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“Why were you going to meet her?”
“We thought she was snitching for you.”
“For the DEA,” Fordham clarified.
“Yeah.”
My stomach twisted into knots.
Jack had never mentioned he’d known any of this.
“Well, you were right,” Fordham said. “She was.”
Jack’s eyes got big, like he’d just been punched. Then he bowed his head, like he was tired of this. Like he couldn’t handle any more. That it was killing him bit by bit, piece by piece.
It was certainly killing me.
Jack lifted his head and looked at me. “Did you know? About Ali and the DEA?”
“Yeah,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the hatred I felt for him out of my voice. “She was snitching for Eddie.”
“And you didn’t fucking think to tell me?!”
“You got a LOT of goddamn nerve acting pissed off, considering what you DIDN’T tell ME,” I hissed.
Jack looked stunned, then turned away again.
“Uh ohhhh… trouble in paradise,” Fordham chuckled. He was obviously enjoying watching us turn on each other.
“I didn’t kill her,” Jack said. “Neither did Kade or Lou.”
“Don’t you think that looks awful suspicious, though?” Fordham said. “The three of you suspected her of being a snitch, and suddenly she winds up dead?”
“Which is why we paid off Peters. But we didn’t kill her.”
“So let me get this straight: the night she died, you were going to have a ‘talk’ with her.”
“Yes.”
“But somebody else beat you to the ‘talking’ part.”
“We weren’t going to hurt her,” Jack insisted. “We were just going to find out if we were right… and if she was snitching, we were gonna find out what she’d told you.”
“Just scare her a little.”
“…yeah.”
“So you didn’t kill her, but you thought the DEA would try to pin the murder on you and the club, and that’s why you paid Peters,” Fordham concluded. “So he could slow-walk the investigation, run interference if the Feds got involved. Make sure it wasn’t an issue.”
“…yes.”
Jack looked ashamed of himself when he said it. And he still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I wanted to kill him.
All those dozens and dozens of phone calls to the Richards police department… all of their stonewalling…
Nobody ever even tried to solve Ali’s death, and it was Jack’s fucking fault.
