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The last word came out on a long moan. The fight went out of her, and Ellie slowly released her grip on Nia’s hair.
Michael from behind her, and Joey, outside, were both utterly silent.
Ellie processed what Nia had revealed. She asked, jaw set, “Which one of your brothers killed him?”
Nia’s mouth quivered. For a moment, Ellie thought she was actually going to give them up, but instead she cried, “You’re trying to make me say things, you bitch! I’m not talking to you.” She whirled around. “Goddamnit, Michael. I’m sick of this!”
“Whad I do?” he asked.
“Nothing!” With that, Nia ran out the door.
Joey looked like he was going to try to stop her, but she kicked at him as she pounded down the wooden porch steps and beat feet to an ages-old green Chevy parked on the street outside.
“Fuck, Ellie, what have you done?” Michael demanded, joining her on the porch, where they watched Nia fire up her car and burn around the corner.
“Saved your ass, like always.”
“Damn you, Michael.” Joey suddenly leapt up the steps toward his brother.
“Stop it. Both of you. You need to both get over her.”
“But she’s—” Michael began.
Ellie glared at him, and he cut himself off. After a beat of silence, she said, “She’s a Crassley, and they’re grifters, con artists, and all-around miserable human beings. You know it as well as I do.”
“That’s really harsh,” Joey said.
“You heard what she said about Bailey.”
“But Bailey harassed her,” Michael said.
“Be careful,” she warned. “Gale Crassley attacked her in an alley.”
They both clammed up. Joey shuffled after Michael back inside and asked him, “You going to work today?”
“Nah, I quit.”
They both worked at fast-food restaurants.
“Wanna play video games?” Joey asked him.
“Mother of God,” Ellie muttered, leaving them and heading back to her car. Crisis averted for the moment, unless the girl was really pregnant. Maybe she was. If so, they would all end up back in another scene.
But it had made her forget her own problems for a moment.
Now Nia’s words circled her brain as she drove back toward town: He didn’t want to be with her. It was a job.
And: He didn’t kill himself. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He was mine.
Had one of her brothers killed Penske? Maybe Bailey, too, although the current theory was that he’d shot her and then shot himself. Same gun, but maybe . . .
She thought furiously for several moments. She could call Delta, ask for an interview, maybe then push that interview with Channel Four. Or . . .
Two Crassleys were in jail, leaving only one—Gale, maybe the worst one, but only one. Well, and Nia. But if she were ever going to interview, face off, with the Crassleys, this was the time.
But was that safe? What if . . . what if they had killed Penske? And Bailey?
Bailey for being a cop who’d constantly thwarted them, and Penske . . . because he was with Nia, before she was old enough for legal consent?
