Secrets in the Shadows (19 page)

I know. You’re right. It’s just difficult to see something I’ve worked so hard to build destroyed with such violence. It feels so personal.”

Charlie took a roll from the basket and buttered it. “I think it was personal. What do you think happened?”

Ethan added sugar and cream to his coffee, then answered, completely deadpan. “Well, we got a tip from the security company that they think it’s an inside job. Seems a certain ‘suspicious character’ was hanging around with the owner, and knew way too much about the feedback loop that had been installed.”

Charlie’s face turned red, and he looked at Lauren. “Told you.”

Lauren was horrified and amused at the same time. “Ethan, you don’t believe that, surely.”

“No, I don’t. My initial theory was that it was teenagers who’d gotten out of control, but finding the feedback device rules that out. Kids are getting more sophisticated these days, but that’s a little extreme. I’m afraid I have to agree with the vengeance angle.”

“Yeah, it feels like a professional or semi-pro hit. It’d also take a pretty strong person to sling that tar around and get it all over the walls and ceiling. If I had to guess, I’d say it was one person, maybe two, and they were interested in causing as much damage as they could without burning the place down.” David looked at Lauren. “I’m sorry.”

Rita returned to take their orders. As she left, Charlie asked her to close the door, and she complied with a frown.

“You know she’s interested in you, right?” Ethan asked him, his tone droll.

“Who’s interested in me? Lauren?” Charlie looked at her and smiled, a puzzled frown crossing his face when she hid her face behind her napkin, coughing.

“Her, too, I think.” David reached for a roll, and Charlie froze, staring at the other man with a look very similar to that of a deer trapped in headlights.

“You don’t mean Rita?” When all three nodded, he groaned and dropped his head into his hands. He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “Well, hell.”

As if taking pity on him, David changed the subject. “I know we talked about your credentials the other night on the phone, but we didn’t get a chance to discuss details. I thought you had been working here.”

Charlie explained about helping Sonny after his surgery. “However, I make my living with my own company, Clark Consulting.” He described the business, telling them about his network of independent contractors, most of whom were former law enforcement or military.

For a few minutes they discussed the workings of Charlie’s operation, and as they were wrapping up, Joely arrived with their food. There wasn’t much conversation while they ate. They all seemed to realize that the sooner they finished eating, the sooner they could discuss Charlie’s findings. Joely returned to clear their plates, bringing a pitcher of ice water and three glasses.

Ethan got up to close the door behind her, since her hands were full of dirty dishes, and once he was back at the table, Charlie pulled several files out of his briefcase, along with a pair of reading glasses.

David leaned forward. “What’d you find?”

Charlie’s smile was almost feral. “Let’s start with poor ol’ sick and dying Carl. I did a basic background check on him, criminal record, credit report,
etc.
His criminal background came back clean, but his credit report is ugly.” He turned to the pages he wanted.

“After they left here thirteen years ago, both Carl and Mary Margaret drop off the map for a couple of years, financially speaking. No activity on their social security numbers, no credit card use, nothing we could use to track them. I also used the information you gave me to look up all their children, and tried tracing them through the school systems. Again, for the first couple of years, nothing. I’d guess they were homeschooled or maybe just not reported to whatever school district they were living in. As far as I can tell, they didn’t contact anyone back here during those first two years—not their older children, not their creditors, no one. Because they were no longer making payments on the farm, they lost it to foreclosure. The bank finally got a repossession pushed through, and the farm ended up being auctioned off for back taxes.”

Lauren frowned. “I thought their son, Jacob, was running the farm.”

“He is. He’s the one who bought it at auction, and for a fraction of what was owed on it.”

Ethan raised a brow. “I can’t imagine that went over too well when Mom and Dad finally got back in touch with everyone.”

With a low whistle, Lauren agreed. “I’d say not. That farm had been in the family for a number of years, best I recall. So then what happens? I assume they did finally reappear?”

“They did. About two, two and half years after they left, they registered the girls in public school in Rabun County, Georgia. Emmaline and Geneva were enrolled there until eight years ago, when they were abruptly withdrawn and placed in schools here in Indiana. Apparently, Jacob and his wife, Emily, sued for custody and won, and the girls have been with them ever since. Want to make two guesses why?”

Dismayed, Lauren closed her eyes. “Oh, no. Carl?”

“Unfortunately, yes. There were allegations of abuse, and someone called Jacob. He went down immediately and got them out of there.”

“Why weren’t charges filed?” David asked.

“I don’t think Carl ever got to the point of molesting the girls. From what little I was able to find out, and don’t ask me how or where I got this, someone close to the family knew a little about what had happened with Margie, and found out that the oldest daughter, Emmaline, had said something to one of her teachers about her father. The teacher knew this family friend, mentioned it to them, and the friend called Jacob, which led to him going to get the girls. He did file a report with the local police, but it didn’t go anywhere. It’s a small county, small budget for police work, and Carl just slipped through the cracks.”

Ethan nodded with understanding. “Yeah, it does happen. Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow, but there are more ‘cracks’ in the system than we’d like. Legislators and budget planners just don’t seem to put crime fighting very high on their list of priorities.”

“Amen to that.” Charlie continued. “After the girls were taken, Carl and Mary Margaret moved to Hart County, probably to escape the allegations. This is where things really went into a decline for them. He worked in a lumber mill for a few years before they lost the girls, and they were doing okay financially. They had gotten a couple of small credit cards, bought a car. They rented the house in Rabun. Probably knew they couldn’t get approved for a mortgage, and the old bank might come after them for the foreclosure balance on the farm.”

“All that went away when they left Rabun County. He had a hard time finding another job that paid as well. It was almost a year and a half after they moved before he got a job where he got paid above the table. That was working on cars in a garage. Carl was there for almost two years when money started disappearing.”

“So he was embezzling?” Lauren couldn’t hide her surprise.

“Allegedly. At the very least, he was the prime suspect. According to my source, the owner told him he wouldn’t prosecute if Carl admitted what he’d done and returned the money. He confessed, told the guy he would get the money for him, asked for forty-eight hours to come up with it, and he and Mary Margaret disappeared. The owner filed charges with the police, and once again, they went underground.”

She frowned. “Where was Troy during all this? I thought he went with them to Georgia.”

“He did,” Charlie confirmed. “He was with them in Rabun County, which I believe is where they went when they left Indiana. When I did the background search on him, I discovered that someone using his name rented a house in Rabun County thirteen years ago. He was younger than Margie, so he would still have been a minor at the time. He couldn’t legally rent a house on his own.”

“His parents.” David refilled his water glass. “That’s a trick we see folks using pretty often, using their children’s identities to register utilities, things like that.”

“Yeah. And when the parents did reemerge in Rabun County? Guess what address they listed as their residence?”

Lauren leaned forward, playing with her napkin. “Troy always was Mary Margaret’s favorite. It makes sense that they would use him. He’s the child least likely to turn against them. What else happened?”

Charlie stretched his arms above his head, rotating his shoulders. “After his parents left Rabun, Troy stayed in the house for a while. It gets pretty interesting, what happened with him in the next few years, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“Four and a half years ago, when Carl was accused of stealing the money? That was the last time they disappeared. About two years ago, they pop back up again in Rabun County. There is absolutely no record of where they’d been in the interim, so it’s anyone’s guess. Mary Margaret has family in that neck of the woods, so I’d bet they stayed with or near them. If Carl hadn’t gotten sick, they might not have reemerged for years. He was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease, and they had to come forward to apply for disability.”

“Wouldn’t they have arrested him then, on the theft charges?” Lauren looked at David.

He shook his head. “It would have been up to the prosecutor and the guy he stole from to press the issue.”

Charlie tapped the file. “That’s exactly what happened. When the owner saw how sick Carl was, he decided to not pursue charges. He figured Carl was already suffering enough, and he knew there was no way to get his money back now that the man was dying. He also felt sorry for Mary Margaret, so he dropped the charges.”

There was a light tap on the door, and Rita peeked inside. “Do you all need anything?”

Lauren stood, needing to visit the restroom. “Actually, I need to excuse myself for a couple minutes.”

When she returned, Rita was still chatting with Charlie, virtually ignoring Ethan. Charlie was obviously flustered, his arms tightly crossed over his chest, one of his feet tapping impatiently. David had walked away from the table to make a phone call, and Ethan was just sitting back, watching Charlie squirm. Lauren saw the tiny grin on his face and had to struggle to hold back her own amusement.

Deciding to be just a little bit mean, she squeezed Charlie’s shoulder as she walked by, letting her fingers trail across his back and down his other arm as she sat. Rita, who had observed the move closely, became rigid. When Ethan started coughing and excused himself, the other woman sent him an affronted glare.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Lauren thought.

“Rita, if you don’t mind, can you make sure we aren’t disturbed anymore? We’ve got a lot to talk about here.” Charlie’s tone was a little short, and Rita picked up on it.

“Of course. Excuse me.” She stalked to the door and closed it none too gently.

It opened again, and Ethan came back, his face flushed. When he closed the door behind him, he grinned widely. “What’d you say to her? She’s got steam coming out of her ears.”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” David said as he returned to his seat. “What was that all about? Josie said to tell you both hello, by the way.”

Lauren shrugged. “Oh, Rita just got an unpleasant wake-up call, that’s all.”

Charlie grinned. “Is that what you call it? I thought it was more like you staking your territory.”

David coughed. “And I missed it. Damn.”

Clearing her throat, Lauren tried to restart the conversation. “Shall we get back to the business at hand, gentlemen?”

Shooting her a look that promised he wouldn’t forget what she’d done, Charlie continued, and the mood in the room sobered. “As I was saying, he had apparently been sick for a while, but didn’t know it. He collapsed one night and had to be taken to the ER. That’s when he was diagnosed with advanced kidney disease. Mary Margaret convinced him that they had to try to get disability because they wouldn’t have anything to live on otherwise, and that’s what they did. Since he was terminally ill, he got it pretty much as soon as he applied. They’ve been living out in the open ever since.”

“So why was he stealing the money? Was it to support Mary Margaret and Troy?” Lauren asked.

“No. After Jacob came and got the girls, Carl didn’t have any more victims at home. He had to look elsewhere to feed his appetite.”

Lauren’s stomach dropped. “Please don’t tell me he targeted someone else.” She dreaded the answer, and Charlie picked up on her distress. He reached a hand out and covered one of hers.

“He didn’t, at least not the way you’re thinking. Thankfully, he didn’t go after any more teenagers. However, he did start drinking and going to topless bars, and it looks like he got into that lifestyle pretty deeply. He used their credit cards to run up some good-sized debt, and when those were maxed out, he started stealing from his boss. He paid off the credit cards with the money he stole, and used the rest for lap dances and prostitutes. No surprise, he seemed to prefer the ones who looked young.”

She was amazed. “How did you find out about all this?”

“I was wondering about that myself.” David held up a hand when Charlie quirked an eyebrow at him. “Not that I’m not grateful, but I’m just wondering how much of this I can take to my supervisor.”