Loose Ends (Brandon Hall series Book 4) by Mike Ryan

Author:Mike Ryan [Ryan, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: www.mikeryanbooks.com
Published: 2021-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

12

Hall and Charlotte were going over a list of bars in the city as well as the surrounding area, hoping to hit some of them in an effort to find Alissa Windham.

“You know, something’s been bothering me about what Elise said.”

“What’s that?” Hall asked.

“It’s about her thinking Rathman was familiar somehow.”

“What about it?”

“It didn’t strike me at the time, but now, how would the name be familiar? They’re at least ten years apart. They didn’t go to school at the same time. There’s no way she would know the name from there.”

“OK. Well, we didn’t say that was definitely it. She just said she thought she knew the name. She didn’t say it was from college. We were just kind of speculating.”

“But it’s weird that they all went to Fullerton, isn’t it?”

“It definitely is.”

“That’s gotta mean something.”

“Yeah, but what?”

“Well, who else went to Fullerton?” Charlotte asked.

“Well, his buddy Sean did. Then there’s the partner, Chet. And Rathman’s wife, Christine.”

“That’s a whole lot of Fullerton grads there, isn’t it?”

“Doesn’t prove anything.”

“Doesn’t need to prove anything. Just needs to be strange enough to look into it.”

“Well, it is that.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Charlotte said. “Well, maybe a theory.”

“What is it?”

“We’ve been kind of assuming that whoever’s blackmailing Rathman just happened to wander in to one of these parties or whatever, right?”

“Well, it’s an option.”

“What if the person behind it is someone he’s close to?”

“Such as?”

“His buddy Sean. I mean, the guy did his friend no favors in this whole thing with how he hired people.”

“Makes him stupid,” Hall said. “Doesn’t make him guilty.”

“Doesn’t make him innocent either.”

“So what are you saying, Sean set his friend up so he could blackmail him? Why?”

“Money. Arnie’s a million-dollar business owner with multiple houses, a pretty wife, lots of money, what’s Sean got? I guarantee he’s not making anywhere near what his friend is.”

Hall leaned back in his chair and brought his fingers to his lips as he thought about it. “That would mean he deliberately set all this up, and he’s not as clueless as he appears.”

Charlotte nodded. “That’s a theory.”

“We would need to tie him to Alissa somehow.”

“Well, she was at the party, wasn’t she? So was Sean.”

“But we can’t prove that they ever saw each other before that.”

“They went to the same school.”

“As you rightly pointed out… ten years apart. That’s not a connection yet. Just a similarity.”

“Somebody set him up,” Charlotte said. “Not that I’m excusing his behavior, because you know my history with that, but someone knew Arnie had a lot of money to pay up. They knew his situation, knew his wife was going to be away, and knew that anyone could go into one of those parties and seduce him. So it has to be someone close to him. It’s not someone who knows his name or something like that. Whoever’s behind this knows his schedule well enough to know when his wife would be gone.”

“And if that’s the case, it would probably point to one of two people.”

Charlotte nodded.

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