Page 94 of Wells

"Then why are you still obsessing about it?"

I slide into the booth opposite him.

"The staging moved through our lanes. A vendor slot opened during a window when no one was watching. The payments behind it thread toward the offshore money I couldn't crack from above. Someone inside buried a murder inside ordinary operations."

Vin doesn't move. His gaze stays level.

"You traced all that?"

"Enough of it."

He nods, slow and deliberate.

"What else?"

"I went to Florida. Found Dane Carter."

Vin's expression doesn't change, but something flickers behind his eyes.

"Dane's still breathing?"

"I can't say what happened after I left, but it was about a week or so ago."

"What did he tell you?"

I measure my next words. This is Vin. He's family in everything but blood. He stood beside my father for thirty years and held this company together after he died, supporting Ridge as he stepped in.

"He said Duvall paid him and Ronnie to stand outside and call a burner if anything went sideways. And he said neither he nor Ronnie ever called you in that night, that you showed up on your own.

Vin reaches for his glass, takes a sip, and sets it down with a soft clink against the table.

"I don't know who called me, but someone called me there that night."

I don't answer right away, wondering if it was Duvall. Or maybe even Juno. I make a note to run every burner from that night to where the money behind it sleeps, not just who dialed who.

"My statement's been on file for over a year, Wells. A discrepancy got flagged on the Gulf shipment that night, manifests that didn't line up, so I drove over to check it myself. Twenty minutes, in and out. I found nothing, and I was gone long before your father ever turned up."

''Who would it have been if not Dane or Ronnie? What made you think it was him?"

"Maybe Dane's lying to save his own ass, I don't know. Dispatch flagged it, or Ronnie did, I don't remember which, and it doesn't matter. You want to hang your father's murder on a drunk's recollection of who dialed a phone two years back? Why are you asking? I don't understand what this has to do with anything."

"It matters because I want to know everything about what led up to my father being executed. Surely you want that too, right?"

"We already know, Wells. Son, you've got to understand there are some things we will never know. The big one, we do. Duvall wanted your father dead to serve his own needs. Now he's dead, too."

I don't answer. Vin watches me, his gaze sharp but not defensive.

Every answer he gives, most things I already know, arrives a half beat before I finish the question. Every discrepancy gets wrapped in context I can't argue with because I wasn't there and Vin was.

He leans back again, his hands folding on the table.

"Wells, the offshore trail ate a year of your life. You traced every shell company, every trust, every dead end, and you came up empty. You really want to let it consume you again?"

The weight I've been carrying since Florida shifts. The pressure eases slightly because he's right.

“No, I don’t. You’re right. That was an especially dark year.”

"Then let me work the inside-access question. Quietly. No one knows those operations the way I do. If someone buried something, I'll find it. Can you trust me to do that?"