by Alex Finlay
They walked for a long while, the sun lowering in the sky, partially hidden by the canopy of trees.
“Is there something else you wanted to talk about?”
Maggie stopped on the trail. Her eyes filled with tears, and then she threw her arms around her mother and started to cry.
“It’s okay, my girl,” Liv said, rubbing Maggie’s back as her daughter’s body shuddered. “You can tell me anything. I’m here. Tell me.”
And she did.
CHAPTER 58
MATT PINE
Upstairs at Pipe Layers, Matt sat on the foot of the bed, his shirt open, the phone pressed to his ear.
“Do they think he’s going to make it?” he asked Keller.
Jessica in all her naked glory had retreated to the bathroom, realizing the call was important, the mood killed.
“I don’t know,” Keller said. “I found out just before the funeral and haven’t gotten to speak to the doctor.”
Matt wasn’t sure what he was feeling. The only sensation that came to mind was numb.
“Do you think it’s related to what happened to my family?” he asked. “Or was it just prison violence?”
“I don’t know. We can talk about this later. I just arrived at the US Attorney’s Office in Lincoln. I’m about to have a meeting with someone who may have some answers.”
“Who?”
“I’ll fill you in afterward. I really need to go.”
Matt didn’t have the energy to push it.
“Are you okay?” Keller said. “When you left the church, everyone was worried.”
“I’m fine, just spending some time with an old friend.”
Jessica reappeared from the bathroom, dressed, a look of concern on her face.
“All right. I’ll call you. Last thing,” Keller said. Her voice was breathy, as if she were walking now. “We know who sent the video tip of the party to your sister.”
Matt gave no reply.
“We tracked the IP address to a computer located at 15 Stone Creek Road. The Wheeler family. Your aunt said you know them.”
Matt looked at Jessica, who was pulling her hair up, staring at him with those large eyes.
“Yeah,” he said, “I do.”
CHAPTER 59
Matt kept his eyes on Jessica. She was slightly disheveled, her face still flushed.
“What?” she said.
He needed to be smart about this. Compartmentalize. Put the funeral, Danny’s attack, out of his mind. One bite at a time.
“That was the FBI.” His tongue was still thick from the booze, but he was sobering up. The adrenaline was like a full pot of coffee. “My brother—he’s been badly beaten.”
“Oh my goodness,” she said. “Is he going to be okay?”
“We’re waiting to hear.”
She sat next to him on the bed.
Matt stood. Buttoned his shirt. Gesturing to the bed with his chin, he said, “I’m sorry about…”
“Another time.” Jessica blushed again.
Matt wasn’t sure there would be another time. And for some reason he was okay with that. For now he needed answers from her. Straightening himself, he walked downstairs to the bar.
He picked up the glasses and napkins and tiny straws they’d knocked on the floor, piling the debris on the bar. He reached over and grabbed the neck of the bottle of bourbon.
Jessica watched him, confusion on her face. “Are you okay?”
Everyone kept asking him that. He tipped back the bottle. It stung his throat, then warmed his insides. “The FBI also figured something out.”
Her eyes lifted to his. “Oh yeah?”
“They know who sent the video of the party to my sister.”
Jessica’s eyes didn’t leave his. Eventually she looked away. Her expression, what was it? Guilt? Worry? No, resignation.
“Why?” Matt said.
The word hung there forever.
Finally: “You know how long I thought about you?” Jessica said.
“Why?” Matt said again, ignoring her question.
“Everything changed that night,” she said. “My life was ruined.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. And it was pretty rich saying that to Matt, of all people.
“Ricky was never the same. I knew something had happened with Charlotte. I knew it. Then he crashed his car into that tree, and I’ve been having to care for him ever since.”
She’d previously made her brother’s crash sound like an accident, but she was suggesting something else now.
“What are you saying?”
“I always had a feeling something had happened that night. After you walked me home from the Knoll, I saw Ricky. I told you that.” Her voice quavered. “He was shit-faced, fighting with his date. After that night, Ricky became withdrawn, depressed. Then he tried to kill himself. I wanted to ask him, but he gets confused now.”
Matt still wasn’t following, but let her continue.
“Then, last month, Ricky was at the bar the night news broke about the Supreme Court denying your brother’s case. People were giving toasts and buying rounds. After closing, he was trashed, and started crying uncontrollably. He wouldn’t tell me why. He just kept saying ‘they smashed her face, they smashed her face, they didn’t need to smash her face.’”
Matt’s heart tripped at that.
“He was watching a video on his phone, mumbling,” she said. “It was right before your eyes. Everyone’s. And all anyone could focus on was Ricky’s profile in the video as if he was the Unknown Partygoer, a person who doesn’t even exist. They made him up.”
The picture still wasn’t coming together. She seemed to be suggesting that Ricky was involved in Charlotte’s death. That there was something in that video everyone was missing.
Tears were spilling from Jessica’s eyes. She was having a hard time catching her breath.
Matt went to her, rested his hands on her shoulders. “Deep breaths,” he said, demonstrating by inhaling loudly through his nose, out through his mouth.
When she seemed to be breathing regularly again, she said, “Ricky gets confused, so I wasn’t sure. He kept saying you didn’t see what you thought you saw that night. And he kept watching the video on his phone. When he passed out later, I searched his phone and found the video.”
“What are you saying, Jessica?” Matt said. “That I saw Ricky pushing the wheelbarrow that night, that he saw me? Is that what he told you?” Matt’s mind jumped to seven years ago. The figure stopping, head turning right at Matt as if making eye contact. Ricky was on the football team and wore a letterman jacket, but Matt had seen the name PINE on the jacket. He was sure of it. But he’d never told anyone about seeing something that night, so Ricky had to have been there.
“You’re not listening,” Jessica said.
Either it was the alcohol—in Matt’s system or Jessica’s—but she wasn’t making sense.
“Not Ricky,” she said.
“Then who? Who, Jessica?” She said Ricky was with a date that night, but it wasn’t making any sense.
Jessica had her phone in her hand. The first frame of the video of the party. “I didn’t know if he was confused, if he was imagining it. I sent the video to the Free Danny Pine site, knowing you’d see it. If what Ricky was saying was true—if you really saw them that night—you’d understand the video.”
She ran her finger across the phone and the scene of the boys chugging beers popped up, Danny in his undershirt surrounded by boys in letterman jackets, the mystery man’s profile—no, Ricky’s profile—on the fringes of the frame.
That’s when Matt saw it, and it nearly leveled him.
He turned and ran out the door.
CHAPTER 60
SARAH KELLER
Keller scrutinized the man in the conference room of the US Attorney’s Office in Lincoln. Next to the man was a lawyer. She had curly hair and an air of confidence.
The lawyer looked at Keller, then at Trey Barnes, the prosecutor
heading the case against Neal Flanagan, the former governor’s henchman. “So now you want to hear what he has to say?” the lawyer asked. “What’s changed?”
“I’m not sure anything has. But the FBI asked for a sit-down”—the prosecutor gestured to Keller—“so here we are.”
“He’s got plenty to say. But I need a commitment. Time served.”
The prosecutor guffawed. “Sylvia, there’d be a lynch mob outside my office. Some of the girls were fourteen years old.”
Flanagan chimed in: “I didn’t know—”
“Shut up,” the lawyer said to her client, not looking at him. To the prosecutor, she said, “They’ll understand that you did what you had to do. This’ll be the biggest case of your career.” She looked at Keller. “Both your careers.”
“You keep saying that,” the prosecutor said, “but I need more than the fairy tales you’ve been floating. I’m not going to ruin the reputation of good people without some corroboration.”
“I’m sorry,” Keller said. “I’m late to the party. I have no idea what either of you are talking about. How about we go off the record, a proffer, let me ask a few questions, and then you all can see if there’s a deal to be made?”
Flanagan’s lawyer crossed her arms, then nodded reluctantly. The prosecutor gestured for Keller to ask her questions.
Keller leaned in, looked at Flanagan. “I need to know why you visited Daniel Pine in prison.”
Flanagan smirked.
The indictment said he’d cultivated a troupe of young girls—runaways, wannabe models, lost souls—and held parties for rich and powerful benefactors who funded his lavish lifestyle. He was, in short, a pimp for sycophants and pedophiles. One of his patrons had been the governor of Nebraska, who’d been forced to resign when one of the girls had the foresight to secretly videotape their encounters, then sold the tape and tales of debauchery to a tabloid. The Nebraska FBI field office soon uncovered the full sinister conspiracy. The hub of the wheel in the entire mess was Neal Flanagan.
The vile man finally spoke. “In addition to my, ah, parties, I used to do other work for the governor.”
“What kind of work?”
“You know, special projects. Digging up dirt on political rivals, finding doctors with lax prescribing standards, keeping people quiet who needed to be quiet, stuff like that.”
“You’re a fixer,” Keller said.
The man made a face, but he didn’t deny it.
“So, anyhow, a reporter on Turner’s payroll tipped him off that she heard someone had something on him—something big—but she didn’t know what. And Turner, he’d been in office forever, so he had no idea what it might be.” Flanagan chuckled. “I mean, he’s so dirty, it could’ve been anything. But he had a bad feeling that the jig was up, that he needed to cash out, so he started looking for everything he had of value. And he decided to try to sell some pardons, so he had me make the rounds. Anybody who’d filed a pardon application who might have access to cash. Pine was on the list.”
“You offered to get him a pardon for a payoff?”
Flanagan nodded.
“He’s in prison. Why would you think he’d have any money?”
“He had the support of a lot of wealthy people, book offers, so it was worth a shot.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He said the same thing you did: he ain’t got the money.”
Keller looked at him, waited for him to go on.
“I thought that was it, you know. We had other things in the fire, selling some legislative bills to lobbyists and whatnot, trying to get Turner his retirement fund.”
“But…”
“Then I get a call. My encrypted business line I only give out to select people. You had to be in the know to get it.” The guy sounded almost proud of all this.
Keller bit the inside of her cheek as he went on.
“So I get this call, and the guy—he won’t tell me who he is, but I think I know—says he wants to be connected to someone who does wet work.”
“A contract killer?” Keller asked.
“Yeah. I said I don’t do that stuff. I’m a businessman. But for a fee I might be able to liaise. Friend-of-a-friend kind of thing.”
The man was sleazy, but he made the job sound almost corporate. Keller was literally on the edge of her seat. She wanted to shake the guy to get to the point. But she had a sinking feeling she knew the trajectory of this story. That the person who called Flanagan hired a pro to kill Evan Pine. That Maggie had gotten a photo of the hitman, so he killed them all and staged the scene to look like an accidental gas leak. That he went after Matt to retrieve the photo.
“Let’s get this straight,” Keller said. “You get a call out of the blue asking you to connect someone with a contract killer and you just say, ‘Okay, no problem’?”
Flanagan gave a one-shouldered shrug. “The caller knew things about my business.”
“And you connected him with a contractor,” the prosecutor chimed in, as if trying to speed things along. “A hitter no one seems to be able to verify even exists.”
Keller was realizing why this story hadn’t gone anywhere. The AUSA thought Flanagan was full of shit. And why wouldn’t he? Flanagan was desperate, and the story crazy.
“I was just the go-between. I had no idea the man was gonna…”
The prosecutor waved him quiet. “We get it. You were a choirboy.”
“So the contractor—I’ve never met him, just heard of him by rep—he doesn’t talk directly with clients. He told me to get one hundred K and the name and photo.”
“How did you reach him?” Keller asked. “And what do you mean you’d heard of him by rep? What had you heard?”
“If you’re in my line of work, you hear stuff. The contractor, he had a rep as someone who did clean work, specialized in making things look like an accident.”
“Did he have a name?”
“No, people just called him the Lip.”
Keller felt goose bumps crawl up her arms. She thought of Maggie’s photo of the man with the cleft lip scar.
“The caller drops the money, plus my cut, at a locker in the statehouse. And I take the cash and envelope to another drop for the Lip.”
“Why not just wire funds or send encrypted files?”
“Because that’s not how he wanted to do it,” Flanagan said, as if it were the dumbest question he’d ever heard. Keller presumed that cash, paper, was the only way to ensure no digital footprints. The hit man was old-school.
“But, you know, I’m a curious type,” Flanagan said.
Keller understood. The weasel not only hid to see who dropped off the envelope at the statehouse, he looked inside. No honor among thieves. “Who was the mark?”
“That guy on the news. From the TV show. Evan Pine.”
“Who hired the Lip?” Keller said, tired of Flanagan holding her in suspense.
The lawyer put a hand on her client’s arm, stopping him from responding. “He gets time served,” she said to the AUSA.
Flanagan offered a greasy smile that Keller wanted to smash in with her fist. The prosecutor looked at Keller. He must’ve been able to tell from her demeanor that Flanagan had said something that resonated. The Lip. It corroborated his story, connecting the man with the cleft lip scar Maggie had photographed. It wasn’t a coincidence. Flanagan was telling the truth.
“Make the deal,” Keller said.
“This is above my pay grade,” the prosecutor said. “I’ll be back.” He stepped out of the conference room.
When he returned fifteen minutes later, he looked at Flanagan’s lawyer and nodded.
The lawyer looked at her disgusting client and said, “Tell her.”
CHAPTER 61
EVAN PINE
BEFORE
“I’m tired, Daddy,” Tommy said.
It was only six o’clock, but Evan supposed it had been a long day. The sun and heat—all the walking—took it out of you. Tommy looked flushed, and hadn�
�t finished the dinner Evan had made him when Liv and Maggie went out for a long walk. It wasn’t like him to leave any mac and cheese behind. Liv constantly forced bottled water on them all, so he didn’t think Tommy was dehydrated. The half-empty bottle was next to Tommy’s plate.
Evan put his hand on his son’s forehead. A little warm. Probably nothing to worry about, but ever since the appendix scare, Evan never took routine symptoms for granted. Tonight, though, it seemed like simple fatigue. Hell, Evan could curl up and go to bed right now himself.
“Let’s get you to bed, kiddo,” Evan said. Tommy was already nodding off right at the table. Evan carried him to his room. He dug out Tommy’s pj’s from the suitcase, then lowered him to the bed.
“Arms up,” Evan said.
His son lifted his arms, which were noodles. Evan tugged off Tommy’s shirt. He gently slipped the pajama top over Tommy’s head.
Tommy flopped on his back and Evan repeated the maneuver with the bottoms. Evan tucked him under the covers, positioned Sweet Bear next to him.
Evan gazed at his son. The rise and fall of his tiny chest. His handsome face. He kissed him on the head and clicked off the light.
Back in the living room, Liv and Maggie had returned from their walk. They seemed somber, subdued.
“Everything okay?”
Liv looked at Maggie. “Yeah. We’re just tired—right, Mags?”
His daughter gave Liv an admiring look. Like they shared a secret and it was just for them. “Yeah, just tired,” Maggie said.
“There’s some mac and cheese or leftover spaghetti,” Evan said. “Or I can make you something?”
“I’m not hungry,” Liv said. “Too much food on this vacation.” She retrieved a bottle of water from the refrigerator and took a drink.
“Maybe later,” Maggie said. She also took a bottle of water, then went to the bedroom.
Alone with Liv, Evan said, “You sure everything’s okay?”
