“Go ahead. I’ll be right down.”
A stiff smile curved her lips. “He shouldn’t be long.”
David thanked her and watched as she drove off, then studied the street. It was a nice neighborhood—beat the hell out of his utilitarian apartment, that was for sure.
“Why are you here?”
David turned to find Noah standing at the door, wearing a clean pair of jeans, loafers and a sweatshirt. It was obvious from his wet hair that he’d just had a shower.
“I’ve run across a friend of yours.”
“Of mine?” he repeated doubtfully. “You and I don’t exactly travel in the same circles.”
“Which is what makes it rather…coincidental that I’ve discovered a link between this man and you, wouldn’t you say?” He produced the picture and waited for Noah’s reaction—a reaction that seemed as innocuous as his wife’s.
“This is Lorenzo something or other,” he said.
“Bishop,” David supplied.
“That’s it. He used to work for one of my subs.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“No. I haven’t seen him for years.”
“How many years?”
Now that David wasn’t questioning him about a family member, Noah appeared eager to help. “Maybe… four? I was building the deck on the McCurdy house while he was pouring the new drive. That has to be at least four years. Why?”
“He’s dead.”
Suspicion drew Noah’s eyebrows together. “You don’t think Oliver killed him, do you?”
“No, I don’t. I already know it was someone else.”
“Who?”
Evidently, Noah hadn’t been keeping up with the news. Of course, a lot had happened in the past few weeks. His brother had been released from prison, stabbed, hospitalized and sent home to Jane and Kate, who hadn’t seen him for three years. The whole Burke family had probably been too busy dealing with their own private hopes and fears and adjustments to worry about other people.
“Skye Kellerman,” he said.
Noah’s eyes went wide. “She killed Lorenzo? That’s gotta tell you something. It’s not my brother who’s—”
David broke in before he could go too far down that road. “He cut her telephone line, broke into her house and tried to kill her. That’s when she shot him.”
Noah shook his head. “You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“What did he have against Skye?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I have no idea.”
“You didn’t hire him to do it?”
His face reddened with genuine shock and anger. “Are you kidding? Now you think I’m a killer?”
“Skye knows about your affair with Jane.”
Noah leaned closer and enunciated each word. “So does my wife. I broke it off with Jane. I confessed.” He gestured in a helpless motion. “The guilt was too much for me. I’d hate for my brother and parents to find out what I’ve done, but maybe they should know, too. Maybe that’s the only way to really wipe the slate clean.”
David was too surprised to come up with a response.
“If you don’t believe me, you can ask Wendy. Do you want to come in and call her on her cell?”
David studied him. “No,” he said and walked away.
“I’m going to tell them,” Noah called after him. “I’m going to tell my whole family.”
David turned back before reaching his car. “Don’t.”
“Why not? I can’t carry this secret anymore. It’s time to break free of the past, start over.”
“You’ll put Jane in danger if you do,” David warned. But Noah waved him away. “I’m serious.”
“My brother’s innocent,” he said, and then he went in and it was too late to say anything else.
David didn’t drive off immediately. He sat in his car, wondering if he should go back to the house and try to convince Noah of the danger Jane might face. He would have, if he’d thought it would do any good. But he knew it wouldn’t. He doubted Noah would even answer the door. Noah didn’t believe his brother was capable of such savagery, and nothing David said would convince him.
David decided to warn Jane, just in case Noah didn’t do her that courtesy. But she was no longer at work, and when he called the house, he got a recorder. Unwilling to leave a message—he didn’t want Oliver to hear his voice—he hung up and made a mental note to try her again later.
21
Now that they stood face-to-face, Oliver realized the man he’d hired via the Internet wasn’t a man at all. Oliver knew he’d never win any prizes for guessing ages at the state fair, but this kid was barely seventeen if he was a day. He had more pimples than whiskers. His hair, which didn’t look as if it had been washed recently, fell to his shoulders, and he had a baby face and braces to go with his baggy jeans and Sex Wax T-shirt.
“Do you have the money?” the boy said. He’d kept Oliver waiting while he spoke on a cell phone. But he’d finished his conversation and was apparently ready to do business.
Now Oliver understood why his Internet “investigator” had wanted to meet in an alley. He had no office. He probably lived with his folks and spent too much time holed up in his room, doing things on the computer they had no idea he could do.
“I’ve got the money,” Oliver responded. He’d had to pawn Jane’s wedding ring, which she’d inherited from her grandmother, to get the money he needed, but the ring didn’t fit her anymore, anyway. She’d gotten too fat, hadn’t even glanced inside her jewelry box in ages. “The question is…do you have what I’m looking for?”
“Of course. I told you I’d get it, didn’t I?” The kid reached into another pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded into a tight square. “It’s right here.”
“Let me see it.”
The boy he knew only as [email protected] handed the paper over without hesitation, and Oliver opened it to see an address on Sherman Island. He was familiar enough with the delta, having studied it after that news broadcast he’d seen in the hospital, to know that Sherman Island was one of the delta’s myriad small towns. But it could still be a made-up address.
He studied the kid skeptically. “How do I know this isn’t fake?”