got me what I needed. I was looking out for myself, and fuck the rest of the world.”
He pointed the index finger at me now. “You care that Darcy was killed. Even in here, with the chance to tell you that it matters to me, I can’t. Because it doesn’t. I’m sorry she’s dead, but it doesn’t affect me. If I were on the outside, her death would be about as important to me as the weather.”
I leaned forward, my elbows resting on my knees.
“But when I killed those two men in the desert, I knew I was done,” Simington said. “I’d crossed my own pathetic line. I hated myself for doing it. And I knew I couldn’t change myself. I’m too lazy. There wouldn’t be enough in it for me to do that.” He hesitated, his eyes staring right through me. “I am in the best place for me, headed toward what is the best thing for me. Staying here and accepting my fate is the only good thing I will ever do.”
He spoke with such conviction, I knew his words weren’t a ploy to garner sympathy. He’d arrived at a truth in his life, no matter how brutal it seemed to the outside world. Even with my emotions twisted into an impossible knot, I knew it wasn’t my place to talk him out of it.
“I’m serious, Noah,” he said. “This isn’t your fight. It’s not worth it. You need to stay away from Keene.” I stood. “I appreciate the warning.”
Irritation coiled in his face. “Did you hear anything I said?” “Yeah. I heard it all.”
“Then drop this. All of this. Darcy, me, and Keene. Let it go today.” He stared at me through the window. “Go back to your life. Do the right thing.”
I walked out of San Quentin, but I had no idea what the right thing was.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Detective Ken Kenney held out a stick of gum outside San Quentin.
“No thanks,” I said, trying to brush past him.
He stepped just close enough to slow me down so he could walk with me. He shoved the gum into his mouth. “Been a lot of your father’s old friends checking in on him lately.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s had a lot of visitors in the last day or so,” he said. “How is he?”
I wondered if Kenney slept in the parking lot. “He’s wonderful.” “His time is slowly eroding,” he said. “Certainly that is affecting him.”
“Go ask him yourself.”
He laughed, but it was hollow and jagged. “Next time I see him, it’ll be only to make sure he’s no longer breathing.”
“Good to have something to hold onto,” I said as we reached my rental car.
“Perhaps then I’ll be able to let go.” Kenney cleared his throat. “Heard about Ms. Gill. I’m sorry.” “I’ll bet.”
“Regardless of my wishes for your father, I did not want to see anyone else hurt by their involvement with him.” He pulled the gum out of his mouth and tossed it away. “She told you why I’m hanging around, correct?”
“She did.”
“You ask him? About my nephew?” I looked away and shook my head. “You should. Be interesting to see what he says.”
I felt caught in the middle, but I wasn’t sure why. Simington may have been my father, but it was a title on a piece of paper and nothing else. Yet, when Kenney spoke to me, I felt defensive.
“What happened?” I asked.
He stared at me for a moment, then leaned against the passenger door of the rental, his arms folded across his chest. “Jacob was a screw-up.”
“Your nephew?”
He nodded. “My sister had a helluva time with him. Couldn’t get him pointed down the right road. He was just determined to go the wrong way. But that doesn’t make it any easier, you know?”
I did.
“As cliched as it sounds, Jacob fell in with the wrong crowd,” Kenney said, his voice not as confident as it had been before. “Kept getting nicked here and there. Some theft, an assault, that sort of stuff. Not big time, but it was building.” He ran a hand across his jaw. “Started doing some work for a guy who runs a backroom operation.”
“Gambling?”
“Yeah. Poker games, horses, sports. The guy’s been doing it forever, and to be honest, so are a lot of others. It’s not a high priority to quash it all.”
I believed that.
“Jacob stole from the guy. Five large,” Kenney said, sounding like he’d bit into something that tasted awful. “Stupid, stupid move.”
The story fell into place. “And the guy hired Simington to punish him,” I said.
Kenney nodded. “Sure. It’s what they do. Let anybody steal from you and your credibility with your bettors goes to shit. He had to take care of Jacob.”
I shivered against the breeze that brushed across the parking lot.
