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“These are photos from the mechanical inspection. My guys searched these other planes top to bottom.” He handed me the orderly stack of pictures. “Every single plane in the hangar had the same problems—the fuel lines. Whoever did this wanted to ensure that no matter which bird you took up, it wouldn’t be coming back down in one piece.”
“What?” The word left my lips with all the air that had been left in my lungs.
Gary dropped his eyes to the pictures and I followed his line of sight. My head spun and the activity and noise in the room around me faded as I went through the images. Just as he’d said, each plane showed the same signs of tampering. The full reality hit me like an out of control freight train.
“Oh my God. Anyone could have taken these planes up. This one…” I held up a picture of a Beech 36 “…holds six people! Six lives could have been lost? And all for what?” I stuffed the picture back into the envelope. “Some fucking condos…greedy son of a bitch.”
“Wait,” Gary reached for the envelope to stop me from damaging the photos that were now evidence in a mounting pile. “Condos? What are you talking about?”
Shit.
My mind flickered back to my meeting with Lance Toffer. He hadn’t seen a problem with telling the investigators what I knew, but I had a hard time seeing how I could give them only part of the story. If I brought up O’Keefe’s threats and the contract, they would start asking questions. Questions that would lead to what leverage O’Keefe had over me. And that was where things would get ugly. Especially since Gary struck me as the kind of guy who was like a dog with a bone when it came to his work. He wouldn’t let me talk my way out of it.
“Mr. Rosen? If you have any leads or information about this, you need to tell me. Now.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone was even and commanding.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “The man who did this—or at least, would have a motive to—is Henry O’Keefe.”
Gary’s eyes went wide. “The real estate mogul?”
I nodded. I wasn’t surprised that Gary knew the name. As O’Keefe had been dotting the California coast with his multiple million-dollar projects, his name was circulating through major media outlets in the business world. If Gary primarily worked cases on the West Coast, he’d have heard of him.
“How do you know?” Gary tucked the envelope under his arm.
I glanced around the room. The severity of it all rushed over me again and the walls started to close in. “Can we go to my office?” I asked, turning my attention back to Gary. “Bring in the FBI guy as well. I’ll tell you the full story.”
He considered me for another long moment, seemingly shocked by my sudden cooperative attitude, and then sprang into action. He snapped for the main FBI agent on the case, a man I’d been introduced to earlier in the day, Peter Montgomery.
“Agent Montgomery, Mr. Rosen has some information he wishes to disclose to us,” Gary said once we were inside my office. He waved for me to take my usual place at my desk and he and Agent Montgomery settled onto the couch.
I rolled the chair to close the gap, leaving just a few feet between us. “I don’t have any solid proof, but I think I know who did this. Henry O’Keefe has been blackmailing me into giving him my business. He’s trying to sink my business so that I’m forced to close down and sell him the land in order for him to build a community of million-dollar luxury condos.”
Agent Montgomery leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “That’s quite the accusation, Mr. Rosen. I know of Mr. O’Keefe, by reputation only. While I understand him to be an ambitious, driven man, I find it hard to believe that a man with his high profile would blackmail someone out of their land. At least, not directly.”
I set my jaw. “Here,” I reached into my jacket pocket and tugged out the folded pages of the contract. “This is a contract he’s forcing me to sign. He ambushed me outside my house and told me that if I don’t sign them within three days, he’ll follow through on his threat against me.”
“Which is?” Montgomery asked, taking the pages, his eyebrows raised.
I faltered. “I can’t say…”
“I see…” Gary spoke this time; his tone was skeptical.
I was losing them. I could see their disbelief sinking in. Their expressions were hardening by the second.
“Just read the contract,” I burst out. The frustration that had been boiling all afternoon came surging back up.
The men went quiet as they read through the contract. Agent Montgomery finished first. He brought his gaze level with mine. His mouth set in a firm line. His eyes hollow. “It sounds like a pretty standard business contract. Unless you can tell us what this leverage is that he’s holding over you, I’m not sure we’ll be able to help.”
