shuddered thinking about why he was pants down in a dermatologist’s office.
Packard and Sheila were already at the far end of the hall, so I hurried to catch up. Packard opened the door for Sheila, but glowered at me. “You,” he pointed a finger in my face, “stay out.”
Sheila grabbed my hand. “Oh no. She’s coming, too.” She pulled me into his office.
A large picture window looked out over the parking lot. The walls were painted hunter green and covered with framed diplomas and pictures of Packard with various political leaders, including Mayor Briggs and the governor.
Packard retreated behind his desk. Sheila plopped into one of the chairs in front of it and yanked me down into the other.
Photos of Sheila and Jordan, their mysteriously gendered child, sat on the desktop. There was also a picture of Mary Graystone and a man I figured was her current husband, because he wasn’t Axton’s dad. And no pictures of Axton at all.
“What is so important that it couldn’t wait until I got home, Sheila? And what is she doing here?” He stabbed a finger in my direction.
She sat on the edge of her chair, leaning forward. “Two of my credit cards were declined today.”
“Is that all? It was probably a misunderstanding.” He pushed away from his desk and started to rise.
“No, that is not all. They cut them up. And then, I went to the parking lot, the car was being towed. Repossessed, Packard. What the h-e-double-l is going on?”
He sank back into his chair, distracted and pale as all the color drained from his face. “I just needed a little more time. I could have paid them if they gave me a little more time.”
Sheila jabbed a thumb at me. “She saw you the other night. Gambling. You didn’t have a committee meeting, did you?”
He started to bluster, his eyes fixed on me. “You followed me? How dare you? Who do you think you are?”
I glared back at him. “The only one who cares about Axton. And you know exactly why he was kidnapped.”
“Who said he was kidnapped? He’s probably just done a runner.”
“Cut the crap. I know about Sullivan.”
All the bluster went out of him like a deflated balloon. His eyes skittered between me and the door, as if he was thinking about making a run for it.
“Wait,” Sheila turned to me, “who is Sullivan?” She glanced back at Packard. “That’s the guy who called nine times, right?”
“You checked my phone? My God, Sheila—”
“Oh, shut the eff up, Pack, and answer the question.”
Since I wanted to know more about Sullivan, too, I sat back in my seat and crossed my legs. “Yes, Pack, tell her who Sullivan is.”
“He’s a guy I owe money to,” he choked out.
“That’s not the whole story, though, is it?”
“Someone tell me what is going on. Who is this Sullivan? And how much do you owe him?”
“Almost two hundred thousand,” he said. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. One hundred ninety-six thousand to be exact, but I didn’t correct him.
“But why did he take Axton?” I asked.
He lowered his hands and tears welled up in his eyes. “I didn’t know they would kidnap him. I needed Ax to do me a favor. I didn’t know it would go so wrong.”
Finally, I was getting somewhere. “What favor?
“There’s a rumor Sullivan keeps a list of all the people who owe him money. Prominent people. Sometimes he takes favors in lieu of payments. I thought if I had the list, I’d have leverage over Sullivan. So I asked Axton to get me the list.”
“Is that what’s on the hard drive in Axton’s backpack?” I knew it was, but I was playing dumb. Sadly, it wasn’t that much of a stretch.
“Yeah. Axton was supposed to make a copy of Sullivan’s drive, not take the whole thing. Idiot. He ruined a perfectly good plan.”
Sheila looked back and forth between us. “I don’t understand. This is why Axton is missing?”
I glanced at Sheila. “Axton stole a hard drive from Sullivan’s computer so Sullivan kidnapped him to get it back.” I shook my head at Packard. “Ax even called you for help.”
He shrugged. “How was I supposed to help him? If he’d followed my instructions, he’d be fine.”
“You knew I had the hard drive,” I said. “But you broke into my apartment and destroyed everything.”
Packard eyed me like I was crazy. “What are you talking about? I never broke into your apartment.”
Damn. He sounded sincere. I now officially believed in the innocence of all my suspects. But someone sure as shit broke in and spilled my milk. Who did that leave? Manny?
“By the way, was anything on the hard drive?” Packard asked.
“No.” The last thing I needed was Packard getting his hands on that list. I didn’t trust him with even the smallest amount of information. He was a screw-up and he’d gotten Ax kidnapped.
Packard ran a hand through his hair.
There was a knock at the door. We all turned to stare at it. The nurse with the cartoon cats poked her head in. “Doctor Graystone? The patients are getting restless.”
Packard sighed and slumped in his chair, rubbing his forehead. He appeared tired and drawn.
Sheila didn’t look much better. Her skin was ashen and her eyes glimmered with unshed tears. Poor Sheila. This son-of-a-bee just crushed her whole world.
“I’ll get there when I can, Jean.” He held his hand up and gestured, like he was trying to push her out of the office. “Give me a minute, okay?”
She withdrew her head and shut the door.
“Exactly how damaging is this list supposed to be?” I said.
“It gives details about everyone who owes Sullivan money. I was hoping it had the favors people had done for Sullivan, too.”
I knew it didn’t. “Go on.”
“I know for a fact that Charles Beaumont rammed through a development deal for the Crab Apple apartment complex. There’s been debate about that complex for the last year, but all of the sudden Charles has the votes to make it happen. And he was against it in the first place. I can’t prove it, but I think Sullivan owns it.
“And a new construction company nobody’s ever heard of got a contracting bid to renovate the country club. They weren’t the lowest bid, either. I can’t prove the construction company is owned by Sullivan, but I do know that two of the board members who pushed for approval spent a lot of time losing money at Sullivan’s tables.”
I agreed with Packard. Sullivan probably did own that construction company, and he probably was behind the apartment complex approval. But the man was too damn wily to leave an evidence trail.
“So Sullivan just wants the hard drive back?” I asked. “Then he’ll let Axton go?”
“And a quarter of a million dollars,” he said bitterly.
My jaw dropped. “Wait, you said you owed two hundred thousand.”
“Sullivan says I owe more for all the aggravation I’ve caused.”
Yeah, I could see Sullivan saying that. For some reason it almost made me smile.
“Well, I can get the hard drive.”
Sheila finally piped in. “We need to go to the police.” It was as if someone had flipped her “on” switch.
“No.” Packard pointed a finger at his wife. “We are absolutely not going to the police. Don’t even think about it, do you hear me?”
Sheila stared at him defiantly, lifting her chin in the air. “Why not?”
“Shit, Sheila, he has all sorts of people in his pocket. Powerful people. We do not want to piss this guy off.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you lost so much money,” I said. “What else do you know about Sullivan?”
Packard frowned at me. “What the hell does it matter? He’s the kind of guy you don’t want to be indebted
