Page 44 of One of Us Is Guilty

Two security guards came into his father’s office, slid their arms underneath Boris’s and lifted him out of the chair, sobbing, and carried him from the office.

‘Why did you do that?’ asked Patrick.

‘He was getting too comfortable,’ said Julian. ‘I’m godfather to his kid. I was best man at his second wedding. He was my number two in this business for a long time. But you know what? I don’t trust him. There’s no one you can trust in this world other than your family. Do you hear?Nobody.’

‘Did he betray you?’

‘I never gave him the chance. You can let people in, but only so far and for so long. Sometimes, you’ve got to let them know who you are. He’s shit on my heel, son, and I just scraped it clean.’

Right then, Patrick felt very sorry for Boris. He swayed on his heels, and his tummy began to do that weird thing. He had never seen an adult cry before, and it made him feel frightened.

‘Don’t you feel sorry for him, son. Not even one little bit. Empathy is the enemy. Empathy is weakness. You watch and learn from your old man. Some day you could be president. I could make you a great man.’

If that was what it took to be a great man, Patrick knew then, as he knew now, he didn’t want to be one. It was his father who had betrayed Boris. And he had enjoyed it.

His father had always been there for him, not with love and support, but with money and power. All Patrick’s problems had been solved that way, his drinking, his drug habit, hundreds of thousands on rehab, but not one kind word.

Just pain. Pain and betrayal. That was who his father really was.

Patrick didn’t want to be this great man any more.

His hand reached for his right shoulder, and began tracing the scar there through his shirt. It felt hot and itchy.

He followed Vanessa and stood at the bottom of the stairs as she raced up them.

‘Vanessa,’ he called.

She ignored him, and continued upstairs.

‘Stop!’ he yelled. ‘You and I need to talk.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you. My lawyers said I shouldn’t.’

‘We have to talk. I have things I have to say. Whether you believe it or not, I don’t know. I loved her, Vanessa. And part of me still loves you. There’s something I have to tell you . . .’

18

Bloch

The truth doesn’t come easy.

Detective work is a laborious, detail-driven process of elimination. For a private detective, it’s slightly different. You come into a situation where an investigation has already been conducted. The stones have been overturned, or at least most of them. The job then becomes examining what was beneath those stones afresh, without bias, without a suspect in mind, without prejudice. And then you look at the little rocks. The ones the police didn’t bother to kick over. What story lies under there.

In the end, and in the beginning, it all comes down to hard work and good eyes.

Bloch ended the call on her cell phone, stared across the table of the diner at Gabriel Lake. There was a hint of gray in his stubble, and at his temples. He was still in his late thirties. The bags under his eyes, the gray hair and the wrinkles on his face weren’t from age. They had worked together for long enough now. Her partner didn’t sleep much, didn’t really eat a lot, didn’t work out and hadn’t unpacked the boxes in his apartment since he’d moved in a year ago.

His fingers tapped lightly on the table as he stared at the remnants of the poached eggs on his plate. This was a guy whose motorrevved high all the time, the needle constantly hovering over the red line. His mind never rested, not fully. Judging by the time of night she had received texts from him, she knew he didn’t sleep much either. He had spent his life hunting monsters. Real monsters. Serial killers, mostly.

You can’t run on red for long. Sooner or later, something was going to blow.

And Lake did blow, from time to time. Usually when he found his prey. For a former FBI agent, he had a casual disregard for the system. It was his pushback against this system that almost got him killed. Someone in the bureau had set him up, making sure he walked into a kill house full of armed men – drug dealers protecting their product.

Lake had been carried out by the paramedics on a stretcher. The dealers came out in body bags.

This had scarred him, both on the outside and the inside. In his soul.

Now, when Lake found a monster, he didn’t hesitate.