Page 36 of The Evening Wolves

“What’s the most likely explanation?” Auggie asked.

“Jace Vermilya either did something stupid,” Theo said, “or was no longer useful.”

North made a noise of disgust.

Emery gestured and said, “Exactly.”

“They didn’t need him anymore?” Tean asked. “But the case won’t go to trial for months.”

“He’s a witness,” Jem said. “His name is all over legal paperwork now. He’s in the system because he’s tied up in this shit with John-Henry. He was a liability, and more importantly, they didn’t need him anymore—they would have known, beforehand, they’d have to cut him loose at some point.”

“Or he asked for more money,” Shaw said. “Or he thought he could score for free. Or he threatened to recant if he didn’t get whatever he wanted.”

“I don’t know,” John-Henry said. “It looked like he got the jump on those guys before that woman, Ingra, took him down.”

Emery shook his head. “That doesn’t mean anything one way or another. He might have suspected they were about to turn on him. They might have been arguing. We have no idea what happened.”

“He did something stupid,” North said, “like Theo said.”

“Shouldn’t we have heard something about him being shot?” Jem asked. “Maybe the police don’t know who he is.”

“Silence doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” John-Henry said. “The police could be withholding information while they try to figure out what happened. They could be watching us right now, waiting for us to make a mistake. Even if Vermilya’s prints aren’t in the system, they could have identified him based on his ID, credit cards in his wallet, that kind of thing.”

North and Shaw traded a long look.

“About that…” North said.

Emery was the first to respond. “You’re shitting me.”

“It’s not as bad as it seems—” Shaw tried.

But Emery cut him off. “Really? Because it seems like you took the personal property of a shooting victim and brought it into my home, creating a direct link between last night’s shooting and my husband, which was the very fucking thing we were trying to avoid!”

The sentence ended in a shout.

“You’re thinking about it the wrong way,” Jem said. “You’re thinking about keeping him safe.”

Emery opened his mouth, but Tean spoke first, “What he means is, you’re worried about John-Henry, and you’re thinking about how you can protect him. But I think Jem’s right. I think that might not be the best way to think about this, not right now. Right now, we need to think about the next step. How do we prove this man, Vermilya, was lying? More importantly, how do we prove it if he dies?”

“It’s more than that,” North said, “If last night was an accident, then whoever’s behind this, they’re going to have to change their plans. They’re going to have to act. We’re sitting ducks if we don’t do anything.”

When John-Henry looked over, Emery’s usual reserve flickered, and for a moment, his face was full of fear. Then it was gone, and he gave a reluctant nod.

John-Henry wanted to dig in his heels. He wanted to fight about it. What about other people, he wanted to ask. What about people who don’t know what we know, people who don’t have friends with these skills, people who get railroaded or framed? How is this fair to them? His father taking the high school coaching staff to lunch. His mother meeting with the principal. A quiet conversation with a judge about a speeding ticket. His face was hot. He wiped his hands on his pants and then didn’t know what to do with them. It wasn’t the same. He knew that. He thought he did, anyway.

“All right,” he said. “What are we supposed to do?”

Emery was the one who answered. “Let’s start by figuring out who Jace Vermilya really is.”

8

They gathered around the table, and North produced a plastic bag. He shook the contents out across the table: a wallet, a set of keys, a watch, a phone, and a cascade of loose paper—to Emery, they looked mostly like receipts, but several larger pieces were mixed in.

Emery handed around disposable gloves. “He had all this on him?”

Shaw shook his head. “We took some of it from the Jeep.”

Auggie was already separating the receipts, and he glanced up and said, “Tean, want to take a look at this with me?”

---