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I nod to the whiskey. “You shouldn’t drive.”
He laughs through his nose—an inelegance he wouldn’t normally allow himself. “I haven’t drunk any of it yet. I need to go somewhere I can think.”
“What about the bench?” I ask.
Vague, obviously, but he knows what I mean. After all, that bench on the mountain used to be one of Shane’s spots too—a place to get away from it all. A place where you could sit with your thoughts and just be.
He shakes his head, smiling slightly. “I’m never going to be able to go up there anymore without thinking of you with your ass out.”
“Very funny.”
“You’ve got it bad for Mira, huh?”
“I do.”
“You still going to see Daphne this week?”
“Yeah. I’m going to ask her if Big Bear Games can assign someone else to us…if they want the game.”
“Youdohave it bad,” he comments, studying me.
“Yes,” I say flatly. “I just admitted I do. And I’m not at all sorry about it.”
“Well, good luck with that.” He gets to his feet, sighing, and then heads over to the blinds, lifting them. Looks across the alley. “Shit. She cleared out?”
“Looks like,” I say, getting an uncomfortable feeling. A prickle of something, intuition or maybe just the feeling that I’d like some intuition to kick in, if it could be bothered. It feels like all of this should be connecting together in some way it isn’t—the Burkes meeting with Shane’s partners; Big Mike hanging out downstairs; the woman across the alleyway. If it were one of those podcasts that Mira and I like listening to, there’d be red yarn connecting each of these strange things neatly and succinctly together.
Maybe we need a murder board.
“Make sure you keep Deacon in the loop about everything,” Shane says, letting the blinds drop. “He’s good.”
“I already told him. Shane, Burke needs to know about this.Now. He’s been paying Deacon to keep an eye on his parents. It’s a conflict of interest if Deacon’s working both sides.” I work that over for a second, then add, “Hell, maybe that’s why he hasn’t found anything solid on them.”
Or maybe he’s actually a shit detective. After all, he came over here and got so tanked he forgot the rules of Charades.
Shane swears again. “Yeah, good point. Just…give me a few days, okay?” He pauses, looking at the counter as if it might reform its shape to show him what to do. Then he looks up, his eyes wide. Pleading. “Thanksgiving. Give me until Thanksgiving, Dan.”
“Burke needs to know if Deacon is trustworthy.”
I care less if he’s just mediocre at his job. Plenty of people are mediocre at their jobs, and I don’t want to get the man fired. He’s lonely in a way that speaks to me.
“I’ll find out, okay?” Shane insists. “Trust me.”
I want to trust him. I really fucking want to. Shane’s been there for me through everything. But so has Burke. It’s impossible to choose one of them over the other—it defies every notion I have of what is right and just.
So I nod. “Thanksgiving.Ifyou find out about Deacon. I’m going to take your word for it, man.”
“Thank you.” He pounds his chest. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
He leaves to go do his soul searching. Maybe at the bench. Maybe somewhere else. I’m hit with the realization that there are plenty of things I don’t know about Shane anymore—including where he’d go if he’s feeling low.
It’s not a comforting thought.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Mira
“So what dirt do you want on my brother? Ask me anything. Seriously, anything. He owes me.”
