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“Jesus H Christ, son. We’re not rehashing this unsavory business—”
“We’re just talking. So this guy was your hookup in the underworld?”
It’s a long time before Dad nods. “In exchange for introductions, he sometimes asked a favor in return. A coffin to be delivered to a secret location at a moment’s notice. A request that I vacate the crematorium for a night and leave the key under the rug for him. Letting his people hide things at the bottom of open graves before a funeral service… that sort of thing…”
I swallow. He’s talking about making bodies disappear. This is… this is even more fucked up than I imagined. I hold up another picture. “What about this guy? Do you know him?”
Dad peers at the picture. He’s trying to look casual, but that vein above his eye throbs and his agitation taints the air. “Him I met a couple of times. That’s his club we’re at in the first picture. You stay well away from him, boy. That’s an order. That man is unhinged.”
I slide the photographs back into my pocket. “That’s going to be difficult. He’s Mom’s new fiancé.”
Outside, I fling open my car door and sink into the seat. My whole body shakes. It takes several deep breaths before I can grip the steering wheel and back out of the prison.
A few blocks from the prison, I slide into the parking lot of a shitty diner on the edge of a small wooded park. George leaps from the bushes and throws herself into the car like she’s the star in a spy film. Her eyes shine with excitement as she picks leaves and twigs from her blue pixie hair. “You look white as a sheet. What happened in there?”
I pull out of the lot and head toward the freeway. I have to swallow three times before I can answer. “I told him Nero Lucian was engaged to Mom and he went crazy. He pounded the glass and smashed the phone into the wall and said the most horrible things. The guards had to drag him away.”
The shaking starts again. I jam my elbows into my sides in an attempt to control it. George tilts her head to the side. The empathy pooling in her eyes is real, and that matters to me more than I can say. “I’m sorry, Eli.”
“Yeah.” My fingers grip the wheel so hard my knuckles are turning white. “Me too.”
George taps my shoulder. “Don’t keep me in suspense. What did your dad say about the other photograph?”
I knew I could count on George – she’s the same old certifiable genius with a devious streak a mile long. After I roped her into my mission during the homecoming game, she hasn’t wasted a moment. Under the guise of taking photos before the dance, she managed to upload keystroke software and tracking onto Mackenzie’s phone. When I told her about Nero, she dug out all the research she had on my dad and found those two photographs from a deleted file on his computer the police never searched.
“He says the man is his contact. Apparently, he introduced Dad to the right people on the body brokering market and in exchange…” I can’t believe I’m saying this, “…Dad did some jobs for him. Helping him get rid of bodies, by the sounds of it.”
George whistles. “So I was right. Your father is in deep with Brutus August. Did you know he’s Imperator of the entire August crime family? Apparently, he killed the rightful king, his brother Julian, by burying him alive. Isn’t that wild?”
“Imperator? They’re serious about this whole Roman Empire schtick.” I hide my shock behind a derisive snort. Claudia said her father was killed by Brutus, but she didn’t say how. Imagine losing your father like that, knowing that he’d suffocated slowly to death—
No. I shake my head roughly. I’m not going to feel sorry for her.
I suck my breath between my teeth. “There’s more.”
“Spill.”
“When they dragged my father out after his fit, the warden noticed the picture of Dad and Brutus on my chair. He tells me Brutus has been to visit my dad in jail. Several times. The last visit was the day before he disappeared.”
“Shiiiiiit. Do you see what this means, Eli?” George lifts her laptop onto the back of my chair and taps at the keys. “My research shows Brutus has put it out all around the criminal underworld that he killed Mackenzie’s parents. And there he is in that photograph with your father, with a business relationship. And they’re still in contact. And with all these sightings of the Malloys over the years, all the internet chatter… I don’t believe it’s true that he killed the Malloys.”
I know it’s not true, because Noah overheard his father talking to that assassin about killing the Malloys. And I know Noah’s dad wouldn’t be working with Walter Hart. But I can’t tell George any of this because… because I’d have to give away her secret. And I can’t do it.
Not until I know everything.
A new piece of this horrific puzzle has slotted into place. I know now that in addition to being a lowlife, lying scumbag, my father is in deep with Claudia’s family. And that he’s shit scared of Nero Lucian. What I don’t know is what that means, or how it changes things for me.
“What next?” I sigh.
“If you want to keep investigating, I can dig deeper into this Nero guy. We’ll keep our eyes on Mackenzie, make sure she’s not putting herself in any danger, follow her and see if she leads us to answers. I think the key to finding the truth about her parents is to track down our friend Mr. August.”
“You want to rock up to the Imperator and just casually ask him if he really whacked them?”
“That might be impossible, since apparently he’s disappeared recently himself. But you’ll be surprised how much I can learn from behind a computer screen.” George grins. “Or maybe you won’t. Of course, we could just ask Mackenzie—”
“She has amnesia,” I say automatically, my instinct still to protect her, to justify her behavior.
“I know. That’s so wild,” George says. “She doesn’t act like it. But then, she’s Mackenzie Malloy. She wouldn’t want anyone to think she’s weak.”
