Page 28 of Long Gone

He sat in his chair and leaned back, lifting the glass to his lips. “Something like that.”

“So why are you sharing it with me in private?” I asked, genuinely curious.

A wicked light filled his eyes. “Maybe I’m just being nice.”

I gave him a pointed look. “Doubtful.”

He laughed, then took a slow sip of his drink. When he lowered the glass, he said, “Let’s say I’m going to share what I know because I’m curious to see if you can solve this.”

That also seemed unlikely, but I decided not to call him on it. “So tell me what you know.”

“Hugo Burton was in some deep-ass debt. He’d maxed out with his creditors, and he was looking for suckers to give him money for his dumbass projects.”

“When you say dumbass projects…?”

“Don’t play stupid with me,” he scoffed. “You had to know he was balls deep in his Sunny Point project and the Japanese car parts plant. If you didn’t know, then you don’t have any business investigating shit.”

“I know about them,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “I guess I’m surprised you do. He disappeared back when you were living in Fenton County.”

“I like to know what’s going on where I live.” He gave me a cheesy grin. “I’m civic-minded like that.”

I gave him a dubious look. “You’ve never struck me as a man who lives for his community, Malcolm, so tell me why you really know about Burton.”

“You don’t need to know that part, and I don’t need to tell you shit. So if you can’t just take what I know and accept it without asking a ton of questions, you might as well head out to your car and back to your mommy’s garage.”

I hadn’t told him I lived in my parents’ garage apartment, but I wasn’t surprised he knew. It should have freaked me out, but instead it made me trust his intel.

“I can live with that,” I said, but I didn’t add the for now. I didn’t believe for one minute that he was doing this to help me. He wanted something out of it. I was just patient enough to bide my time to figure out what it was. “You don’t think the residential neighborhood was going to work.”

“It probably could have…if the right person had run the project.”

“And Hugo Burton wasn’t the right person?”

“Hugo Burton had his head up his fucking ass. He couldn’t develop a doll house, let alone a multi-million-dollar neighborhood.”

“Then how did he get people to invest in it?”

“Because he was a fantastic salesman.” He took a sip of his whiskey. “Or so I’m told. Plus he’d developed some successful baby projects in the past, but they didn’t come close to the scope of Sunny Point. He floundered.”

He’d known Hugo Burton. Or at least knew in-depth information about him. That was interesting.

“So he conned people out of money?”

“No, he was stupid enough to believe his own bullshit.”

“Where does Brett Colter come into play?”

“Why ask about him?” he asked with a coy look.

“His wife brought him up. She said her husband was part of the Colter Group, and that they had some big project go through after Burton left that made millions. I guess she didn’t get any of it. Colter said Hugo had owed him what he would have gotten from the deal and more.”

He stroked his chin. “Interesting.”

Did he really know not know this or was he bullshitting me? I was guessing the latter. “Clarice Burton also said the Colter Group disbanded after Hugo went missing. What do you know about that?”

“Nothing worse than trying to get a bunch of rich assholes to play nice together. I’m sure the egos sucked the air out of the rooms they were in.”

“Are you suggesting it didn’t have anything to do with Hugo Burton?”

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