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“Did you know the company is out of business now?”
“Why the hell would I know that? It’s just a stupid ashtray.”
“Rainey tells me you had some money a few years back,” I add, pushing.
“Rainey is a damned liar.”
I pause a moment. Listen for sounds of Rainey in the kitchen. There it is—the soft vacuum sound of the refrigerator door closing. She’ll be back with his beer any moment. Did she hear him call her a liar? This place is tiny, so I’m betting she did.
“Is she?” I ask. “She said you got into some kind of investment, got six figures out of it, but blew most of it in Vegas. Probably blew the rest on beer and cigarettes.”
“If you’re looking for money, Sadie—”
I hold up my hand up to stop him. “I haven’t taken a penny from you since I was eight years old, and I don’t plan to start now. Besides, look at this place. You clearly don’t have a pot to piss in.”
“Then I suppose you can be on your way.”
“I’ll be happy to get the hell out of here,” I say, “as soon as you tell me about Joey and Racehorse Hauling.”
“Joey was a pain in my ass.” My father runs a hand through his greasy hair. “I got him a sweet deal with that freight company.”
My pulse quickens. “I think, Dad, that you’re the one who got a sweet deal with that freight company.”
He inhales with a snort, and for a moment I think he may hock a loogie right in his living room. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
I step forward and close the distance between us. “Don’t I?”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, coming here, snooping around—” he gasps. “Rainey, what the fuck?”
I turn, and then I nearly stumble over my own two feet.
Rainey stands, shaking, and in her hand is a Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter pistol. An M&P with a polymer chassis, from what I can see. A gun widely used in law enforcement, but of course anyone can get one. They’re costly, so how the hell does Rainey have one?
But the bigger question—and what’s making my heart go a mile a minute—is that I’ve stepped close enough to my father that I can’t tell whether she means to point it at him…or at me.
She cocks her head. “Sadie, I think you need to leave now.”
My dad’s a waste of space, but I don’t want him dead. It’s my job to protect people, and assholes are still people. “Rainey, what are you doing? I just bought you lunch.”
“Yes, and I thank you. I’ve got nothing against you, but there are things you don’t understand.”
“I understand my brother’s dead. And I think he’s dead because he uncovered something about the company he was working for. When you told me my father came into some money, it got me thinking. Then when I saw the ashtray, with the Racehorse Hauling logo…”
“Just leave.” Rainey shakes.
Damn. A gun in the hand of a frightened woman who’s shaking is never a good thing.
“Look,” I say, holding my hands up in front of me, “I can help you. I can help you get out of this dump.”
My ankle holster burns against my skin. I don’t perceive that Rainey is a real threat, but still I’m itching to get to my piece.
My father takes a step forward.
I suck in a breath. Rainey now has the gun trained solely on him, but before I can get my Glock, he’s covering her hand with his own, easing the pistol out of her grip. “You give me that gun, sweetheart.”
She nods, handing the gun over to my father.
I don’t know whether this is good or bad.
