Page 91 of Master of Lies

I crouched, peering under the couch. There it was. I slid my hand under, nudging out Jed’s smartphone. I entered his code, which he’d given to me when we bought the phones, just as I had given him mine. The phone was already open to our chat, and a message glowed on the dialog box, still unsent.

gas love u sorry run run ru

Gas. He’d been overcome by gas before he could even send it.

Terror slammed into me. Grief. I could see so clearly now, how much I loved him. How beautiful and gallant and brave and fine he was. All that wonderful, shining excellence of a man, wasted. For spite and meanness and greed.

I was so angry. A different person, now. One who could do desperate, cruel things. One who was capable of shocking, ruthless behavior. One who could kill.

I pocketed Jed’s phone as I stood, and took a few steps toward Rachelle, who was still hunched over her husband’s body.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she sobbed out. “This is all wrong!”

Wrong?Hell of an understatement, from a woman weeping over her husband’s bleeding body.

My mind took all the pieces, spun them around, looking for the pattern.

Gas, Jed said in his message. Which meant this house, which was supposed to be the secret hideaway, had been carefully prepped. And the Grifos were pussycats. Not hard for Boer to manage. Gas was a tool to neutralize someone deadly dangerous.

Someone like Jed.

“What a strange thing to say,” I commented. “What do you know about what happened here, Rachelle? Talk to me.”

Rachelle shook her head wildly back and forth. “No!” she gasped out. “No! It wasn’t supposed to happen like this!”

Well, duh. Of course, it wasn’t. Men weren’t supposed to be gunned down in their own home. But her word choice implied that something else was supposed to happen, but had not. Some expectation had not been met.

That lying, traitorous, stupid bitch. I knew there was a reason I disliked her.

“You told Boer we were coming, didn’t you?” I said.

She cringed back defensively. “You don’t know anything about it!”

“I know a selfish fuckwit when I see one,” I told her. “You lost your nerve, didn’t you? You thought you’d be safer if you cut a deal with him yourself. You just wanted to save your own miserable skin.”

“They weren’t supposed to kill Joe!” she shrilled. “That wasn’t the deal!”

“No, just Jed and me, right? But you sold out your own husband!”

“No!” she cried out. “I didn’t! I wouldn’t! They weren’t supposed to hurt Joe!”

“And you thought this sonofabitch would keep his word? Wow, Rachelle. So you’re stupid, as well as despicable.”

Rachelle backed away unsteadily. “Don’t you dare judge me! I have kids! Someone had to put the girls first! Someone had to dosomething!”

I gestured at Grifo’s body. “Well, congratulations. You definitely did something.”

“Don’t judge me! You don’t have kids, you bitch! You don’t know how it is!”

I was overcome with the futility of it. I shouldn’t waste my time scolding her. It was stupid and sad to have a screaming catfight with this wretched woman over her husband’s cadaver. I needed to get away from her. Before I ended up punching her.

But not before getting everything I could get out of her.

“How did you communicate with Boer?” I demanded.

Rachelle backed away. “Get away from me! You’re the reason Joe is dead! You and that…that awful thug!”

I had yet another moment of sharply wishing I’d taken the gun Jed had offered me while I looked frantically around for a prop to make me scary enough to bully her. Fate was kind, for once. There was a big firepit in the middle of the room, and a stand, equipped with pokers and tongs. Heavy, black rust-treated wrought-iron pokers, with a sharp little spike at the end.

---