I sit across from him, leaning forward before I can second-guess myself. “Phillip. The club showed up at his house yesterday. What aren’t you telling me?”
His expression hardens slightly, his posture shifting as he leans back. “He owes money. I told you that. Why are you pushing this?”
“Because he killed her,” I say, the words quieter now but no less certain. “And I need to know everything. Anything you’ve seen, anything you’ve heard. I don’t care how small it is.”
He watches me for a long moment, then exhales, the tension in his shoulders easing just enough. “Alright. But this doesn’t leave this table. You understand?”
“I do.”
“Butch threatened to bring in the Feds,” he says finally. “If Phillip doesn’t pay up.”
The words land hard. “The insurance company is already investigating him,” I say, more to myself than to him. “If that happens…”
Maverick shrugs. “That’s all I know.”
I hesitate, then push further. “Were you there yesterday?”
He shakes his head. “No. Butch knows about you. Didn’t want to complicate things.”
A chill moves through me. “Would they actually involve the Feds?”
“I’ve never seen it,” he admits. “Not for something like this.”
I nod slowly, then force the next question past my lips. “Bennett says they handle things themselves. Vigilante-style.”
Maverick doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t have to.
The look in his eyes is enough.
Fear threads through me, sharp and immediate. “Mav,” I say quietly, holding his gaze. “Am I in danger?”
He hesitates, just long enough to confirm what I already know.
And in that silence, everything shifts.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Later that evening, Bennett sits across from me at the dining table, his glazed salmon barely touched, his fingers worrying the edge of his napkin in a way that tells me he’s been rehearsing whatever he’s about to say. I know that look. It’s the one he gets when he’s trying to decide how to hand me something unpleasant without provoking the exact reaction he’s afraid of. The sight of it makes my stomach tighten before he even opens his mouth.
“McCullough,” he says finally, his voice level but careful, “the police called earlier.”
The words send a current of nerves through me so fast I feel it in my chest first, then in my throat. I set down my fork, suddenly no longer hungry. “About the jar?” I ask. “The pearls?”
He nods, then folds his hands together on the table, as if physically containing himself will somehow help contain me. “They ran forensics. The blood is real, but they don’t think it’s Whitney’s. They also checked what security footage they could pull, but it was too dark to identify anyone.”
For one brief, shameful second, relief flashes through me,quick and bright. Then it’s gone, replaced immediately by confusion, by anger, by the deeper dread of what that answer actually means.
“Then whose blood is it?”
He gives a small, frustrated shrug, the kind that says he already knows I won’t like what comes next. “They don’t know. And honestly, they don’t seem that alarmed. They think it might be some kind of prank. Teenagers, maybe.”
I stare at him, certain for a moment that I must have misheard him.
“A prank,” I repeat slowly. “They think a noose in the yard and a jar of bloody pearls hanging from a tree is a prank?”
Bennett lifts his hands, palms out, in a gesture meant to calm me before I’ve even begun. “I know how it sounds. I’m just telling you what they said. There’s no direct evidence linking it to Whitney, and no footage clear enough to identify anyone. They think it could be someone trying to scare you. Maybe someone who’s been following the story in the news, someone who knows enough to get under your skin.”
