Page 16 of Luck of the Devil
“Yeah.” I rubbed my temple, trying to ease the pain in my head.
“Ask him to meet you at the tavern.”
“So you can eavesdrop?” I asked sarcastically.
He snorted. “No, so I can make sure you don’t get murdered.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, wondering why I was being snotty when he was obviously trying to help me.
But he took it in stride, twisting his hand on the steering wheel. “Don’t go gettin’ the wrong idea. This is purely for business reasons. I need you to dig up shit for my own investigation.”
“Of course.” But I couldn’t keep a tiny grin from lifting the corners of my mouth. I knew he didn’t want me dead—and also that it was for more than business reasons. I had no delusions that the man was interested in me sexually—he’d made it pretty clear he wasn’t—but I considered him a friend. You couldn’t go through the crap we’d gone through together unless there was a tiny smidgeon of friendship there.
When we got to the tavern, we walked through the back door and headed straight to his office. I was now familiar with the dark wood paneling, the mahogany desk, and the comfy leather sofa. Maybe too familiar given our respective backgrounds, but there was no putting this partnership back in the proverbial bottle.
Malcolm got me set up on his laptop, because we both knew I wouldn’t be snooping through any secret files. The week before, he’d told me there wasn’t anything incriminating on there.
He studied me for a moment. “If you get hungry, come out front and Misti’ll feed you. Better yet, ask your dad to meet you for dinner so you can get food and answers.”
“Yeah,” I said, sinking into the leather sofa. “I’ll call him in a minute.”
He nodded, then stood in the doorway for several seconds. “For what it’s worth, I truly am sorry about your mother, but we’re gonna make it right.”
I watched him turn around and disappear around the corner, wondering how you made someone’s murder right. Sure, we could find who had done this to her, but it wouldn’t make it right. It wouldn’t bring her back. She’d still be dead, lying in the Jackson Creek cemetery.
And yeah, I’d been through this with my sister. Andi had been kidnapped and murdered, which had been its own special hell, but they’d found her killer within days. There had been a trail, and we knew we’d saved the lives of her murderer’s other potential victims.
But this felt different. Messier. I wasn’t sure it would give me closure, not if she’d been killed because of my father’s secrets. And what if it turned out that he’d been directly responsible for her death? What would I do then?
But I was jumping ahead before I had enough facts. Or really any evidence. I didn’t know that my father was involved, directly or indirectly, so there was no use letting my mind go there. Not yet. I needed to be objective and stick to the facts.
I had a new sympathy for families of murdered loved ones. Somehow, they always seemed to find a way to blame themselves, even if they went through convoluted hoops to get there. Of course, they wanted justice, but that wasn’t the only thing they usually wanted. Many seemed desperate for information, any information at all, about their loved one’s final moments. Even if the details were excruciatingly painful.
I was experiencing all of those things right now. Feeling guilt at the thought that I might be in some way responsible. Wanting the person who hurt my mother to face justice. But right now my thoughts were filled with what her last moments must have been like. Had she panicked when she’d realized her car was going into the river? Had she tried to get out? The detective who’d investigated the crash had told me she was still wearing her seatbelt. Had that been true? And if she was wearing it, had she tried to unbuckle it? Had she been too confused or her adrenaline so high that she couldn’t? Or, if she really had blunt force trauma to the back of her head as Malcolm suggested, had she been unconscious or too disoriented to save herself?
Had she been filled with terror as she drew that first breath of water into her lungs?
Had she thought of me?
What a stupid thought. My mother wouldn’t have spent her last moments thinking of me. She never would have spent her last moments thinking about the daughter she wished had been kidnapped and murdered instead of the other.
I drew in a deep breath and stood, shaking out my hands. My skin felt like it had a million bugs crawling over it, but I ignored the little voice in the back of my head that said my symptoms were about to get a lot worse. That I’d been drinking more than I realized.
That I truly was a drunk.
At least my mother wasn’t alive to find out her daughter had one more fault to add to her lengthy list. I could only imagine her horror if people found out I was an alcoholic.
I shook myself out of my reverie. This was getting me nowhere. It was time to start getting answers.
It was time to call my father.
Chapter 6
I grabbed my phone and texted him.
Sorry I just took off this afternoon. I couldn’t deal with all those people
To my surprise, he answered within seconds.
