Page 89 of Last Shot

‘Huh.’ He didn’t have it in him to make any sort of coherent sound.

The drive back to Bindi Bindi passed uneventfully. Max continued to watch Tom’s boring-as-all-shit videos about wine tasting, footage of Frankie at climate rallies, and Nella’s advertisements for her pro bono work. Grey replayed the footage of Liquor Paradise in his mind – the hooded figure bent over the bottle of sangue. The bottle he was certain Poppy Raven bought on that fateful night. The video didn’t show them injecting the rat bait, though, and their face had been too grainy to make out just on Grey’s phone. He’d have to see if Jett could enhance it.

‘Libby knows about the wine,’ Max said as though she could see his thoughts playing out on the windscreen in front of them.

‘Because of “Skinner is a rat”?’

‘Yeah. Has to mean she knew someone had put rat bait in it, right?’

‘And ... how does that make you feel?’

‘Is this your attempt at being human? It needs a bit of work. Don’t use your jaw so much.’

He was starting to realise her deflections were like pieces of snow he had to brush aside so he could see clearly.

‘I believe she told us the truth about wanting Skinner to pay,’ Max continued. ‘But does she also want him to go down for the wine poisoning? That just seems overly complicated. And where do the La Marcas and the bombing come into it?’

Grey rubbed his jaw. ‘What I don’t like is that she kept saying the man who killed Rocky was going to get what he deserved tonight.’

‘Skinner?’

‘That’s what she was insinuating.’

‘But what about the TV? That Barbarani boy killed—’

‘No.’

‘What do you mean:No?’

‘Neither Tom nor Luca could have had anything to do with that. They didn’t know Rocky Johnston.’

Did he look down too fast? Could she hear his heart?

‘You know that people still call Giovanni “Emilio’s boy”?’ Max said.

That Barbarani boy.

Was it more plausible than Luca or Tom? Of course, but why would Giovanni Barbarani give half a shit about an amateur drug-dealing kid only loosely connected to his mortal enemy?

‘Who did you blame for your parents’ deaths?’ Grey asked.

‘I—’

‘Everyone? Right?’

She swallowed.

‘Remember what I told you at the La Marca Winery. When one of the families bleeds, the other will be holding the knife. Skinner’s drug syndicate was exposed while he was still under the La Marcas’ employment. In Libby’s eyes, that means the Barbaranis won that match.’

‘The Barbaranis tipped off the cops about Skinner?’

‘I doubt it,’ Grey said, ‘but Rocky died while Libby was in jail – unable to protect him because Skinner put her in there. Some part of her would blame the Barbaranis too, because Skinner and the La Marcas lost.’

‘But it’s so specific:thatBarbarani boy—’

‘You’re probably right,’ he said. ‘She was probably talking about Giovanni. He’s the head of the family, he represents them all.’

He could feel her not agreeing, like the heat from a toaster slowly charring away on the inside.

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