Chapter 105
In the photo he was sitting on a restaurant patio across from her brother. Andrew had on a gimme cap and sunglasses, not unheard of when sitting outside in the sun.
“Yes. That’s Brent…No, Brett something. Patterson, maybe?”
“Brett Parsons.”
“Right. My brother was friends with him before he moved. They were frat brothers or something. I only met him a handful of times. I never liked him. He was one of those rich kids who took six or seven years to get a degree. If I remember right, he was from money,” she continued. “I had the impression he was spoiled and self-indulgent.”
She looked up at Nolan. “You wouldn’t be showing me his picture if he wasn’t involved. Can I assume my brother dragged him into this?”
“Don’t feel too badly for him.” Nolan clicked the phone into standby mode and slipped it back into his pocket. “He’s the one who owes money to the Blackstone Cartel.”
“So he’s the gambler.”
“And he’s also the inside man.”
Her gaze shot up to Nolan's. “The inside man?”
Nolan smiled a bit ruefully. “You can at least reassure yourself that you weren’t the only one taken in here.”
“He works for you?”
“No. He got a job at Messina Diamonds about four years ago working in Research and Exploration. However, Carrington does background checks on all Messina employees. We’ll be updating those protocols.”
J.D. had been thoroughly chagrined to admit that he remembered doing the background check on Parsons himself. But four years ago, there’d been nothing there to raise a flag. Now, the guy had more debt than a third world country.
Candace studied Nolan for a minute. “But you don’t think this guy planned it, do you? You think Andrew’s behind everything.”
Nolan watched her with a steady gaze. “I do. From what I learned about Parsons, he’s desperate but not imaginative. I think your brother found his weakness and exploited it. Maybe even encouraged it. He—” But Nolan broke off. Did she really need to hear all of this? What good would it do to destroy the last of her faith in her brother?
“He, what?” she demanded. “I’d rather know it all. Whatever it is, finding out later isn’t going to make hearing it any easier.”
“Parsons wasn’t the only one my contact with the Blackstone Cartel was able to inform me about.”
“Tell me,” she urged, her gaze earnest, her mouth pressed into a thin line of resolve.
“Your brother doesn’t owe them any money, but the Blackstone Cartel are familiar with him. He doesn’t do business with them, but apparently they keep tabs on pretty much all the lowlifes in the area. Frankly, they have better info than my source at the FBI.”
“Lowlifes,” she said with a humorless laugh. “And that includes my brother?”
“So far, it’s mostly low-level con jobs. Nothing that interferes with their business. But he’s been doing this kind of thing for years.”
She wrapped her arms around her waist, looking cold. A storm front was moving in off the coast and the temperature had dropped a few degrees just in the time since their plane had landed. But Nolan doubted that was why she was suddenly trembling.
“So, my brother is a con man.” As if trying to distract herself, she pulled a tumbler from the cabinet and filled it with water from the jug in the fridge. “And you think he was the mastermind of the robbery.”
“I do. This guy, Brett Parsons, is the one who disabled the security system. His fingerprints are all over it. Metaphorically speaking. There was no way he was ever going to walk away from this. He was picked up about four hours ago trying to catch a flight to Cabo.”
“Four hours? So that’s the news you got on the plane?”
Nolan nodded. “It is. He started talking right away. Frankly the FBI are having trouble getting him to stop talking. Since then, they’ve picked up five other guys that Brett has fingered, all of whom were either on their way out of the country or already out waiting to be contacted by your brother. There’s a resort with a reservation in Andrew’s name. Airline tickets put him arriving there later this evening.”
“Then why are we here?” she asked.
“Because he’s not going to Cabo. He’s probably not planning on ever returning. The reservation and the airline ticket are just covers. He got me involved to ensure everyone else would be caught. Ten million dollars split five or six ways is a lot less money than if one person gets all of it.”
He could see in her eyes the quiet struggle not to believe him. She didn’t want to be swayed by his logic. She didn’t want him violating her steadfast trust in her brother. Once again, Nolan fought that ache in his chest. She deserved to have someone in her life that she could trust. That someone should have been him. If only he’d not given up and let her go. If he’d had half the faith in her that she had in her brother, how different might their lives have been?
“So he’s betrayed his friends as well as me? I can’t believe that. My brother is not that guy.”
“Candace, I’m sorry—”
“He wouldn’t do that. Not to me. To Michelle. You can’t imagine the sacrifices I’ve made for him since I found out that he owed money. I begged for money for him. Begged. He wouldn’t have let me do that unless…” Her voice broke. “You don’t know him.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s you who doesn’t know him.”
As if she suddenly couldn’t take it anymore, she turned and ran out of the house, toward the beach and the endless ocean beyond. Away from him.
He watched as she reached the sand and kicked off her shoes to walk barefooted into the tumbling surf. She stood there for a long time, with the waves licking her toes, her arms wrapped around her body as the wind whipped her hair around her face.
His resolve to leave her be, to give her time, to wait for her to come back to him, wavered as he watched her. He waited as long as he could, until the wind picked up and the clouds darkening the horizon turned charcoal-gray.
A storm was coming and she wasn’t prepared for the cold. He grabbed a sweater out of the closet by the door and headed after her.