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For several moments she stared at the dash, conscious of him looking at her. She could feel his silent plea to trust him, talk to him, open up. But she kept stopping short.
“Is there anything else about my family you don’t like?” she asked, starting where they’d left off last night, more or less.
Harper blew out a breath and turned toward the wheel. She thought he might start driving to dodge the question, but he didn’t.
“There’s something about your uncle… I don’t know how to put it into words. He’s so polite, but it’s like an act. I just have a very bad feeling about him. It’s nothing he’s said or done exactly, just a hunch. Today was a massive fucking red flag, I’d say.” He shifted in his seat, brimming with restless energy and anger. “I wanted to punch him. I wanted to punch his fucking lights out. But I didn’t, and now I wish I had.”
“That wouldn’t have been a good idea,” she muttered, thinking about the gun.
His words soothed her. A little. But it was enough.
If she was going to trust anyone, why not him?
Robin took a calming breath then said the one thing she wanted to shout. “I think Uncle Daar killed my mother.”
“What?” Harper’s head whipped around and he stared at her.
She kept her gaze on the dash and nodded. “When I was ten she died. No, she was murdered. Dad doesn’t like to hear that, so we politely say she died. But she was killed, and they never figured it out.”
“Does your dad think his brother killed his wife?” Harper asked.
Robin snorted. “I think Dad would have put Uncle Daar up to it.”
“What?”
She pulled one leg up under her and turned to take in his reaction. Harper stared at her with wide, surprised eyes. He hadn’t seen this coming. They put on such a good show they’d fooled him.
“I didn’t blame my uncle in the beginning. It wasn’t until a few years later I began to suspect it was Uncle Daar, but I never had a way to prove it. It’s just things he says, stuff I overheard when I was younger, coincidences, things Dad or Saaina say…”
Harper opened and closed his mouth. She didn’t need his prompting to continue now that she’d started.
“In college, I told my best friend everything. We’d stayed in, shared a bottle of wine, and I just told her. The thing about Jessica is that… She’s like a petite, blonde Wonder Woman. She believes in truth and justice and everything good. She kept my secret, but she’s also pushed me to find answers. Not that a pair of college girls can do much of anything. But, she’s now a lawyer and I have unlimited access to our family’s finances and three decades of files.”
Harper’s eyes were wide now. “You’re investigating your uncle?”
She nodded. “Yup. I will admit that I have asked you questions, wondering if maybe Uncle Daar or Dad said something around you. I’m sorry. I never really thought about if that was putting you in danger or not, and I think it did. I really think I did.”
“Did your uncle figure it out? What happened this morning?”
Robin swallowed. Nothing in her wanted to go over that. “Jessica? She gave me a device. I was in my uncle’s room copying his cell phone. When he found me, I’d finished and was just flipping through his wallet because it was there and I was curious.”
“You copied his cell phone?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the weird part.” She licked her lips. “He has an American driver’s license and a gun.”
“What?”
She nodded. “Yeah, crazy, right? Did he get the gun before or after yesterday? Is he worried someone’s coming after him? Or does he always have a gun with him?”
“He had a license? I thought…”
“Uncle Daar is not an American citizen. Dad is.”
Harper blinked at her a time or two. “Do you remember the name on the license?”
Robin shook her head. “It was an Idaho license. I spent more time thinking about that than the name.”
“Close your eyes. Try to remember it?”
