Melinda’s eyebrows rose. “That’s promising. Although that red Lexus still seems awfully coincidental.”
“Who else?” Kane asked. “What about the head of sales?”
“Eric Ross.” Leila’s ex. A man who’d broken her heart years ago, but had called her every night for the past three weeks to make sure she was okay after her father’s death. “Also possible. He’s got access to everything, and his job takes him out of the office a lot. It probably wouldn’t raise eyebrows if he took samples with him, saying they were for sales calls demos. Maybe he used that as a way to get bigger quantities out. He was really close to Neal Petrov, so they could have definitely been partners.”
“Even though the most obvious answer initially looked like Neal’s daughter was working with him, Leila seemed genuinely shocked in that interview,” Melinda said. “A year ago, she was the one who initiated the shutdown of the gun side of their business to focus on the armor. No way she’d do that if she was making tons of money from guns off-book.”
“Leila’s not involved.” The words came out of his mouth before he could pull them back, but Davis knew they were true.
Kane lifted an eyebrow, but all he said was, “Have you considered that her dad put her in charge because she’d never suspect him of wrongdoing? That she’d be easier to fool? Seems like it backfired when she shut down the gun part of the business, but he still had a tidy fall girl.”
Melinda frowned. “That’s pretty heartless.”
“Yeah, well, have you read the guy’s file?” Kane shoved a manila folder across the table, and Davis snagged it.
“What is this?” Most of the FBI’s files were computerized, unless they were so old they hadn’t been transitioned over. But this looked like a PD file.
“Police file on Neal Petrov’s mugging is in there somewhere. I just skimmed that. But there’s also a really old file from a welfare check. A neighbor called it in twenty years ago, saying a ten-year-old girl—Leila—had been on her own for a week. Police checked it out, and even though the girl claimed everything was fine and her dad had just run out, the state of the house said otherwise. They were going to call Children’s Services, but the girl’s uncle showed up and smoothed things over.”
“Neal’s wife had just died,” Davis said, his shoulders slumping as he read the details of a dirty, hungry Leila, alone and trying hard to be brave when police had arrived.
Knowing things had turned out okay and feeling like he was spying on a part of her life she hadn’t given him permission to see, Davis turned to the report on the mugging.
It was brief, but this report had ended much worse. Davis started to close the file when a small detail caught his eye. He swore, sitting up straighter, and read it again.
“What is it?” Kane asked.
“I don’t think this was a random mugging.” Davis looked at Kane, then Melinda. “I think Neal Petrov was murdered.”
Chapter Six
“Neal Petrov was murdered?” Kane asked. “That’s not what the report said.”
“The official story is that someone tried to mug Neal, he went for his gun and the mugger shot him. But they never caught the mugger,” Davis said.
“So what?” Kane demanded. “He was in an area that had seen a rash of muggings. It was inevitable that it would get violent eventually. If he was trying to pull a gun, probably the mugger panicked and shot first.”
“Neal Petrov holstered his gun at the small of his back.” Davis skimmed the report once more to be sure he hadn’t missed something, then swore under his breath. He was right. “According to this report, his right arm was positioned under his back, like he was reaching for the gun when he fell.”
“All consistent with a mugging gone wrong,” Kane said, but he was leaning forward now, his tone suggesting he was waiting for something inconsistent.
“Neal Petrov had no damage to that arm. No broken fingers from landing on them. No scraped-up arms when he hit the pavement. It’s as if—”
“His arm was positioned that way after he fell,” Melinda finished, looking pensive.
“Exactly.”
“Well, this case just took an interesting turn,” Kane said, settling back into his chair.
It was interesting. Because if it wasn’t a random mugging and the scene had been staged, that suggested someone Neal knew. It seemed likely the murderer was connected to the faulty armor coming out of Petrov Armor. That potentially put a completely different spin on what was happening at Petrov Armor and who was involved.
But all Davis could think about was the sadness in Leila’s voice when she’d talked about losing her mom, the grief in her eyes when her employees had talked about missing her dad. He didn’t want her to face more hurt. He definitely didn’t want to have to tell her that someone she knew might have murdered her dad.
“So, who might have wanted Neal Petrov dead?” Melinda asked.
Davis forced himself to focus, but he couldn’t quite get Leila’s sad eyes out of his head as he replied, “Potentially a lot of people if he was involved in illegal gun sales and defective body armor sales.”
“Or even if he wasn’t, and he found out what was happening at his company,” Kane added. “Though I’m betting he was part of this, probably the instigator. My guess is that he was making a lot of money off the illegal gun sales, letting him retire at sixty. With a partner inside, that person still had the necessary access. So did Neal, since he was still at the office all the time as a consultant and member of the board. This way, Neal could focus on the illegal side of the business. I bet he put his
