Page 77 of Dead Drift

Griffin arched a brow. “Obsessed?”

“He needed to be with her every moment. Followed her around like a dog. It was ridiculous. Be a man, I say.”

“And Stacey? I take it she didn’t like all the attention?” Finley said.

“How could she? She was a lovely girl. Smart. Talented. I would have loved having her as a daughter-in-law, but even her influence on Joel wasn’t enough to bring him up to our level.”

“Our?”

“Stacey’s and mine.” Veronica shifted, lifting her teacup she’d ignored until then. “As I said, we were very much alike.”

And one day Joel snapped and decided he didn’t want to be looked down upon or bossed around by an overbearing mother, let alone a girlfriend—one who Griffin bet he’d discovered was cheating on him. Question was, where did he kill her and what had he done with her body?

“Mrs. Hood,” he said, scooching forward.

“Veronica, please.”

He nodded with a smile. “Veronica. Do you know if there was someplace special he liked to take Stacey? A barn, perhaps?”

“The barn?” she laughed. “Why would he ever take her to that old place?”

Griffin looked at Finley, then back to Veronica. “What old place?”

“Our family grounds are extensive, and far out on the property there’s an old barn where we used to keep horses while my husband was alive. I had no desire to keep those animals after Howard passed, so I sold them, much to Joel’s anger, but that boy didn’t know what he really wanted or needed. That stupid barn has stood empty ever since.”

“How long ago did you sell the horses?”

“Close to twenty years. Howard had a heart attack in his early forties. I wasn’t surprised, considering the way he ate and how he never exercised.”

“And the barn is still on your property?”

“Yes. Just because my son put me in here doesn’t mean I sold the estate. You’re welcome to go see it, if you’re in the area. Albert is still managing it all for me, and I’ve left everything to him in my will. At least I can trust he’ll take good care of it, unlike Joel. . . .”

She appeared to consider something for a moment. “No, I doubt Stacey ever stepped foot in that rickety old barn. They spent most of their time down at the boathouse and out on the water on one of our boats. They typically chose the rowboat. Though why, when we have so many other options, I don’t know. I think, in his feeble mind, Joel thought it romantic. Who knows? Perhaps he thought that stupid barn was romantic too.”

A flirtatious smile widened on her wrinkled face. “It did hold nice, soft hay. I imagine to two young people in love . . . or at least Joel was in love. Stacey was too smart for that. She quickly saw Joel wasn’t the man she needed. Wasn’t really a man at all. More a boy trapped in a man’s body.”

Ouch. Mom of the Year. But thanks to her, they’d just discovered Joel’s connection to a barn and to water. Now they just needed to politely excuse themselves and head for the Hood estate. And thanks to Veronica Hood, they’d just been given permission to explore.

32

Go on,” Luke said, anxious to hear the rest of David’s intel. How had he been assigned to Ebeid all these years and never known the entirety of Ebeid’s past when David did? Why hadn’t Malcolm read him in to the intel? Or had Malcolm himself not been read in?

“I’m piecing together years of recon and bits of information that I was able to obtain,” David said. “I’d wager there’s a top-secret file somewhere in the vaults at Langley on all this, but this much I know . . .”

David proceeded to fill them in on Ebeid’s past, his relationship with Caroline Ladew, and the discovery of her role as a CIA agent.

“He tracked Caroline down to where she was living under a new alias in South America. He killed her, but he learned after the fact that they had a son who she gave up for adoption. He started searching, but quietly through a third party, and after years of searching, finally discovered that his son—Matthew—had enlisted in the Marines at a young age and was killed overseas by friendly fire within months of graduating from basic training.

“Ebeid’s rage toward America grew, and it’s rumored he believed the Americans killed Matthew outright and covered it up as ‘friendly fire.’ I have no idea if he was correct, but I’ve heard whispers he vowed revenge for Matthew’s death. So he moved forward with his plan to punish ‘the country of liars and pigs’ via terrorist attack—and he plans to do it on the anniversary of his son’s death.”

“Which is?”

“Two days from now.”

Luke sat back, stunned, trying to process it all and wondering why he was never informed of such pivotal information—and why, if David had known all along, he was just now deciding to share.

David looked at Luke. “I’m sorry, friend. I was ordered to remain silent until we had proof Bedan possessed a working dispersal method. Told it wasn’t pivotal to your mission.”