“This was a terrible idea.” Between the flashing lights and screaming kids and blaring video games, I was one Whac-A-Mole away from a migraine. I had made the mistake of letting my sister choose the destination for our monthly lunch date. I’m guessing this animatronic house of horrors appealed to her because it didn’t require her to keep Zach entertained for an hour while he was strapped like a sanitarium patient to a high chair. At least here, we could let him loose to run.
“Driver’s choice,” Georgia reminded me, brushing a grease stain from her shirt with a wad of paper napkins.
“Easy for you to say,” I said absently, checking the time on my phone. Still no messages from Vero. That couldn’t be good. “You’ve got the keys to the getaway vehicle.”
When the van hadn’t started that morning, I’d given Vero my keys and asked her to call her cousin Ramón to have it towed to his shop. On the way home, she was supposed to stop by the bank and take out a loan for the fifteen thousand dollars we were now short to pay back Andrei Borovkov’s wife—or sell the car. She’d opted for the loan. Vero was supposed to then arrange to meet Mrs. Borovkov, gracefully back us out of the deal, and return the advance Irina had paid us. I, for one, would feel much better once the woman’s blood money was out of my house.
“The kids are having fun. And you said you wanted pizza.” The sirens and lights didn’t seem to bother Georgia at all. She folded a greasy slice into her mouth while I tried to keep one eye on Delia and Zach in the climbing structure that wound above our heads. “How’s the book research coming along?”
“Is that why you sent Nick to my house? So I’d have somebody else to bug with all my weird questions?”
“I sent him to your house,” she said around a mouthful of pizza, “because Steven’s fiancée is a person of interest in a high-profile missing persons investigation, and I don’t like the idea of my niece and nephew spending too much time over there until we figure out how Theresa’s involved.”
“So you sent Nick to keep an eye on me?”
She washed that down with a mouthful of soda. “Let’s just say Nick volunteered.”
I slumped back in my bench. “Great, so now I have a babysitter.”
“He’s not a babysitter. He’s a detective. And a damn good one,” she said, pointing her straw at me. “And since you both have a vested interest in making sure Theresa’s not a felon, I figured you could help each other out.”
“Is that all?”
“Consider it a favor to me, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Since when do I owe you any favors?”
“Since I babysat two weeks ago.” I opened my mouth to argue but closed it at Georgia’s withering look.
“Nick’s partner’s going to be stuck in the hospital for a while. The big C,” she added solemnly. “Nick’s lonely. He could use the company.” My sister had always been a terrible liar.
“So this is a setup.”
She shrugged. “He’s a nice guy, Finn. He’s single, he’s honest, and he’s gainfully employed.” She licked pizza grease off her fingers. “Cops get good health care and retirement, you know.”
“I don’t need a babysitter or a husband. I’m doing just fine.” Georgia wore her skepticism like a favorite shirt. I jutted my chin at her. “What about you? When are you going to find yourself a wife? It’s been like a decade since you went out on a date, and you don’t hear me giving you grief about it.”
“Don’t be hyperbolic. It hasn’t been a decade.” I raised an eyebrow as she shoveled the last of her pizza in her mouth, tapping a finger against my crossed arms as she chewed. She pushed herself back in her bench and wiped her hands. “It’s been eighteen months, if you must know. And I don’t need a wife. I have my own retirement and health care. You, on the other hand—”
“Seriously, Georgia. I’m fine.”
“How fine?”
“I got a book deal.” Georgia made a face. She bumped her fist against her chest, releasing a soft belch. “Nice. Keep doing that in public and it’ll be a decade before you know it.”
Georgia rolled her eyes. “I thought you already had a book deal.” I’d had plenty of book deals before, and after Sylvia took her commission and Uncle Sam took his cut, there’d hardly been enough left to buy dinner and a decent pedicure.
“I got a better one.”
She took a long, disinterested sip of her soda. “Yeah? How much?”
“A hundred fifty thousand for two books.”
Georgia’s mouth fell open. A dribble of grease slipped down her chin. “Shut the fuck up.”
“I’m serious. I’ve got less than thirty days to get a draft to Sylvia, and I don’t have time to entertain your friend on his wild goose chase.”
Georgia smacked the table. “Holy shit, Finn! You did it!” I shrank in my seat as the mom in an adjoining booth turned to scowl at us. “I can’t believe it. That night you asked me to watch the kids, I figured you just wanted a night to yourself. I didn’t think you were actually working or anything.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence.”
She crumpled her napkin and tossed it at me. “I mean it, Finn. I’m seriously proud of you.” She was. I could see it in the shine in her eyes. The last time Georgia had looked at me that way was the day Zach was born. And Delia before that. It was the same way my parents had looked at Georgia when she’d graduated from the police academy, and with every promotion she’d earned since. My throat burned with bittersweet pride, and I hid it behind a long sip of soda. I had finally written a worthwhile story and it would probably land me behind bars. “Have you called Mom and Dad to tell them the news yet?”
I shook my head, fidgeting with my straw. “You know how they feel about it.” It was fine to have a hobby when I was married, my mother had said. But after Steven had left, they were both very clear that writing books was an irresponsible career choice. They’d been pushing me to get a government job ever since.
Georgia leaned over the table and lowered her voice. “Now that you’ve got some serious money coming in, maybe you can get Steven and Theresa off your back about the custody stuff. With any luck, you and Nick will figure out where she was that night. Maybe that’ll put an end to it.”
I choked back a mirthless laugh. Oh, it would definitely put an end to it. If Nick followed the bread crumbs and found Harris’s body, I’d be lucky to see my kids ever again.
I shook my head. “Theresa may have done a lot of shitty things, but I honestly don’t think this is one of them. Innocent until proven guilty, right?”
Georgia sucked a tooth. “If she wasn’t at the bar that night, she’s got nothing to hide.”
Nothing to hide. Except the shovel in her shed, the search history on her laptop, and the body buried in her fiancé’s sod farm. Theresa was treading thin ice, and she didn’t even know it. All she needed to prove her innocence was a solid alibi for the night Harris disappeared. Which meant all I had to do to keep her out of prison was figure out where she’d been that night.
The navy-blue sedan parked in my driveway was suspiciously nondescript. Similar to Detective Anthony’s, with fewer antennae and a little more rust. A ripple of anxiety shot through me.
“You expecting someone?” Georgia asked, pulling in behind it after lunch.
“Probably one of Vero’s friends. Thanks for the ride. I’ll call you later.”
I fished the kids out of the back seat and punched in the code for the garage door. Vero’s Charger was there, but my van was gone.
Vero sat at the kitchen table eating the last of the Oreo cookies from the bag. Zach took off like a bullet to the playroom, peeling out of his coat as he ran. I picked Delia’s off the floor and slung it over a chair, waiting until they were safely out of the room before asking, “Where’s the van?”
She glanced at me over her glass of milk. “Ramón’s waiting on some parts. He gave you a loaner until they come in.”
My pent-up anxiety slipped out on a long, tired breath. “That was nice of him. So what’s the bad news?” I sat across from her as she pushed a receipt across the table.
“It needs a lot of work.”
I skimmed the invoice. The only surprising thing on it was the bottom line. “Ouch.”
She sucked down the last dregs of her milk and set down her glass with a dispirited sigh, as if she wished she’d dunked her cookies in something stronger. “The good news is that we won’t have any problem paying him.” Vero got up and fished a fat ziplock bag from the freezer. She dropped it on the table with an icy thunk.
The hair on my arms stood on end. “What’s that?” The contents of the bag were rectangular and green, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t frozen spinach.
“I met with Irina. I tried to explain. I told her that we made a mistake—that we didn’t realize who her husband was. I told her the job was too dangerous and we were returning the advance. She thought it was a ploy to renegotiate and get more money out of her since we figured out who Andrei works for and how much he’s worth. So she doubled the amount of the offer and refused to take no for an answer.”
I sank into a chair, the room wobbling. “No. No, no, no, no, no!” I pressed my fingers into my temples and shook my head. Vero’s voice rose over the screams in the back of my mind, that this could not actually be happening.
“I tried, I swear, Finlay! I practically shoved the money in her hand, but she wouldn’t take it. She says she doesn’t care how you do it, but she wants it done. Soon.”
I lowered my voice so the children wouldn’t hear. “Andrei Borovkov is a cold-blooded professional murderer! Have you googled him? He was arrested last year for burning a man alive! Six months ago, he was charged with dismembering some guy in a parking lot and shooting all the witnesses, execution-style. And let’s not forget the three men found with their throats slashed in a warehouse in July!”
“He wasn’t convicted of any of them,” she said defensively. “Maybe he’s not as dangerous as he sounds.”
“He got off because someone mishandled evidence, Vero! Because Feliks Zhirov has cops in his pocket! How the hell am I supposed to kill an enforcer for the mob?”
“I asked Irina the same thing. She said you’ll come up with something. You just need the right motivation.” Vero’s complexion turned a little green, her dry lips speckled with Oreo crumbs.
“And what’s that?” I snapped. “More money?”
“Not exactly.”
She stared numbly at the empty package of Oreos, and a cold dread settled in the pit of my stomach. “What kind of motivation?”
“We take care of her husband in the next two weeks, or…” Vero’s throat bobbed with her hard swallow.
“Or what?”
Her eyes shimmered with fear as they lifted to mine. “Or Irina will tell her husband we stole the money. And then she’ll send him to find us.”