with marrying a nice young man and filling a sweet suburban home with babies. Reuben knew Rebecca would love her children just as fiercely as he loved her. Maybe he should have showed her better what was in his heart.
The chance to meet those grandchildren, the chance to tell Rebecca the things he should have told her long ago, gave Reuben the strength to kick to the surface one last time. He hoisted himself up over the edge of the boat and rolled onto the deck. Sapped of strength, he crawled to the nearest opening and tumbled between the rotting floorboards, crashing down to the lower deck.
Shaking his vision clear, he staggered to his feet. The grandeur of what had once been a row of staterooms was lost on him. He saw only two-by-fours and steel joists and a rickety ladder descending into the pit of the engine room. Hearing footsteps running along the dock, he slid down into the bowels of the ship. Reuben slipped the disk from his pocket and hid the envelope inside the first cubbyhole he could find. Then, limping to the nearest exit, he pulled a marker from his pocket and scribbled a crude code of symbols on his hand in a shorthand that only Rebecca would understand.
“Mightier than the sword,” he rasped. He hoped. He prayed.
Reuben was lightheaded and weak when muscular arms pulled him back to the Commodore’s deck and propped him up against the bulkhead.
“Well, if it isn’t the legendary Reuben Page. You wouldn’t be planning another exposé now, would you? Where’s the disk Dani gave you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The voice laughed without amusement. “I’m afraid the truth is going to die with you, Mr. Page.”
Reuben blinked the face and suit into focus and stood as tall as his battered body would let him. “The truth never dies.”
“It does tonight.”
Chapter One
“W.I.” Rebecca Page read the acronym out loud. “That has to be Wolfe International.”
She gently turned the tattered page and read the names and information enclosed there.
TW,Sr/TW,Jr/DK/AC
Don’t worry. Will dec. gibberish at earl.con. unless you get it done first.
DB dead. Removed plant. Kid clean.
Execution confirms suspicions. KCPD will need different kind of proof, however.
Pursue lead to bus locker. DB promised disk. Should name names. Someone on Econ Dev Comm in it up to his eyeballs. Influence certain. Too much money floating around KC. It’s here at the docks. My nose can smell a rat—and he’s a big one. They’re watching me, so I know I’m onto something.
Stay away from this one, kiddo. Just play bookkeeper for me.
Will copy you as soon as able. See you at Mizzou.
XXOO,
Dad
“Love you, too.” Rebecca turned to the back of the small notebook and looked at the boxes and letters she’d copied herself. It was the last cryptic message her father had left for her. DBD->COM.
As always, the answer toyed with her thoughts but escaped her.
She tenderly closed the notebook and lifted it to her nose, inhaling deeply. If she closed her eyes and imagined hard enough, she could still detect her father’s familiar scent on the soft, well-worn leather. She could hear his throaty laugh and feel his arms wrapping her up in a warm hug.
But she was long past sitting on the sidelines and playing bookkeeper. Rebecca wasn’t a woman given to fanciful notions, nor did she waste her time when there was a story to pursue. She had big footsteps to fill as a reporter for the Kansas City Journal. This wasn’t just about living up to her father’s reputation and making a name for herself in her chosen career. This was about living up to her father’s love. This was about proving his faith in her hadn’t been misplaced.
Her artificially long lashes tickled her cheeks as she opened her eyes and steeled herself for the task at hand. The only thing that warmed her tonight was the muggy summer heat. The only scents were the faint, seaweedy smell of the Missouri River and her own spicier perfume. The only laughter she heard belonged to a few of the lucky customers outside the Riverboat Casino complex, waiting for a cab or valet service. The players who’d been less fortunate filled the night air with damning curses and desperate ramblings.
Rebecca watched them all from the front seat of her cherry-red Mustang. Was he the one? Was she?
Who were the big guns with money-laundering and murder on their minds? And who were the innocent bystanders, unaware of the big money, big influence and big cover-up hidden beneath the Riverboat Casino’s polished-steel facade and glitzy excitement? They’d all come to the shiny steamship that had once been the rusted wreck of the Commodore riverboat. Renovation and expansion could only mask the Commodore’s secrets. A new name and facelift didn’t change the fact that her father’s life had ended here.
And where the trail of clues he’d left for her ended, her investigation would begin. If she could unlock the details of that last exposé her father had been working on, she just might be able to piece together the rest of the puzzle and find out who’d murdered him. Which was a hell of a lot more than those pathetic all-talk, no-action bozos at KCPD had been able to do over the past three years. They’d relegated Reuben Page’s murder to their unsolved cold-case files.
Rebecca had no intention of giving up on her father.
His memory was all she had left.
With her nerve firmly set into place, Rebecca locked the precious notebook inside the glove compartment and inhaled a deep, fortifying breath. Squeezing the university class ring that hung from a white-gold chain around her neck, she whispered, “This one’s for you, Dad.”
She bussed the man-sized ring with a quick kiss and tucked it inside the décolletage of her little black dress. Once out of the car, she paused for a moment to adjust the swingy hemline that stopped several inches above her knees. Any day of the week she preferred the practicality of jeans and khakis over a dress and three-inch heels. But what was the point of standing five-foot-ten if a girl couldn’t show off a little leg when the occasion called for it?
Tonight’s game plan definitely called for it.
As did the free fall of curly brunette hair that tickled the bare skin between her shoulder blades. Rebecca paused to open her tiny purse and pull out her compact, ostensibly to check the subtle pout of her ruby-tinted lips. In reality, she was verifying that the miniature recorder she carried would be ready at the push of a button should she need it. Tonight was more about identifying the players she’d been researching rather than finding any meaningful facts. If she could ingratiate herself into the casino crowd, get the layout of the place and the faces memorized, then she’d be in position to start digging beneath the surface. Deck by deck. Suspect by suspect. Clue by clue.
The Journal hadn’t sanctioned this assignment. Her editor had no idea of the personal nature of this investigation. He probably wouldn’t have granted
