Page 10 of All of Me

I had no idea what the hell was going on, but I knew I needed to call Rawlings back when Shae wasn’t here. Unless it turned out that the young guy had a heart condition or something similar, then this wasn’t just about Ellie’s house,thishouse. Killing someone in a police cell took a lot of money for bribes and connections. It wouldn’t surprise me if Dad was involved. Sad, but then he was a bastard that had hit his kid. Growing up I’d always thought there was something wrong with me, because my mom treated him like he walked on water. It had taken the army and this job to know things didn’t work like that.

Ryan wasn’t adding up, though. He wanted the house to make some money, sure, but he wasn’t a master criminal. I knew Rawlings would have come to the same conclusion but hadn’t said anything because he’d probably known Shae could hear him. My phone buzzed and I glanced at the screen. It was from Rawlings.

Let me no when you can talk tom am

Yeah, Rawlings knew.

Something else was definitely going on. Dodson had been deliberately silenced, and I wanted to know why.

Chapter Five

Drake

I rolled over in bed and squinted at my phone. It was early, a little after five in the morning, but Rawlings's texts were set to alert even if I had it on silent. I picked the phone up and called him as instructed. “Danny’s come through for us,” he said. “We got a shot of someone jogging up to a parked car a mile away from your house, twenty minutes after the fire. It was parked in a minimart that has cameras. His face is hidden, but the car is registered to a Jethro Dunne.”

“And how do you know he has anything to do with the fire or Dodson?”

“He’s Dodson’s cousin.”

I whistled. “Too much of a coincidence?” I had to ask in case he lived or worked in the area.

“Especially as he lives twenty miles away and works in a gas station a mile from home,” Rawlings added dryly.

“Are you calling the cops?” Rawlings chuckled. “Well, I had to ask,” I justified.

“We just picked him up. Thought you might want to ask him a few questions. Taking him to the shed.”

“I’ll be there,” I confirmed, and hung up. I heard the sound of the kettle whistling and assumed Shae was awake. I shot into the bathroom, then got dressed. I was in the kitchen in moments, just as Shae poured himself a tea. He nodded to the coffee that was on.

“Heard you awake.”

“How’d you sleep?” I asked as I poured some into a travel mug.

Shae just shrugged. “Fine.”

I didn’t think he had, but that was something we had to sort out later. “Rawlings called. I have to take off.”

Shae glanced over at me. “You don’t need me to come?”

I shook my head. “Get yourself settled in. It’s been a crazy-ass couple of days. If you can’t sleep, watch some TV or I have a ton of books.” I pointed to the wall of books over in the living room. “Doubt if I’ll be long, but text me if there's any problems.”

I hated leaving Shae alone, but I didn’t want him seeing this.

I got to the shed, which was actually a garage hidden behind a wooded area. Owned by Diesel but buried by multiple shell companies. No one knew about it except Diesel, Gray, and me. Diesel’s business was 99.9% legit. But sometimes—very occasionally—we needed information to protect someone, and that information wasn’t always procured by asking people nicely. On the way here, they were blindfolded and had to use noise-cancelling headphones because we needed totake precautions to make sure this place couldn’t be found afterwards, and we didn’t kill people unless they tried to kill us or our clients first.

When I walked in, Gray already had our guest tied to a chair. As this was also mostly intimidation, Gray had removed Jethro’s blindfold and let him watch while he carefully rolled out thick plastic sheeting over the floor, taking extra care to ensure the area under the chair was covered. Gray, Diesel, and I also had lightweight ski-masks on, and the type of full-body coveralls crime scene investigators wore.

Jethro Dunne was already crapping his pants and none of us had laid a finger on him. Gray got out the box of toys we kept and made a show of picking out a hammer, a knife, and a saw, and placing them with care on the plastic table at the side of the room.

Jethro made a strangled noise behind his gag, which we all ignored, but then Rawlings walked up to him and jerked his hand forward to remove the gag. Obviously, Jethro was convinced he was going to get the shit beaten out of him and nearly tipped the chair back trying to dodge Rawlings’ hand. Rawlings didn’t say a word, just pulled the gag down, then spoke as if he was reading a script.

“Jethro Dunne, twenty-nine, father, Eric, deceased. Mother, Jean, lives with her sister after her husband got sent down for felony murder during a bank job shootout. The uncle of the teenager killed in the shootout has friends who arranged for Eric to have a fatal accident in the exercise yard. Apparently, heaccidentallyran into a blade no one can find because no one saw it happen.”

“I wasn’t there,” Jethro stammered. “At the bank. I–I wasn’t.”

“The only reason you didn’t meet the same fate as your father,” Rawlings continued, “was because your girlfriend swore you were with her.”

“I was. I swear I was,” Jethro nearly screeched out.

---