“When you’re mad at your brothers, can you control your temper around them?”
“What a stupid question.”
Emmy stared at the flashing red light.
“Allison gets hysterical. There’s no controlling her. I told youwe got into it at the motel. I gave her some time to cool down, then I drove over here. We made up. Had sex. Then I asked her if I could take her camera to pawn it, and she told me I could, so I left.”
He hadn’t yet realized that his lies didn’t work on someone who wasn’t afraid of him. “Tell me about Michael Allan Cooper.”
Bill was clearly thrown. “So what? Allison got us fake driver’s licenses. It was a joke.”
“I don’t get the punchline.”
“You had to be there.”
“I don’t have to behere.” Emmy knocked on the window for Julian.
“Wait,” Bill said. “Listen, we were going away together. Making a fresh start.”
Emmy waved Julian away again. She wasn’t sure if Bill had been included in Allison’s plans, but the more he kept talking, the more likely it was he’d make a mistake. “Keep going.”
“I borrowed some money from some people I shouldn’t have gotten messed up with. The payout from Allison’s lawsuit against Clayville bought me some time, but then they started threatening Mandy. I told Allison that we would leave town. Start over somewhere else. I was trying to protect my family. I love Mandy. I loved my wife. I would never put them in harm’s way.”
Emmy didn’t know which lie to start with first. “Bill, I know about Shane Russell.”
He looked away.
“I know he’s Mandy’s father. I know Allison set Russell up to go to prison because that was the only way she could keep him out of Mandy’s life. I know Russell served as a juror on the Evelyn Gilchrist trial back in 2002. I know about Allison tipping off the FBI. I know Reggie and the drug squad are dirty. And I know you’re a piece of shit.”
He wiped his mouth with his hand. “It was Allison’s idea.”
“I bet it was.”
“No, listen. What I said is true. I was desperate. I got ahead of myself, bit off more than I could chew. My family wouldn’thelp me anymore. These men—they’re bad men. They were going to hurt me. And then Allison told me that Russell was going to get out of prison, and she was worried that he would try to contact Mandy. I know you don’t want to believe this, but we were a family. We loved each other. All of us. And for whatever the reasons were, we both had to get away, and we wanted to do it as a family.”
That rhymed more with the truth. “Bill, you need to keep talking, because so far, you haven’t told me a damn thing I don’t already know.”
Bill gave her a wary look. He wasn’t sure whether to believe her, either. “Allison went to the FBI. She thought she could get witness protection for all of us. New identities. New lives.”
“She said my father was on a Giglio list.”
“No, she said Gerald andReggiewere on the list.” Bill wiped his mouth again. “Look, Jonah got busted buying fentanyl off a street dealer.”
Emmy couldn’t let herself think about how stupid Jonah was right now. “Keep going.”
“Gerald asked Reggie to make the arrest go away. Reggie got rid of the drugs before they could be sent to the lab. Allison asked him what happened and Reggie told her everything. She didn’t want to turn Gerald in to the feds, but she was desperate for a fresh start. Your dad was about to retire. Everybody knew you were going to take over. Gerald could’ve testified against Reggie, and that would’ve been that.”
Emmy stared at the red light on the mirror. She was so damn grateful that Special Agent Reid Foley had already told her the truth about Reggie’s lies. “Did Allison really believe my father was a dirty cop, Bill? Or was that what Reggie told her?”
Bill’s eyes shifted toward Emmy. “Eventually, she figured out he was lying, but it didn’t matter anyway. Your father was dead by the time the FBI got off their asses and looked into it. They said no deal.”
“What did Allison do?”
“She worked her ass off to find the assholes more names, and the FBI still told her no deal. She was pissed off at first, then she was scared. Russell was already out of prison by then. Allisonknew he’d eventually start sniffing around Mandy. Meanwhile, my debt kept adding up. I just couldn’t catch a break. I kept losing.”
Emmy could hear the anger in his voice, as if he was a victim of his gambling habit and not a perpetrator of the suffering inside his family.
She asked, “What did Allison do with the files she put together on Reggie and the drug squad?”
