Page 52 of Luck of the Devil
I glanced over at him. “Do you recognize them?
He shook his head. “No, but as soon as we’re done, we’re sending these to Hale to see what he can find.”
I gave a short nod as I turned back to the phone, but I didn’t start the next video. I needed a moment to let this sink in. Two men had broken into my mother’s house, remained in the house after she came home, and very likely confronted her, and she’d never breathed a word of it. Had she called the police? I reached for my laptop and connected it to the hotspot on my phone.
“What are you lookin’ for?” he asked.
“To see if she called the police.”
“It wasn’t on her phone records,” he said.
He was right, but I looked anyway and came up with nothing.
“Why wouldn’t she call the police?” I asked as I closed the laptop lid.
“Maybe she was scared,” he said. “What if they made some kind of threat?”
“They were obviously looking for something,” I said. “And when she came home while they were still there, they must have decided to be more direct.”
“Give them what they were looking for or something bad would happen,” Malcolm said.
“I guess you’d know,” I said, my irritation rising out of nowhere.
He was silent for a second, then calmly said, “You’re referring to my previous life?”
“What else?” I snapped. “Or are you still threatening people now?”
“I don’t think you really want me to answer that,” he said, his voice calm—but not the scary calm he exuded when he was being threatening. “You’re lookin’ for someone to blame, and I happen to be the closet target.”
He had a point. He hadn’t threatened my mother or had her killed. He was on my side, but he was sitting beside me. A convenient scapegoat.
“Sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t sure why. He’d undoubtedly employed the same tactics on other people in the past.
“We’re gonna find out who did this,” he said, his usual hardness gone. “The lot of ’em were sloppy when they showed up at your mother’s house. We have three faces to look up. We’re gonna find them, Harper.”
I nodded, trying to breath normally despite the fact it felt like a vise was wrapped around my chest.
“Do you need a minute before we watch the next video?”
I was about to say no, but I kept thinking about how scared my mother had been over the last month. She knew I was a former detective but hadn’t told me about any of it. Why?
Malcolm waited patiently until I took a breath and reached for my phone with shaking fingers.
He pulled his flask out of the side pocket of his door and handed it to me.
I wasn’t sure if my shaking was from withdrawal or my nerves, but I took it, struggling to remove the cap. He gently took it back from me and unscrewed it before handing it back.
“Just a sip,” he said. “You’re gonna be tempted to take more to ease the pain you’re feelin’, but drag that stubborn bitch out and show it who’s boss.”
I laughed despite myself, then took a tiny sip. He was right. I wanted to drink the rest of the contents, then drive to a liquor store and get more. But I was a stubborn bitch, and I wasn’t giving in. Not now that I’d allowed myself to acknowledge the problem.
He took back the flask and screwed the cap back on.
“Are you sure you weren’t an alcoholic?” I asked with a scoff. “You seem to know a lot about it.”
“My brother was a drunk for a while,” he said, surprising me with his willingness to share something personal.
“I’m sorry.”
