“Surprisingly, yes.”
Lou continued: “EMS got to the hotel about the same time as the firemen, and put you on a gurney. By then, Callie was back in the room and she followed along and climbed into the ambulance with you. Curly was in his car by then, following you. Callie let them drive a few minutes, pulled a gun on the EMS guy in the back and made them stop the truck. Curly pulled up, got out of his car, put a gun on the driver, and Callie made the EMS guys load you into Curly’s car. He drove you to the air ambulance while Callie shot the EMS guys. She ditched their bodies and drove their vehicle to the airport, where she was met by the second cleaning crew. They did their magic on the EMS truck, drove Callie to the FBO, where she boarded our jet to fly here. She beat you here by half an hour, but you were in the medical chopper getting the best care possible. The Chopper landed, and you’ve been here ever since.”
I said, “I assume the first cleaning crew did a good job on the hotel?”
“By the time they finished, you couldn’t prove humans had ever entered it.”
“Where did Darwin fit in all this?”
“See, that’s the thing. Callie called me because she was afraid Darwin would blame you for Tara’s death. She wanted me to arrange a meeting so she could tell Darwin what really happened, and why.”
“And you said?”
“I told her she and Curly were never there.”
“So Darwin thinks I killed Tara?”
Lou nodded. “He thought you killed her and then got the heart thing because you’d been close to her in the past. Remorse, or whatever.”
“So why didn’t Darwin have me killed?”
“See, Darwin was getting ready to kill Tara anyway.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He had already approached me about having you do it.”
“What stopped him from giving me the hit?” I said.
“He thought you might be too close to her. He wanted to try someone else.”
“There was no one else capable of killing Tara.”
“That’s what he found out.”
“Who’d he send?”
“A couple of mafia guys. After that didn’t work, I told him I’d talk to you about doing it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I was about to, but that whole thing came up with Afaya, and he told me to wait until you got back from Dallas. Then you wanted to spend a few days with Kathleen and Addie, so I put it off .”
Timing is a funny thing. But this explained why Tara wanted to kill me. She thought I’d been sent to finish the job the mafia guys botched.
“So Darwin thinks you told me to kill Tara, and I did. So he’s happy?”
“In general,” Lou said, turning to open the door.
“What does that mean?”
Lou turned back to face me.
“He didn’t like the part about you being out of commission all these years.”
