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“Maybe.”
He takes the seat next to mine. “Why do I sense there’s something you want to say but aren’t?”
“You tell me.”
“You called me here for a reason.”
He’s asking in his own way if I want to go upstairs. Really, I want to go anywhere. Right here on this porch would do. But then, as with every other area of my life, there are other people to consider. Just once I’d like to know what it feels like to be selfish. I don’t say any of this, of course. I just silently pray that Cole is as intuitive as I hope he is. “I think Ashley has something to do with what’s going on.”
I say this, and even as the words float off my tongue, I want to reel them back in. Suggesting Ashley is involved also implicates Davis.
Cole’s face breaks into a wide grin. “She doesn’t exactly seem like someone with the wherewithal or the know-how to commit not one but multiple murders.”
“How can we ever really know what a person is capable of?”
He laughs. “You know I adore you, Ruth Channing. But I think you might be overthinking things a bit.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? Two men with ties to my family have been found dead within the past twenty-four hours.”
“What’s that saying about causation?”
“Correlation does not equal causation.”
“Ah, that’s right.” Cole knows this.
“Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you. It’s just that seeing two variables together does not necessarily mean we know whether one variable caused the other to occur.”
“Sure, I didn’t see Ashley Parker take out Bobby Holt or Danny Vera, but would I put it past her? No. No, I wouldn’t.”
He narrows his eyes. “Have you been drinking?”
“No, but I think I’m about to start.”
“Good,” he says, standing. He smooths his pant legs. “Mind if I join you?”
Cole opens the screen door and motions for me to follow. So I do. “And if she didn’t murder them, assuming they were murdered, I think she sure as hell knows who did,” I tell him between gritted teeth as we make our way to the kitchen. “Obviously, I have no proof of this. Just a feeling in my gut.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to understand it intellectually. I just know it. Plus, what more evidence do I need? I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. She said: Someone really ought to take care of him… Then, about Danny Vera she told me: I think someone really needs to break that guy’s bones. I think he deserved every bit of what Davey gave him and more.”
Cole takes the bottle of tequila from the liquor cabinet. “If that doesn’t look damning, I don’t know what does.”
I can’t tell whether he’s joking or not. “I only know it wasn’t my brother.”
God, I hope it wasn’t my brother.
“It wasn’t your brother,” he says, filling two glasses. He hands one to me. “Either of them.”
It couldn’t have been. Could it? I don’t say this out loud. It feels bad enough just thinking about it.
Cole sucks in his bottom lip and then releases it. I can tell what he’s thinking.
“What?” I ask.
He glances at his watch and then looks at me in a way that tells me he doesn’t want to say what’s on his mind but he knows he has to. “I’m not sure I want to get into this right now but…”
