Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [6]
Instead she put her hands on her knees and fought to regain some semblance of control over her emotions. To try and forget the pain in her father’s eyes. To try and forget the pain twisting in her heart.
The truck belonged to the arson investigator, Pete Jackson. He got out, looked at Claire with a frown. “You okay, Ms. O’Brien?”
She faked a half smile as she stretched. “Fine. The sooty air just got to me.”
“I told you not to go in until I got here.”
“Sorry. Why don’t you walk me through it?”
“You must already have your own conclusion.”
“I need you to prove it.”
“Lucky for you I already have the proof your company needs. Found the hot spot and identified the accelerant. The burn pattern indicates not only arson, but an amateur.”
“Too cheap to fork over for a professional,” Claire muttered.
As she followed Pete Jackson into the warehouse, she glanced over her shoulder, looking for her father. Tom O’Brien was nowhere to be seen.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t around.
The Feds had made it perfectly clear to Claire that she needed to report any contact from her father, or be considered an accomplice. They’d threatened her—jail time, loss of her private investigator’s license, her concealed-carry weapons permit. Her dad said that the Feds were still watching her. Agent Donovan had come around a couple times, but it was routine. She’d answered his questions and told him to get lost each visit. She didn’t think they had someone on her 24/7 after the first two weeks since the quake, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe she’d been so preoccupied with trying to forget about her father, she’d missed the obvious.
Remembering the look on her father’s face gave her pause. And his words had sounded . . . truthful. But he’d had fifteen years to perfect his act. How could she believe him now when she hadn’t believed him then?
But what if he was telling the truth?
For fifteen years she believed, she knew, that he was guilty. After the trial she learned to block everything out to prevent the nightmares from creeping in. If it hadn’t been for Detective Bill Kamanski and his son Dave, a young street cop who had been her dad’s friend, she would have probably turned to drugs or worse. They taught her to be strong, to accept what had happened and move on. She’d almost changed her name to forget who her father was. But in the end, she’d realized that if she changed everything about herself, she’d be living a lie. So she remained Claire Elizabeth O’Brien, accepting the truth, at the same time forcing that horrific day and the trial from her memory. Most of the time it worked.
Seeing her dad again after so long, especially with the panic in his face and voice, made her question everything she believed. Stop that. She knew her father was guilty. There could be no other explanation. Her mother was having an affair and her father snapped. It happened all the time throughout the world.
But would it hurt to find Oliver Maddox? Talk to him? Learn what he knew? Maybe the kid had proof of her father’s guilt, and that’s why he hadn’t shown up. If that was the case, Claire would call the Feds and set up a meeting to put her father back in prison.
At least then she could tell her father he had nothing to hold on to. Maybe she could get him to turn himself in. She didn’t want him to die, gunned down by an overzealous cop.
Who was she kidding? His execution date was six weeks away. If not for the earthquake, his days would have been numbered anyway. Why had he foolishly returned to Sacramento when he’d managed to stay under the radar successfully for the last four months? He should have kept on hiding. He was obviously good at it.
Still. Oliver Maddox had told her father he knew something about her mother’s lover Chase Taverton. Taverton had been a Sacramento County prosecutor who, from what Claire remembered from the trial, was successful, charismatic, and well liked. Still, prosecutors acquired enemies—criminals they put in prison, victims who didn’t get the justice they deserved. Or maybe it was personal.
Her heart