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He just stood there stone-faced and silent while I cried.
It took a long time for my tears to finally end.
When I had quieted down, he asked quietly, “So what do we do now?”
“I’m here to find out who killed my cousin,” I said, my voice filled with hate. “You want to help, fine. But after that, you and I are never speaking again.”
He looked off at the horizon… paused… and then nodded, resigned.
“…okay.”
We went back to our vehicles without saying a word, cranked the engines, and headed home.
54
Jack
This entire plan had gone to shit, and it was my fault. All of it.
Part of me didn’t want to admit it. Part of me wanted to rant and rail – But SHE betrayed me! But SHE lied to ME! But SHE made ME lose EVERYTHING!
No matter what, though, I kept coming back to the very beginning – the part where I’d lied to her by omission. I’d kept my mouth shut about what I’d done.
And it had been a shitty, cowardly thing to do.
All the guilt I’d felt this morning, after I slept with her… it was because I couldn’t face the fact that I was lying to her about her cousin. About what I’d done.
Like she said, I knew she never would have touched me if she knew. So I just kept my mouth shut. Pushed it down. Tried to pretend like it had never happened.
A year ago, though, it had seemed like a no-win situation. We had no idea who’d killed Ali. If our suspicions were right about her snitching, then it was entirely reasonable to assume the DEA would peg us for the murder and frame the club for her death. We figured paying off Peters was the best way to obstruct the whole thing.
The DEA couldn’t insert themselves into the case without admitting they were investigating us – and they didn’t. They never once contacted Peters about the murder investigation.
Because of that, we all concluded we’d been wrong – that Ali hadn’t been snitching.
Except she had.
It hadn’t been my fault that Peters was incompetent. It hadn’t been my fault that he’d taken ‘don’t look too hard at the club’ to mean ‘don’t solve the murder.’
Except… what if it had been a Midnight Rider who’d killed her?
What if Peters had covered up the truth: that one of our own had done it?
Jesus.
I’d believed Lou at the time. His theory about Ali’s coke dealer killing her seemed reasonable enough.
Lou obviously didn’t kill her – or at least he didn’t pull the trigger – because he was with me before it happened.
But what if he’d orchestrated the whole thing? What if he’d told the dealer he wanted her dead?
And I’d played right into his hands by agreeing to pay off the cops.
Fuck.
I felt like shit.
I’d been angry at Fiona for everything she’d done because I couldn’t face what I’d done. It was easier to blame her than it was to look in the goddamn mirror.
