Page 54 of Target Acquired
“So you can tell her you think Mom was murdered?” Logan scoffed and Cole wished he could disappear—or at least walk away. Kenzie looked like she felt the same. But she wouldn’t. She’d be going after every single detail from this point on.
She cleared her throat. “Dad, it’s too late to keep this just between us now. Can you please explain without the attitude and snark?”
For a moment the man looked offended, then he sighed and swiped a hand down his face. “Fine.” He eyed his son. “But don’t you go blabbing this to your brothers.”
A muscle pulsed in Logan’s jaw. “I won’t. Now please explain yourself.” He swept a hand toward the walls. “And this.”
Mr. King stayed silent, as though trying to organize his thoughts, then he shoved his jaw out and clasped his hands. “I’ve tried for years to figure this out on my own, but I’m limited. Not just my mobility, but with contacts. Almost no one in the department will talk to me even after all these years. Some have retired and moved on. Even more don’t know who I am.” He barked a hard laugh. “Or they’ve heard the rumors and don’t know what to do when they find themselves on the other end of the line.”
“Dad . . . ,” Kenzie whispered.
“Just be quiet and let me tell it. No questions until I’m done.”
“Can we at least go into the den?” Logan asked.
“No. I need the board, the timeline.” He waved a hand.
“Should I leave you guys alone, Mr. King?” Cole asked.
Mr. King eyed him. “No. And call me Ben. You and Logan are tight. He’d just tell you anyway. Might as well save you both some time. As I was saying, I’d almost decided to give up on trying to figure it out—if there was anything to figure out—but I . . .”
“But what?” Logan asked.
He shook his head. “But it keeps nagging at me.” He huffed a humorless laugh. “Actually haunting might be a better word. There is something I’m missing. Something besides . . .” He trailed off. “I’m not going to say I wasn’t drinking that night. I had one glass of wine with dinner. But they said my blood alcohol level tested at .10.”
From the siblings’ expressions, they hadn’t known this. The legal limit was .08 and grounds for arrest.
“You were drunk?” Logan ground out, his hands curled into fists. “Mom died because you drove drunk?”
“No!” Ben slammed a hand on the arm of his chair and took a moment to pull himself together. “No,” he said in a more civil tone. “But no one was going to believe that. Then or now. I swear I only had one glass of wine. I had just been promoted to chief of police six months earlier. I wasn’t about to do anything stupid like drink and drive.”
“How did the media not leak that information out?” Logan asked.
“I had a buddy in the force who managed to keep it quiet.”
“Which buddy?” Kenzie asked.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not there anymore.” His jaw worked. “I agreed to take an early retirement and keep my pension, and he buried the information. It was ruled an accident, and I was allowed to bury my wife and try to keep my family from falling apart.”
“Keep your family fr—” Kenzie snapped her lips shut at Logan’s glare.
“At first I refused,” her father said. “I knew I hadn’t been drinking enough to warrant that blood alcohol number. It had to be some kind of malfunction of the test or whatever.” He rubbed his chin. “Unfortunately, I had no way to prove it, and I wasn’t about to take my chances in court to try and do so.”
Kenzie walked to the desk chair and sank into it, her face two shades lighter and her eyes locked on her father. “I don’t know what to say. Or think.”
“Think about this,” Logan snapped. “If it was murder, who’s responsible?”
That had been Cole’s first question. He was glad Logan had finally gotten around to asking it.
“I don’t know,” Ben said with a slight shrug.
Kenzie was still staring at the man, her eyes narrowed now. “That was twenty years ago, Dad,” Kenzie said. “Why are you bringing this up now?”
He sighed. “Because it’s time.”
“No,” she said. “There’s something else. What is it?”
Ben tilted his head. “What do you mean?”