Tobias took a small sip of soda, savoring it. His parents hadn’t let him and his siblings have much processed food growing up, so he had a secret love of most things sugary. Soda was toward the top of the list. “It’s good he managed to recover from his wife’s death.”
“Not sure how much recovery he needed. They weren’t married at the time she died—there’d been a divorce a few years before, fairly rancorous, I’m assuming, seeing as he remarried about five minutes after it was finalized. He did file for custody of Nathalie in the divorce, but according to the police report, Nathalie chose to stay here with her mom and Dad accepted it. And from what I can tell, Mom never accepted a penny of alimony or child support.”
Tobias glanced at the papers strewn around Sullivan’s laptop, finding a picture of a young blonde girl.
“Is this her?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s pretty.”
Sullivan threw a balled-up napkin into the trash with a little too much force. “I guess.”
“Can this whole divorce/custody thing actually be related to the murders? I mean, it really comes down to who killed Margaret, right? You said the homeowner, Lawrence or whoever—”
“Lawrence Howard.”
“Yeah, him. You said he was a crime lord. So that makes it sound like another gang would’ve had reason to want him dead, which sort of implicates the Krayevs, but if the Krayevs did it, why would they kill someone they cared enough about to memorialize with a condo? But if Nathalie’s dad was the one pulling the trigger, it seems like a risky way to go about it—going up against a guy like that and some bodyguards.”
At the very least, if Margaret had been the target, it made sense to wait until the guy and his bodyguards weren’t at home.
Sullivan was watching him with a considering eyebrow lifted. “Not bad.”
“Oh.” Tobias cleared his throat. “Thanks.”
“Calling Lawrence Howard a crime lord’s being a bit generous, though,” Sullivan said, his mouth twisting wryly. “Small-time criminal overreaching his capabilities is more accurate, but either way, I doubt there’s a connection. Nathalie’s father was a person of interest at the time, and the cops looked pretty hard at him, but he seems to have had a pretty airtight alibi back in California.”
“Dead end.”
“Most likely.”
“Find anything else?”
“No one with the name Krayev, Yellena, Yalena, or any of the brothers’ names has ever lived in that neighborhood that I can find.” Sullivan stared up at the ceiling. “But one of the neighbors has lived down the block since the mid-eighties, so tomorrow I’m gonna go talk to him. See if he remembers anything.”
“We,” Tobias reminded him, and Sullivan exhaled hard. For a second he looked like he might finally lose his temper and yell, and Tobias braced himself, but Sullivan’s shoulders slumped.
“We,” Sullivan repeated, sounding weary. “Can I go home now?”
“Yeah.” Tobias got up and stacked his school things on the table, clearing off the bed so he could get some sleep. The guilt in his gut seemed to grow with every passing hour, but he refused to let it sway his path. “I’d do this differently if I had a choice, you know.”
Sullivan paused in the act of shoving his feet back into his boots. “You do have a choice. You just made the one that screws me over. That’s fine, whatever, be a dick if you want to. But don’t lie about what your options are. I can see the bullshit from a mile away.”
With that hanging in the air, Sullivan finished tying his laces and grabbed his laptop.
Tobias was still standing there, hands aching from holding his textbook too tightly, long after Sullivan was gone.
* * *
Saturday dawned bright and already warm, and Tobias was awake to see it, eyes gritty as sandpaper, his thoughts sluggish. He’d been snatching hours of sleep here and there, uncomfortable on the unfamiliar mattress, his thoughts too loud to muffle, his stomach in knots.
When he’d showered and eaten, he halfheartedly tried to study some more, but he mostly spent the time with his thoughts in a whirlpool made up of the phone call and letter from Ashley Benton, his parents’ lies, the likelihood of Ghost being hurt, and this whole mess with Sullivan.
He’d made little progress with his books by the time Sullivan knocked on the door.
He was wearing jeans and another Henley, and looked nearly as tired as Tobias felt. “Ready to go talk to the neighbors?” he asked, voice blank.
“Good morning to you too,” Tobias said under his breath, and followed him to the car.
They parked across the street from the Howard house, and Tobias got his first look at the sprawling ranch with the stone wall and gated drive where Margaret Trudeau, Lawrence Howard, and a handful of bodyguards had died.
“A ten-year-old could get over that wall easy,” Tobias said, noting the uneven gray blocks that jutted out along the entire surface. “If she needed to.”
Sullivan nodded, squinting in the morning sunshine. “That’s what I was thinking. Kinda defeats the purpose of a security wall.”
Beyond the gates, Tobias could see a two-car garage and several old elm trees. “Nice place.”
“Yep.” Sullivan glanced at the plated numerals on the gate and jerked his head down the street. “This way.”
Three doors down was a smaller bungalow. Lots of windows, but no gate so they walked up the drive to where a portly man in his mid-sixties was giving a beige Lincoln a wash. He wore a polo shirt, khakis, and loafers wet with soap suds.
“Hi,” Sullivan said. “Are you Ray?”
“Yeah.” Ray tipped his chin up in greeting. “You’d be the private detective I talked to this morning?”
“That’s me.” Sullivan gestured to Tobias and introduced him.
“Hello.” Tobias gave a little wave that instantly made him feel juvenile. He was definitely not cool enough to work in this business. “Thanks for letting us stop by.”
If Ray thought Tobias was an idiot, he hid it well. “Not sure what all I can tell you, but I figure there’s no harm
