I felt the same way. This could’ve been what we were looking for to find Lord and piece all of this shit together.
“Well, when I was thinking about it, I did a search for the house online. Dirk Kirkwood did an interview for a magazine that was doing a story on old houses that’d stayed in the family since they were built. It was a great piece, and some of the houses were just gor—” she stopped, looking embarrassed at how enthusiastically she’d been talking about it.
“Sorry, I just liked the history attached to some of them. Anyway, the magazine published the article every week for three months and dedicated each edition to the house for that week. Dirk Kirkwood got nine pages for his house, and in it, he provided plans for each floor, with the measurements of each room on them.”
“Holy shit,” DB breathed, sitting back in his chair with a thud.
Not realizing what she was handing us, Naomi continued, “They’re all very impressive, and he said he had a professional measure them for accuracy. So, if we were to compare the original plans with the ones from the magazine—”
“We might find a hiding spot,” Carter finished, standing up and holding out his hand to her. “Let’s go and get the original records.”
Standing up, I followed behind them to the door. “I’ll print out the article and blow up the floor plans so we can compare them.”
“See if there’s any paperwork filed on the house while you’re there,” DB ordered to them, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll speak to Ramsey about the possibility of a warrant.”
“Can we trust him?” Garrett asked, sounding dubious at the prospect. “We don’t know who’s involved in it.”
Looking back at him over his shoulder, DB said seriously, “Judge Ramsey hates the Kirkwoods and Ingleston as much as we do. There’s a lot of bad blood there, and the way that Ingleston’s managed to get certain cases and been lenient on them, as well as the fact he’s a corrupt bastard, Ramsey’ll sign that warrant faster than you can say bless you.”
I was just out of the door when he added, “And if you say bless you just for shits and giggles, I swear I’ll tip that coffee over your head.”
“How are you finding the job?” I asked Mark Montgomery as we printed out the floor plans from the magazine.
Leaning on one of the desks, he focused on the window that overlooked the main street through the town.
“It’s okay. Busy, but okay,” he mumbled, his focus entirely on what was happening outside. “Hey, do you ever feel like the town’s been run by the people and not the Mayor for years? I mean, if it weren’t for a lot of what the community has achieved and worked hard for, nothing would have been updated or done around the place.”
Tilting my head to the side, I studied the guy. He wasn’t much younger than I was, but he’d veered off his initial career path to join us, so he was still learning about shit that went on behind the scenes in Piersville. It was a bit like seeing an iceberg in the ocean, then diving under it and seeing the dark algae and different shapes of it. Basically, it was a stark contrast to what it appeared to be from head to toe. A bit like who Mark was now, in comparison to the kid who’d—rightfully—punched me.
“The mayor has been a corrupt stain on the town for years, as has Judge Ingleston, and I agree that the people have been the power behind the good changes to the town. Why?”
“Dad told me last night Lord Kirkwood approached him about designing the houses for the new developments. He wanted to undercut the competition and offered him money to do it, with the assurance that planning permission would be granted regardless so there wouldn’t be any losses. When the houses were finished, they’d split the profits to make up for the shortfall in the money he was paid for the designs plus a bonus for helping them out.”
“So, he was to come in cheap with the designs, they’d get passed, and once they were built and sold, they’d pay him the remainder of what the designs were worth and a bonus?”
Turning slowly, he nodded at me. “And he said there was a one hundred percent guarantee that his designs would get approved.”
“That’s not illegal that I’m aware of,” I said slowly, “but there’s an alarm bell going off over what it means.”
“It means Lord already had the contract for the builds even before all of the bids were received and processed. Daddy’s been giving him them for years.”
“Are they all up to code?”
Smiling at me, he got up and walked over to his desk, then picked up a folder and waved it at me. “Seems he has the same inspection officers do a majority of the work for him. On the occasions where they couldn’t get those officers, their inspections failed.”
“Does that have the inspections for the new builds we’re looking at as a hiding place for Jordy?”
“It does. All of them failed the first inspection, so some token adjustments were done, and their favored inspectors passed them on the next inspection. One of them failed because the basement wasn’t done correctly, which would compromise the integrity of the structure of the house itself.”
“Damn,” I breathed. “Did that house pass the follow-up inspection?”
Shaking his head, he reached into the file and pulled out a piece of paper. “Funny thing that, apparently they said that they were going to allocate extra time to secure it all properly, so the inspectors didn’t look at it. It’s currently listed as a no-entry zone to most of the workers unless they’ve specifically been given the job for it.”
Grabbing up the printouts from the printer, I moved quickly to where he was
