Free Death in Her Eyes (A Mac Everett Mystery Book 1) by Nick Vellis

back in Iraq, but I can’t help you. I don’t owe you anything, we’re even,” he grunted.
    “I know that Stan. I screwed up and put you in a bad spot. It was…it was a bad time for me.”
    We’d been close in Iraq, but my record at the Sheriff’s Office caused him a lot of crap. I decided to ignore the past and move on with life. I thanked him and said good-bye.
    My call to Stan bothered me on a couple levels. I’d hoped the passing of time would have left us space to be friends again. That wasn’t the case. There was also something in Stan’s silence. I wondered if he had doubts about the case.
    I’d done a ton of research on the Hunt family for the blackmail investigation. I decided to see if I could find anything new. There were dozens of articles in the news about the murder and Cary Hunt’s arrest. None of them had any hard information. The Sheriff’s Office had done a good job keeping a lid on a high profile case. I’d have to ask Ward Barber for a copy of the case file.
    Cary Hunt graduated third in his class from the areas elite prep school Lake Windacre Preparatory School. He went to Harvard where he graduated with a Bachelors and MBA in five years. His claim to fame, other than being a Hunt, was he had predicted the end of the real estate bubble and the credit crisis. Real estate prices peaked in 2006 and Cary had all of his clients out of those investments ahead of the recession. He made a bundle for his clients. The family history of ‘being ruined’ in the 1925 Florida real estate collapse cemented his place as an investment legend. I made a note to ask Ashton about that.
    Cary married Stephanie Norse three years ago after a brief, but well-publicized courtship. She was from a well-heeled Chicago family. There wasn’t anything unusual about Stephanie Norse Hunt other than the fact that she was drop dead gorgeous and married to a handsome young money machine. She’d been valedictorian at the Anacola School on Chicago’s Near North Side. She went to Mount Holyoke where she graduated cum laude with a double major in psychology and accounting then she got an MBA from Columbia.
    I hadn’t done a search on Ashton the first time around, so I checked her out. Cary Hunt’s twin Ashton was no slouch. She also went to the exclusive Lake Windacre Prep. She graduated from Bryn Mawr and went on to Colombia for law school. I wondered if she’d met Stephanie Norse there. Ashton was a senior associate with the New York law firm of Leopold & Leopold specializing in employment law according to the firm’s website.
    I printed a couple articles about each of the three people and started a file. I made a list of the pertinent facts about each person and stapled it to the articles about that person. I stapled a picture of the person to the appropriate dossier too.
    I rubbed my neck and saw I’d been at it for three hours. It was time for a break. I decided my recovery could handle just one beer and headed to the fridge about the time my office phone rang. I sprinted back to my desk and was surprised to find it was Stan.
    “Mac,” he said. “I couldn’t talk earlier. There are too many ears around the office. I’d like to come by and talk. Are you still livin’ over that dive on Church Street? We can meet there.”
    Stan’s offer surprised me. I hadn’t seen him since I left the Sheriff’s Office and we hadn’t talked much for probably a six months before that.
    “It’s not a dive,” I said. “It’s just not high class like the places you go. Why don’t we go to that wing place on 436 you like? What’s it called, Marty’s? I’ll buy… wings and beer on me.” I figured it couldn’t hurt to spring for the food.
    “Sorry buddy, it’s better I not be seen with you. You still have a bad rep around the cop shop,” he said. “I’m leaving the office now. I can be at your place around 6:30. Is that OK?”
    “Great. See you then,” I said. I was hopeful we could patch things up. I knew it was