This was what Brianna was looking for. “What do you mean by ‘off’?” she asked.
Now that they had him going, the contractor temporarily turned his attention away from his current project. He didn’t need to think. Apparently, memories of that job were still very vivid in his mind.
“The guy almost had a heart attack when I suggested tearing down some walls to make room for the extension he was proposing.” JD Laurence snorted. “Said not to touch the walls, just to add on. I didn’t want my company’s name on something that slapdash and told him so. He said that as long as he was paying me, he got to call all the shots.”
“And by he,” Jackson said, “you mean—”
“Aurora,” Laurence answered impatiently, as if the two detectives should have known whom he was referring to.
“George?” Brianna asked. She assumed that it was, but she wanted to be sure.
The contractor shook his head. “No, the other one,” he told them.
“Winston?” Jackson asked. When Laurence shook his head again, Jackson supplied another one of the Aurora brothers. “Miles?”
“No,” Laurence answered, impatience brimming in his voice.
“Are you talking about Evanston?” Brianna asked the contractor.
“No.” This time, Laurence practically shouted the word at them.
Brianna could see that Jackson was annoyed by the contractor’s attitude. Any second, this might go badly, and right now they needed the man’s cooperation. She put a hand on Jackson’s arm, silently restraining him as she asked Laurence, “Then who are you talking about?”
“The kid,” Laurence insisted. “Look, I’ve got to get back to this,” he told them. He was already crossing back to the center of what would eventually turn into the first floor of the house. Currently there were sections of freshly poured concrete waiting for load-bearing beams to be inserted.
“Kid,” Brianna echoed, trying to remember names of the people populating the Auroras’ family tree. “Are you talking about Damien Aurora?”
Laurence turned around again. “Yeah, that’s it. Damien. Like the devil in that old movie,” he recalled. That settled, the contractor got back to work. His body language told them that he felt he’d wasted enough time on them. “You got any other questions, call Jenny. Like I said, she’ll answer them,” he said, tossing the words over his shoulder.
“Thanks for your help,” Brianna called to the man as she and Jackson went back to his car.
Busy, the contractor appeared not to hear them.
Jackson got in behind the steering wheel, and rather than turn the key in the ignition, he sat for a moment, staring out through the windshield at the construction crew moving swiftly about, focused on strategically sinking load-bearing beams in freshly poured concrete.
“What are you thinking?” Brianna asked. She knew that the beams weren’t what had got his attention. She had a feeling that it was probably the exact same thing she was thinking.
Turning to her, Jackson commented, “Looks like we might have another piece on the chessboard we hadn’t considered.”
“Damien.” Up until now, the youngest Aurora family member hadn’t even been thought to be involved in this in any way.
“Damien,” Jackson echoed, almost to himself.
Brianna blew out a breath. This was getting more and more involved. “Let’s go see if anyone at Samuel Brothers has anything to add to this tale of horror.”
Jackson frowned, thinking. “There’s only one thing we’re missing so far.”
In her opinion, there was a lot they were missing, but she gamely asked, “What’s that?”
“Proof.”
Well, there was that, too, she thought. But they were making progress, and she was hopeful about the eventual outcome. “We’ll get it.”
“That’s right,” Jackson recalled, putting the car in Drive. “You’re the optimist.”
Brianna grinned. “I’ll win you over yet,” she told him.
“Don’t hold your breath,” he warned.
* * *
Jacob Samuels and his crew were all at a work site, working at a development that was going up just south of Aurora.
Because there were various contractors on the premises, all putting up different models within the new development, it took a bit of doing before Brianna and Jackson finally located the owner of Samuel Brothers Construction Inc., Jacob Samuels, who looked like he had never met a bottle of beer he didn’t like. Despite having an impressive belly and being in his early fifties, Samuels moved about the construction site like a man half his age.
Showing Samuels their badges and IDs, Brianna told him, “We just need to talk to you for a few minutes, Mr. Samuels.” She and Jackson had to do a lot of moving around to keep up with the man, who didn’t appear willing to slow his pace.
“If I wanted to talk, I would have been a lawyer. I’m busy,” he replied. Moving around them as if they didn’t exist, he made a beeline toward one of his men.
“It’s about the Old Aurora Hotel,” Jackson said to the back of the man’s head.
Like the two other contractors, Samuels stopped moving for a moment when he heard the hotel’s name.
And then he said, “Hotel’s gone. It’s been demolished.”
At least he stayed abreast of the news, Brianna thought. “But you did work on it back in the day,” she said.
Shrugging his shoulders, Samuels tried to sound indifferent. “If you say so. I’ve done a lot of work on a lot of places.”
Jackson had one last salvo and he delivered it. “JD Laurence said that he gave you the referral, turned the job over to you.”
Samuels stiffened. “I did my penance,” he said, turning around to look at them. “What about it?”
“You remember anything about that project?” Jackson asked.
“Like what?” Samuels asked suspiciously.
“Like anything unusual or odd?” Brianna supplied. Holding her breath, she watched his face for any telltale signs.
Samuels shrugged again. But the look of indifference was forced now. “The pool out back was cracked in several places. The kid wanted me to fix it, but he didn’t want us to jackhammer out the old cement. He insisted that my men patch the cracks and pour fresh concrete over
