Chapter 14: Judd's POV

Judd's POV

She did not wait for my answer.

Leah walked out through forty people in pastel, and Clover met her on the terrace steps and took her arm.

I let them go.

If I had followed her, I would have answered a question like that in front of a room, and she deserved better.

At one o'clock I was in Savannah, in a steel-sided office behind a loading yard, and the man across the desk was smiling.

He was the contractor's right hand. He had a gold tooth and a lawyer's phone number in his shirt pocket.

I had come alone and left the captain in the truck.

"Colonel," he said. "To what do I owe it?"

"I've never raised my voice in this building," I said. "I'm not going to start."

He laughed.

I put the envelope on his desk.

It was the one from the shooter's windshield, in a clear evidence bag, with half the cash still inside.

"First. Your man in the ditch says you paid him with this, and the serial numbers run in order with your payroll withdrawal on the ninth."

His smile held.

"Second. Your company's base passes expired at noon. I signed that order myself."

The smile slipped.

"Third. There are two federal agents in your loading yard, and they've been looking at your trucks for an hour."

I stood up.

"You sent a man to put a knife to a nurse's throat. I'm only telling you what happens next because I want you to hear it from me."

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