“Fuck off, Stevan. Your father and I worked together for twenty-five years. Since before you had hair on your pecker.”
“That doesn’t change what he said. He told me you were inherently unbalanced, that the only thing keeping you on an even keel was fear of him and fear of Michael.”
“I’m not afraid of Michael.”
“He said you would deteriorate with him and Michael gone. He said you would go off the tracks, said you were a risk.”
“Your father was in decline.” Jimmy kept his sudden fury in careful check. “I understand.”
“Look, Jimmy, I’m telling you this because I think he was wrong, because I want you to trust me and because I want us to be a team. You understand? I want this to be the beginning of something new, of you and me.”
“Sure, Stevan. ’Course.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Is there a problem?” Jimmy asked.
“We’re here to kill Michael right?”
“Yes.”
“We lay low, and we kill him for what he did to my father.”
“And for being an arrogant, self-righteous-”
“You took his girl, Jimmy. You don’t think he’ll notice?”
“You’re the one who told him we were coming after his brother.”
“That was bait. And hypothetical. Now he
Jimmy waved a hand. “That’s irrelevant, and eventually to our advantage.”
“You may feel good about going head-to-head with Michael, but I don’t. He could blow through this house in thirty seconds.”
“Your house. Not mine.”
“Forty seconds, then. With you standing in the middle of it.”
Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. “I think it’s you who’s fearful.”
“You take that back.”
“No.”
Seconds spooled out, and Stevan blinked first. “You can’t beat him, Jimmy.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Why don’t you just let him walk away, then?” Jimmy could barely hide his disgust. “Just let him go.”
“Because he killed my father in his own
Jimmy felt his eyes go flat. Stevan didn’t want Michael dead because of how the old man died. He wanted Michael dead because of how the old man lived. Because he loved Michael more than he loved his own son. Because he respected Michael more. Because Stevan was a coward, and Michael was not.
Anything else was a lie.
“I have a plan,” Stevan said. “Things are in motion. You don’t have to worry about Michael until I tell you. You just have to sit and wait.”
“I
“Don’t make this personal, Jimmy. It’s not about who’s best. It’s about killing him and moving on.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Well, it’s arranged.”
“Just like that?”
“I’ll tell you when I need you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Tell me why the records are sealed.” Michael struggled to keep his emotions level, but he still felt his brother’s skin, hot under his palm and stretched across a curve of bone that felt so much like his own. For the first time since coming to North Carolina, Michael felt the flesh and blood of his brother’s dismay. Not the theory of it or the possibility, but the blade of it, the full and unfettered hurt. For the first time in a decade, Michael was truly in danger of losing his cool.
“He didn’t mean what he said.” Abigail was distraught. They stood in an empty hall one floor down. “He needs you.”
“Don’t change the subject. You knew those drugs. You’ve heard the diagnosis before.” She opened her mouth in denial, but Michael said, “Courts don’t seal medical records without good reason.”
“They do if a ranking senator calls in favors.”
“That’s what happened?”
“Favors. Threats. Whatever it took.”
“To cover up what Julian did.”
“To protect my son.”
“We’re talking about the boathouse, aren’t we? How long ago was it? Fifteen years? Twenty?”
“What do you know about the boathouse?”
“I know it’s been neglected to the point of decay. The parking area is overgrown, the road in disrepair. The deck is rotten, boats ignored. Everything else on the estate is immaculate, but the boathouse is left to rot. So, how long has it been? Fifteen years? Twenty?”
Abigail hesitated, then said, “Eighteen years next month.”
“Who did he kill?”
Her head snapped up. “How do you see these things?”
“You said yourself that he was capable, that you expected a body to come out of that water. So, let’s quit screwing around. Who did he kill?”
She shook her head. “I can’t talk about it here.”
“Then where?”
She was breaking. “Anywhere but here.”
They ended up in the Land Rover, Michael driving. He followed estate roads at random.
“It happened five years after we brought him home. He was fourteen.” Abigail’s face was stone, her gaze locked straight ahead. “He’s had very few friends in his life-your beautiful, damaged brother-but his very first was a young girl, Christina Carpenter. She was older than he was, seventeen when she died, but very small. A tiny young thing. Very pretty. Her mother ran the stables; her father worked in town. They lived in a small house a few miles down the road. They were good people, and their daughter took an interest in Julian. Nothing physical, of course. They were young and she was a good girl. They were friends.” She blinked, and Michael knew she was looking into the past. “Normal teenage friends.”
Michael nodded as if he could see it, but in reality he could not imagine having had a normal teenage friend. His childhood had been about violence and hunger and mistrust, the total absence of friends. At that age, he’d been on the street, and the only girl he’d ever met was one who offered to prostitute herself for a ten- dollar bill and half of the canned fruit she saw in the mouth of his open pack. When he said no, she forced a smile and a hollow laugh, then told him she was relieved. She told him she’d never been with a boy, but thought that’s what all boys wanted.
