Treacherous Secrets novel Chapter 42

"You didn't ever party with him?" Harold asked.

"I tried it once, and I hated it. It made me feel crazed and uninhibited. I didn't like the feeling at all."

Janice saw the look of distaste on Emily's face and knew she was telling the truth. She looked around the room again. "There's not a file cabinet in here."

"No, I think Kenton kept everything on a computer file. He used that LandShark service regularly to get rid of paperwork," Emily said.

Harold went through each one of the drawers of the desk. He only found a few receipts for restaurants. There were several flash drives with labels on them. The labels were dated and coded. He found a few files in bottom drawer. He took all of them out and leafed through them. They seemed to be land contracts, maybe the ones he was working on in eastern Tennessee. There were some contracts with individual people. There was a drawer with the typical office supplies: pens, pencils, stapler, etc., but other than that, there wasn't much in the drawers he'd been in. He had one more drawer, and that was the big drawer on the bottom left side of the desk. When he pulled on it, he found it locked. "Damn," he muttered. "Locked."

Harold took out his pocket knife and worked on prying the drawer open. It finally popped open, causing him to slice his finger. "Damn it!"

Emily rushed over. "Are you okay?"

Harold sucked on his finger. "Yeah, it just hurt like a bitch." He looked down at her. "Sorry about the language."

She laughed, "Don't even worry about it. I would have said worse if I'd done the same thing."

"Oh, my," Janice said as she rounded the desk and looked in the drawer. There were bags of pills, more vials of powder and a gun.

"Oh my God!" Emily said, looking into the drawer.

"It's not quite enough to be dealing, but it looks like he had quite a habit," Janice said, picking up one of the bags of pills. She looked at Harold. "Ecstasy?"

"Looks like it to me," he said with a nod.

"Oh, and looky here," Janice said with a shake of her head. "We got some Roofies." She held up a bag of small green-gray pills.

"Roofies?" Emily said, with a questioning look.

"Rohypnol, date rape drugs," Janice explained.

Emily put both hands to her mouth. "Oh my God! I think he's used those on me before. Don't they make you forget what happened?"

"Yep," Harold said. He didn't look up and was still fishing around in the drawer. "Humph," he said looking up at Janice. He stood up and showed her what looked like a credit card.

Janice took the card from him. "Looks like an RFID card for a gated community." She turned to Emily. "Do you guys own any property in a gated community?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Emily said looking up from the pile of drugs that the detectives had put on Kenton's desk. "But apparently I'm not aware of a lot of things Kenton had going on."

"Hey, Gorgeous," Damon said cheerfully into the phone.

Carol pulled back and looked at the number again. Yep, it was Damon's number. It sounded like Damon's voice, but then it didn't sound like him. She said, "Are you sure you have the right number?"

He laughed, "Yes, I'm sure. Hey, I'm going to be home later. I know things have been really weird. Awful really, but I want us to talk, really talk about what's going on."

Carol looked at the phone again and then said, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," he said. "I've finally gotten my head really clear for the first time in what seems like forever."

"Okay," Carol said hesitantly.

"I know this sounds weird and is kind of out of the blue. But, when I get home I'll explain everything."

"Everything?" Carol asked skeptically."Yes, everything, I promise."

He sounded so sincere and she wanted him to be sincere. Despite all that had happened between them, she did love him. "Okay, about what time are you going to be here? Do you want me to have the cook fix dinner?"

"It's going to be late. You have dinner without me, but let's get out one of the really good bottles of wine I got from that winery in east Tennessee last year."