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“If you don’t mind, though,” she continues while shutting the door and squealing tires in reverse, driving us down the alley backwards without looking, “I’d like to show you something before turning you back over to him.”
I’m too busy trying not to taste my stomach in my throat to do anything other than nod.
She jerks the wheel and the car slings to the side, leaving the passenger side facing the alleyway once we hit the street, and she hands me a key fob.
“Lock the doors for me, please,” she says, confusing the shit out of me. I press the lock button like a grateful—
The loud explosion rattles the car, and jars me out of my own thoughts as I stare down the alleyway in horror at the SUV that just blew up. My eyes go down to the key fob, then back to the SUV, to the bodies that are also on fire now, burning much too fast for a normal sort of explosion. I think. Hell, I don’t know anything about explosions.
Sarah bursts out laughing before squealing away from the chaos, and I turn to gawk at her as she drives like a bat out of hell down the street.
“Was that me?” I whisper hoarsely.
“Yeah. It was. Felt good, huh?”
I drop the key fob like it’s on fire, and she laughs a little harder.
“Relax, Eve. They were already dead. The last thing you needed was any prints or hair fibers to be found, since you were just in there. By the way, that was Lester, Jessie’s brother. You remember Jessie? The rapist who Drex put in the hospital? Well, Jessie died two days ago. I can only imagine what Lester wanted to do to you as punishment. You can tell me thank you at any time.”
I swallow the bile in my mouth before choking out, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she says proudly, beaming as she continues to drive like a hellion, taking us out of town. “Now you can do me a favor. Tell me all about Marshall Hicks.”
My head snaps in her direction at the sound of my uncle’s name. “Why?”
“No questions right now. Just answers, please.”
“He’s my uncle. My dad’s half-brother—same mother, different dads. Why the hell are you asking about him?”
She cuts another curve, taking us into another small town, and she zooms down the street.
“Because I had a friend of mine digging into your family. Sorry. It was when you seemed so out of the loop about your father. I wanted to find out what else he hid, considering the Death Dealers never knew about you, yet Benny and Ben did know. My friend is a hacker like no other, and he found the hidden trail that linked Aaron to his family. By the way, do you know how badass your father was to be able to bury that shit and make it seem like he was a completely different Aaron Marks?”
“Sarah,” I groan. “My uncle? Why are you asking about him?”
“Oh. Right. Sorry. It struck me as odd that he was a rich lawyer living in Dallas, when you and your family were hurting for cash. Until I realized he isn’t living in Dallas. He lives just outside of Halo. Guess who employs Marshall Hicks under the table.”
I’m too busy trying to stave off an inevitable migraine to try and guess anything.
“Sarah, please have mercy on me.”
“Your uncle is part of a team of ten lawyers working for the Death Dealers. And I think he set your father up with the accounting job just so he could set him up to take the fall for stealing that money. Then I think the bastard killed your father and had Ben plant the seed in your head that it was Herrin or Drex. Obviously it didn’t work out as Ben intended, but it gives us probable cause to believe your father was legit murdered.”
Definitely not fighting off that migraine now.
“And I thought I was the conspiracy theorist. Are you sure?”
“Marshall is a slow kill kind of guy from what I’ve gathered. He would definitely be behind a plan as elaborate as infiltrating the Hell Breathers, using your connection to them. He’d have heard some whispered rumors of what the boys do with the vehicles, but not the details. He’d know about Cecil, since they’ve had to have numerous talks with anyone working for the boys during an investigation—and there have been many. Marshall is one of the desk jockeys. Not one of the pavement-pounders who comes to the boys. It’d be smart to stay off grid if you’re trying to fuck them over, but stay close enough to fuck them over. And now the feds make sense.”
“None of this makes sense. My uncle killed my father?” I’m too stunned to even try to process my feelings.
“That part is still conjecture. I’m talking about the feds make sense.”
