“Because not knowing enough is how I ended up in this fucking position. Not knowing enough is how you ended up not realizing that Zachary tried killing your daughter. So Zachary gets pissed at your daughter, why?”
“He was trying to hide his crimes.”
“Are you telling me the truth or not? I can sit here all night until I hear what I think sounds like the truth.”
“The very truth.”
“And Nate Stewart?”
“I don’t know why Zachary killed him. I think because he found out Nate knows the truth.”
“I see. Because Nate was the one making the falsified information about Ellis, right?”
He looks confused about that.
“The forged documents making Ellis seem like a killer were on Nate’s computer,” I explain.
“Maybe Zachary was trying to set him up. He’s not the one who made them. I hired someone for that.”
“So maybe Nate found out what you were doing?” I ask. If he had the falsified documents on his computer as well as proof that Arthur was paying off Sally, does that mean that Nate wasn’t working with Arthur? Could he have been holding that information against Arthur, which is how he wound up dead? In that case, I would have to believe that Zachary really didn’t kill him. Arthur would have had him killed.
“Nate was a very important man in my company.”
“I see,” I say. “Why did Zachary hide in the first place? If you didn’t know he was the one who tried to kill your daughter, why would he have to hide? You’re telling me Jasmine didn’t know who tried to kill her? Yeah, if it got out she was involved with drugs she’d have gone to prison for a bit, but with your status, I doubt she’d have had long. Probably could have tacked a lot of it onto Zachary.”
“Neither of us knew it was Zachary. I thought it was someone worse. She was convinced it was someone from the cartel and I was afraid they’d come back for her. Hell, they wouldn’t just kill her, they’d destroy my entire company. They’d destroy everything I had built for us. I knew I had to protect her, and the only way that seemed possible was to pretend she was dead. I was afraid they would kill Zachary and were going to hurt his family. I thought I was protecting my child and the family of a friend. And then when he went missing months later? I was sure they’d killed him, and I knew his family needed to be protected. Well, you see where that fucking got me,” he growls.
“So how’d you play it off that Jasmine died?”
“I hired someone to provide a body. Money can get you a long way.”
“You were fine using the body of another woman?”
“She was already dead. Nothing would change that.”
“You’ve gone quite far to protect your child who got into this mess by dealing drugs.”
“Everyone makes mistakes.”
I raise an eyebrow, not quite sure I would consider any of this “mistakes.” He’s a man who’s prepared to turn a blind eye to everything his daughter’s done. “So howdidyou find out, then? That it was Zachary and not some cartel like you thought?”
Arthur is quiet as I realize he’s trying to think of something. He doesn’t want to tell me the truth, which means that something in the story he’s told me so far is likely false. Which part? Did Zachary reach out to him? Was his daughter keeping it a secret? Or was Nate really not killed by Zachary?
There’s a knock on the door. Not a simple knock but an obnoxious one that starts with a few knocks then continues on up until it reaches irritating levels.
“What the fuck?” Arthur snaps. “What the absolute fuck do you need?”
The door swings open and a young woman steps in. “Papa! I need you to stop being such a little dick-faced piece of shit! I’m so glad I took after my mother and don’t look like you.” She stumbles in as Leland continues to push her. “Is what I assume she’d have said if I hadn’t taped her mouth shut. Funny, huh? I’m hilarious. I know. I know.”
Arthur jumps up but there are too many guns pointed at him for him to do much. “How the fuck did you get in here?”
“Let me tell you, but then we’d have to wind it back some years. Dark night, PI scuttling?—”
“Not that far back, dear god,” Micah says.
“Fuck. Fine. Wind it back an hour.”
THIRTY-TWO
