oh, damn. Damn, damn, damn," Lindsey muttered.
 

"You should be happier than that, since your crackpot theory seems to be correct," Sam said.
 

"Get Dani to run down everything on Lara Petrie. Everything she can find, but especially any property records or corporate records," she said.
 

"What? We're investigating ourselves now?"
 

"Sam, she's in on it! She was the one selling the arena plan to the editorial board, trying to gin up support," Lindsey said, cramming her notepad back into her bag and heading to the door. She opened the door and peaked into the hallway. It was still mostly empty and she slipped out.
 

"Fox, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Lara Petrie has been having an affair with Teri Schulman. Teri Schulman needs this arena proposal to go through because she's been buying up property around the site and has been flipping it for millions in profits. Now Ms. Schulman's disappeared, too," she said, keeping her voice low. "I gotta go, the council's going to come back soon."
 

Lindsey hung up on Sam and hurried to her seat. Rich was still sprawled in his seat studying his text messages. "This story just got more interesting," she whispered.
 

"More interesting than municipal bonds?" he asked with a sarcastic drawl. "Do tell."

She rolled her eyes at her bored coworker.
 

"Trust me."

Chapter Thirty-One

The council filed through the door behind the dais and took their seats. Lyle joined them, taking the seat behind Teri Schulman's nameplate. Lindsey focused on the man at the middle of the dais—Mayor Darlington, no longer sporting the massive Rolex on his left wrist.
 

"Make sure to get close-ups of Waters and the mayor," she whispered to Rich, who raised an eyebrow.

"You got it," he said with a grin, seemingly happy that his boring assignment of covering the city council hearing just got marginally more interesting. He readied his camera and made his way to the side of the room, where he'd have a better shot of the officials.
 

The officials themselves appeared shell-shocked. Even Darlington was pale under his golfer's tan. They stumbled through the first few items on the agenda, with Lyle reading in a shaky voice the legal department's recommendations on the votes. Then the clerk read the item that Lindsey was waiting to hear.
 

"Item number seven, approval of contracts to issue public bonds for municipal projects 25-1207 and 24-1750."
 

The titles obscured the significance of the items and only a few members of the audience sat up to pay attention to the vote.
 

"Move to table the vote on number seven until the next council meeting," Mayor Darlington said.

"Seconded," Councilwoman Waters said quickly.
 

The clerk moved on to the next item on the list and Lindsey sat stunned.
 

The mayor made eye contact with Lindsey, a smirk on his face. That expression faded as he looked past her and his face went white. She followed his gaze, taking note of several clean-cut men in suits in the back of the council chambers. They weren't lobbyists, the suits weren't well-cut or expensive. Federal agents? She saw two at the back door and two more moving with purpose down each side aisle.
 

Lindsey turned back to the dais. Lyle was twitching in the direction of the agents.
 

She waved and caught Rich’s eye, giving him a nod toward the suits. Crouching, he began firing his camera at the two men as they approached the front of the council chambers.
 

Mayor Darlington stood, his chair rolling backward and hitting the paneled wall. He banged a small gavel. "Meeting adjourned."
 

"Bob, we're in the middle of the agenda," said one of the members, puzzled.
 

But the mayor was already rushing toward the door behind the row of council members. Rae Waters followed him. The crowd and remaining council members murmured their surprise at the sudden adjournment. Two suits disappeared out the side door and Lindsey sprinted after them, Rich making it through the door before she could get there.
 

In the hall, pandemonium ensued. The agents were running, shouting at the mayor and councilwoman to stop.
 

Rich was right behind them, his camera held up and the shutter firing away. The mayor swiped a card at the end of the hall, yanked the door to the stairwell open, and ran through with Rae Waters close behind him. The feds were about fifty feet behind, coming up fast on the stairwell door.

"Ms. Fox!" She glanced over her shoulder. Lyle was running toward her, his suit coat flapping open. "The parking garage!"

He threw her something and she caught it, realizing that it was his electronic pass. "Which way?"

He gasped and pointed at the elevator. "Locked floor. Basement.”

She grabbed Rich and hauled him into the elevator, swiping the electronic card and then punching the button for the basement, where the city officials parked in a locked floor of the parking garage.
 

"What the hell is going on?" Rich asked.

"I think they're getting arrested."
 

"Awesome!" Rich pulled another camera out of his bag and looped the strap around his neck.

The elevator doors slid open and Rich bolted into the basement parking garage, Lindsey close on his heels. A loud slam sounded to their left and Mayor Darlington and Rae Waters burst through the stairway door into the parking garage, red-faced and huffing after racing down three flights of steps.
 

Lindsey watched in disbelief as the two middle-aged politicians raced across the nearly empty garage. Neither of them was athletic in the least, but they were moving faster than Lindsey would have thought possible. Rich had to sprint to get in front of them to snap photographs. Instinctively, they raised their hands to block the photographer's view, which served only to make them look guiltier.
 

The door slammed open again and two federal agents burst into the garage and raced across the concrete expanse toward Rich. Lindsey ran after them, wishing she'd learn to wear better shoes on the job.
 

The mayor and the councilwoman split up, with Rae Waters heading down the ramp that led to the lower level of the garage and Mayor Darlington trying to weave between minivans and sedans in the reserved parking area. The agents split, too. The younger one went left, chasing the councilwoman who was gaining momentum as she approached the sharp right curve.
 

"Whoa-oa-oa-oa!"
 

Rae's slick-soled flats lost traction and she slid around the corner, one foot raised and her arms pinwheeling. Lindsey watched as the agent dove, tackling the councilwoman and the two of them rolled down the sloping corner, a blur of black suiting and floral polyester. When they came to a rest, the agent straddled the councilwoman's thrashing body, wrestled her arms behind her and snapped handcuffs on her.
 

Lindsey raced back in the other direction to see how far the mayor had gotten. Bob Darlington was on one side of a Camry, an agent on the other, the two men circling each other with the sedan in the middle.
 

"Mayor Darlington, you're under arrest," the agent said. He was older than his partner and did not look amused by the chase.