Outside The Lines:: Third Person Narration (21 page)

Who was renting those properties now?
 
To the tune of seven hundred thousand dollars?

She moved soundlessly to her bag and heaved it up onto the table that formed the anchor for a small sitting area off to the side in Johnny’s office, framed by a low couch and two chairs.
   

She pulled everything out and started reading.

She didn’t know how much time passed before she heard footsteps in the carpeted hallway.
 
The handle rattled softly and the door swung open, spreading a triangle of light across the carpet.
 
Johnny stepped in and shut the door behind him, plunging the room back into shadowy dimness.
   

“What did he say?” she whispered.
 
She didn’t know why she was whispering.

“He said he called the FBI,” he replied, just as quietly.

So, they were both whispering.
 
Coldness trickled through her.
   

“So, it’s over?” she said uncertainly.

“It’s not over, babe.” His voice was grim.

She got to her feet quietly.
 
“I don’t think so either, Johnny. I think we missed something.”

“What?”

“The—”

Johnny’s hand snapped up and she stopped mid-syllable. Footsteps sounded outside the door, muffled by the carpet. Johnny swung the door open and stood in the opening, blocking her from view.

Through the half-opened doorway, she spied a handsome man standing in the corridor, with salt-and-pepper hair and beard, looking a little unkempt but still like a movie star.
 
Johnny seemed to be surrounded by movie stars.

This must be Dan Masters, in the flesh.

“I’m going now,” Dan said, hefting a large cardboard box in his arms.
 
“The rest of the files are in the car.”

Johnny nodded in silence.

She watched from the shadows as Dan looked sadly at him. “This sucks. I’ll call you later, okay? We’ll go out for a drink, on me.”

Johnny nodded again, then stood at the doorway, watching until the outer door clicked shut.
 
Then he turned back, looking dangerous with his rumpled hair and day’s growth of beard and his leather boots and piercing green eyes, boring into Juliette.

“What did we miss?” he said.
 

“The last eighteen months.”

“Be clear,” he said curtly, coming into the room.

“When was that detention center build completed?” she asked.

He came around the desk. “Over two years ago.”

“Right.
 
And if those payments from Mendine were kickbacks to
build
the center, and the build is all done, then who’s paying the judge now?”
 

 
Johnny’s green eyes were hard as marble as he looked at her.
 

“And why?” she added softly.
 

He shoved his desk phone out of the way and started powering up his space station of an office.
 
He had three computers and four monitors.

“I suppose they could be genuine rental payments,” she said hopefully as Johnny tapped away.

She really, really wanted them to be genuine payments, because if they weren’t….

Johnny glanced up. “How much?”

“Seven hundred thousand.”
 

“Seven hundred thousand dollars, in a year and a half, for a condo rental?”

She nodded. “I didn’t think it seemed right either.”

“What’s the name?” he asked, while all around him, computers and monitors came to life, his little minions.

“Jones,” she said.
 
“Marcus Jones.
 
And an MJ Investments Corp.”

Johnny lifted his head slowly and looked straight ahead, his gaze almost burning a hole through the walls lined with photos of happy Danger Enterprise clients.
 
She felt cold.
 

“Do you know a Marcus Jones?” she asked quietly.

“No.” Johnny shook his head, still staring forward. “But Dan does.”
 

She blew out a breath. “Does Marcus Jones own MJ Investments Corp.?”
 

Johnny looked over, his gaze cold and glittering hard.
 
“Among other things.”

More coldness crept down my back. “What other things?”

“He co-owns Northern Child Care Corp.”

“And what is that?” she whispered.
 

“A juvenile detention center.”

She started shaking her head. It was instinctive, just a way to reject the information.

“The place where Judge Billings sends the kids he sentences,” Johnny went on. “The one Mendine built.”

She backed up a step, still shaking her head.
 
“But… why?” she said dumbly. “Why is he doing that? Why is he paying Judge Billings to rent his condo?”

“He’s not renting a condo, Juliette.” His voice was completely flat, the shadow of a voice.

Her fingers felt cold. The judge was taking money, to this day, from the
operators
of the juvenile detention center.
 
And there weren’t a whole lot of reasons she could think why you’d do that. Just one. One awful reason you’d send a judge that kind of money.
 

To send you kids.

Steps sounded at the doorway, muted by the carpet.

“Johnny?” said a voice from the hall.

She recognized it at once.
 
It was the voice she’d heard on the phone earlier, the FBI agent who was used to hearing people say
“Oh shit”
when they heard his name.

Johnny was already on his feet, turning as a man stepped through the door.
 

“Murphy,” he said, thrusting out a hand.
 

“Johnny.” The FBI agent grasped his hand. “What the hell?” he said as they shook. “Do you hunt these people down?”

“I’m popular. They find me.”

The agent stepped into the room and cast a sweeping gaze over it, like a radar surveying everything.
 
It stopped when it hit Juliette.
 
He smiled and inclined his head slightly.
 
“Ma’am.”
 

He wasn’t wearing a hat, but she felt as if he’d swept one off for her.
 
She was, in a word, charmed.

“Hi,” she said wisely.

“Agent Murphy, ma’am, FBI.”

“Juliette Jauntie, CPA.
 
But my letters don’t matter as much as yours.”

A grin flashed across his face, transforming it into something less grim, then it disappeared as he turned to Johnny. “What’s up?”

“Lots.”

It turned into the sort of clipped, shorthand conversation that could only come from years of familiarity. These two were friends.
 
Or else Johnny had had a lot of occasion to call in the FBI.
 
But what she was seeing was a friendship, although Agent Murphy looked about a decade older than Johnny.
 
But that might be the job.
 
Being an FBI agent probably aged you prematurely.

Johnny told him what they’d found.
 
Agent Murphy looked appropriately grim.
 
Johnny didn’t mention anything related to Dan.

They drifted outside the office, into the hallway. She heard them still talking in low voices. A moment later the outer office door opened, then closed. A second later, Johnny reappeared in the doorway.

He was silhouetted dark in the doorway as the sun rose through the windows behind me.
 

“I could call you a cab,” he said slowly.

“That seems like a waste of time.”
 
She got to her feet.
 
“I’d just tell it to follow you.”

He held out his hand.
 
“Then come on, babe, we got shit to do.”
 

Chapter Fifteen

THEY DROVE in silence.
 
Juliette didn’t say anything, and she didn’t want to ask anything, because she wasn’t sure she wanted the answers Johnny might have.
 

They pulled up in front of a palatial abode with gleaming white columns and pale, rose-colored arches.
 
She felt as if they were entering ancient Rome before its decay. They drove slowly through a vaguely ominous open gate and up a short drive that circled smoothly in front of the house.
 

Johnny stopped the truck and stared at the house, absolutely still and silent. Like a boulder.
 
Or a glacier.
 
Then his body shifted and he slid out.
 

Even his doors were silent; he must have turned off the annoying ding, because there was no noise at all as the door swung open.
 
From outside, she could hear a faint crackling sound, like a wood fire burning.
 
A whiff of smoke drifted through the air.

Johnny looked in at her. “Get in the driver’s seat.”

She felt shaky. It was pretty clear they’d unleashed something far more ominous than she’d ever intended or envisioned. She slid over, trembling.

“Wait here,” he ordered.
 
“If anything seems off, leave.
 
Then call Murphy.”

That sounded scary.
 
“‘Off’ how?”

“You’re going to have to trust yourself on that, Jauntie.” He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the house.

“Johnny, be careful,” she whispered. It seemed to have worked well the last time.

He nodded mutely, then pushed the driver’s side door closed.
 
Without looking back, he walked into the house.

ALL JOHNNY’S SENSES were on alert.
 

It had been a few years since he’d walked through a war zone, but the low-burning fuel of constant vigilance ignited immediately.
 
He kept his head up, his body loose, his eyes scanning.
 
As if Dan was going to jump out of the kitchen at him with a gun.
 

The rooms were silent.
 
He strode down the familiar hallway and through the rooms he’d been in for so many football games and cocktail parties, the house bursting with Dan’s many professional and personal friends, always gathering to celebrate something.
 
In their lives, there was always something to celebrate.

No one was here now.
 
The emptiness of the house established itself, curling around Johnny like a cat:
no
one is here, just you and me and the wind.

Good thing he didn’t believe in ghosts.

Pictures lined the walls, of all the people Dan had helped along the way, from his kids’ Little League coaches to the many launch parties and mergers Dan had facilitated, including a duplicate of the photograph hanging in their office, of the groundbreaking ceremony for the ten million dollar build of Northern Child Care Corp.
 
AKA: juvie.
 

And Dan wasn’t standing with Roger Mendine in that picture.

He was with Marcus Jones Powers, the guy who owned the detention centers.
 
The guy with the ten-odd million dollars of debt on them, the guy who really needed juvenile court judges to remand kids to the center, or he’d go under.