Page 18 of Assassin's Prey
“Right.” My father hadn’t known his brother would betray him.
“But…Amos Agozi died before the three of you, so your father’s lawyer took Amos’s place as executor.”
I hadn’t gone looking for a fortune when I killed Amos eleven years ago, only revenge. My brothers and I didn’t need the money, so I hadn’t even considered finding out what happened to it.
Bryant passed over the paper in his hand. “Oddly enough, the trust your father set up reverts to your full control when you turn thirty.”
“What?”
I scanned the document, the legalese skimming off my brain. All I could focus on was that word,thirty, near the bottom. My next birthday. And it was coming up, less than a month from now.
Thirty.
The implications buzzed in my head like a thousand angry bees. “Fuck.”
“Exactly.”
The puzzle pieces fell into place, a grim picture that made my stomach roll. “You think this wasn’t about Abby.”
Abby tensed beside me. Guilt began a slow crawl over my body.
“Unfortunately,” Bryant was saying, “I think last night has very little to do with Ms. Roslyn other than proximity.”
Proximity. Bile rose in the back of my throat.
“Though it’s too early to be certain, I can find no credible threat to her. Nothing has churned up on her father’s case, no concerning discoveries or enemies coming to light.”
“But if whoever this was saw us arrive, knew I was there…” And Remi. Kill two birds with one stone.
And then there was the attack on the street, the one Bryant didn’t know about. Remi had been with Abby then. With a ball cap over his dark blond hair, he could easily have been mistaken for me.
The meeting hadn’t been a setup for Abby. It had been a setupfor me. But how had they linked us together?
I took a deep, shaky breath, desperate to keep the contents of my stomach where they were.Abby lost her house because of me.I couldn’t look at her, couldn’t stand to face the devastation, the accusation that might be in her eyes.
“I’ve only been able to make cursory inquiries so far.” Bryant picked his pen back up. “But one thing did give me pause. Do you know who your father’s lawyer was?”
I’d been eleven years old the last time I heard that information; I hadn’t cared. “No.”
“Alan Chadwick. Of Manassas, Chadwick, and Heinz.”
I jolted in my seat.
“Heinz?” Abby asked. “Lance Heinz?”
“Yeah.” Bryant tilted his head. “You know him?”
I squeezed Abby’s hand, willing her not to say anything more. Bryant would find out soon enough, maybe, but we needed time to put more pieces together, do our own investigation before evidence started disappearing into police custody.
“My father was a politician,” she said, her tone even. “I know—and have entertained—just about every lawyer in town.”
“Well you won’t be entertaining Heinz anymore,” Bryant said. “He’s dead.”
Abby’s surprise looked believable even to me. My woman had spent years acting happy under her father’s thumb; she knew how to project just the right emotion. But I could read beneath her mask just as well as she could mine, see the pain lurking there. She was hurting.
I needed to get her out of here.Ineeded to get out of here.
“So what’s your theory, Detective?”
