“Or?” she whispered.
The giant smiled, baring his teeth like an animal about to strike its prey. “Or I’ll make sure that the only thing Paulie bets on is how long he’ll be slurping up his meals through a straw. Trust me when I tell you that it will be a long, long time.”
His threat delivered, Bart jerked his head at his two goons, who’d remained silent through the whole confrontation. Together, the three of them left Isabelle and Paul and headed for my end of the porch. There wasn’t time for me to slip inside the house, so I stepped around the corner, pretending I’d come in search of Isabelle.
“Oh. There you are,” I called out, waving to her. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Mrs. Vargas.”
Bart stopped right in front of me, giving me a quick once-over. Recognition dawned in his eyes. “Hey, it’s the guy in the cheap suit again.”
“Yeah. That’s me.”
The giant stepped even closer to me and bent down, so that his face was right next to mine. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t eavesdrop, Mr. Cheap Suit. It might be hazardous to your health.”
My hand slipped into my coat pocket and curled around the gun there, ready to shoot him if he came at me. “Thanks for the tip,” I drawled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The giant didn’t appreciate my snarky tone, and he stared me down, trying to intimidate me the same way he had Paul, but I looked right back at him. I’d faced far worse things than Bart the Butcher, my own mother being one of them.
After several tense seconds, Bart reached out, plucked a small piece of lint off my trench coat, and casually flicked it away, a clear message that he could do the same thing to me. My gaze dropped to the gold rings on his hand, and he drew back and waggled his fingers at me in a mocking motion.
“Well, at least your coat is nicer than your suit—and your manners,” Bart rumbled. “You take care now, Mr. Cheap Suit.”
The giant deliberately drove his shoulder into mine, almost knocking me down with his enormous strength. His two goons grinned and moved past me. The three of them thumped down the front-porch steps and crossed the yard, heading toward their SUV at the far end of the street.
They’d be back tonight, though, just like Bart the Butcher had promised.
Inside the house, the mourners kept eating, drinking, and talking, oblivious to the drama out on the porch. Isabelle, Paul, and I watched the black SUV turn around in the cul-de-sac before driving back down the street and disappearing from sight.
Isabelle let out a tense breath and wrapped her arms around herself, but she couldn’t hold back the frightened shudder that rippled through her body.
Paul turned to her. “Izzy, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but if I can just bet on the games this weekend, I promise you I can win back Peter’s money—”
She whipped around and slammed her palm into his chest, knocking him away from her. “Get out of my sight,” she growled. “Right now. Before I call Wilcox back and tell him to go ahead and beat your miserable, lying ass.”
“But Izzy—” he started again, still pleading with her.
“Get out!” she hissed, shoving him with both hands now. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”
Paul stumbled away from her, but he still didn’t leave. “But I’m your family. I promised Peter that I would watch out for you and little Leo if anything ever happened to him—”
Isabelle stabbed her finger at him. “You are not my family. Not anymore. You are a degenerate gambler who refuses to get help. It makes me sick to think of all the time, energy, and money Peter spent paying off your debts and sending you to rehab over and over again, when it’s obvious that you just don’t want to get better. He was a good man that way, always putting other people before himself. Well, guess what? I’m not as good as he was, and I’m not going to let you drag my son and me down with you. I’ll pay off as much of your debt to Wilcox as I can, since that’s what Peter would have wanted. But you’re on your own from this moment on. And don’t you ever come back here again. Do you understand me?”
Paul looked at her with a dumbfounded expression.
“Do you understand me?” Isabelle hissed again.
“Yeah, I understand you, all right.” The giant’s face hardened into an ugly sneer. “You always were an uppity bitch who thought she was better than everyone else. I never understood what Peter saw in you anyway—”
I stepped up, took hold of the giant’s left ear, and yanked it back and down as hard as I could. Paul yelped with pain, but I had pulled him off balance, and he couldn’t break my tight, bruising grip without causing himself even more pain, something he was too much of a wimp to do.
“The lady asked you to leave,” I said. “I suggest you do that. Right now. Before I beat Wilcox to the punch and start hitting you myself.”
I let go of his ear and shoved him away. Paul gave me a murderous look, as if he was thinking about taking a swing at me, but I stared him down the same way I had Wilcox. After a few seconds, when he realized that I wasn’t intimidated by his tall, giant frame, he straightened up and pulled down his suit jacket.
“Fine,” he muttered. “I’m done here anyway.”
He glared at Isabelle and me a final time, whirled around, and stomped down the porch steps and to the bottom of the lawn. He fired up an old, rusty pickup truck and peeled away from the curb as fast as he could, making his bald tires screech in protest.
“Good riddance,” I muttered, and turned to Isabelle. “Are you okay?”
She stared at me like I’d just said the stupidest thing ever. Maybe I had.
“Look,” I said. “I heard what Wilcox said about you paying off Paul’s gambling debts, and I know that you don’t want to lose your house or the life-insurance money. I can help you with this, with all of it. All you have to do is trust me.”
Isabelle laughed, but it was a harsh, bitter sound. “Like Peter trusted you? Like all the other guards who were murdered trusted you? Peter told me all about you and how happy you were that your long-lost mother was back in town. He thought she was a little too good to be true. So did everyone else at the bank, but since it was your mom and they all thought you were such a great guy, they let it slide. Peter trusted you, Finnegan Lane, and what did he get in return? A bullet in the head. So forgive me if I’m not in a hurry to make the same mistake my husband did.”
Every word she said was like a dagger to my heart, but I forced myself to push aside my guilt and shame and focus on her.
“I’m sorry for what happened to Peter and all the other guards,” I said. “Sorrier than you will ever know. And you’re absolutely right. It was my fault, my mistake, and I have to live with that for the rest of my life. But I can help you now. Please, please, let me help you.”
She looked at me, fresh tears shining in her eyes, her face pinched tight with worry, fear, and dread. For a moment, she seemed to be wavering, but her lips pressed together into a hard, thin line, and she shook her head.
“Forget it,” she snapped. “I don’t need your help. More important, I don’t want your help. I can take care of myself and my son. Right now, I have guests to see to. I’m sure you can find your own way out.”
Isabelle gave me one more angry look, then stormed around the corner of the porch, yanked open the front door, and went back inside her house full of mourners.
5
I watched through the windows as Isabelle smoothed her angry expression and moved through the crowd of mourners, politely nodding and graciously accepting their condolences. I didn’t actually go inside the house, though. Isabelle was dealing with enough right now without being reminded that I was still here.
Instead, I stood out on the porch and replayed our conversation in my mind, along with everything I’d heard her and Paul say to Bart Wilcox and his goons.
Isabelle didn’t want my help. Fine. I could understand that, and I
probably would have done and said the exact same things if I’d been in her shoes. I wouldn’t have been half as nice about telling me to get lost as she had been.
But she was going to get my help anyway.
Her husband was dead because of me, and her brother-in-law was a whiny, petulant loser who’d gotten her into this mess. For a moment, I thought about tracking down Paul Vargas and making good on my threat to kick his ass. It would serve him right, and it might even make me feel better.
Maybe later. Right now, I had a bigger, badder giant to worry about: Bart the Butcher.
He’d be back tonight, just like he’d told Isabelle, and he wouldn’t be happy with any money she might be able to scrape together in the meantime. Paul wasn’t coming back to settle up his debt, which left only Isabelle and Leo for Bart to take out his wrath on. The mother and son had already suffered enough, and I wasn’t letting the low-life bookie lay so much as a finger on either one of them.
While the mourners stayed inside and tried to offer what comfort they could to Isabelle, I went down the porch steps and walked around the perimeter of the house, looking at everything from the toys in the front yard, to the tire swing in the maple tree next to the garage, to the woods that flanked the back of the house.
The family didn’t have a dog, which was good. Dogs made noise, which was something I’d want to avoid later on tonight. Even better, the subdivision was so new that the Vargas house was the only one that was lived in, which meant there wouldn’t be any nosy neighbors peeking out their windows, wondering what I was up to.
Once I’d finished my scan, I slipped into the garage, since the door was still up. It was your typical space, with two cars sitting side by side and plastic boxes full of old clothes, tools, holiday decorations, and other odds and ends lining the walls. I tried the door that led into the house. Unlocked. I bet it was always unlocked, since most folks would only bother to secure the garage door, thinking that was enough to keep them safe.
But it wouldn’t be enough, not when Bart the Butcher was involved.
That was okay, though. Because I was going to make sure that the giant bookie never bothered Isabelle and her son again.
I’d started to head back outside, but the knob twisted, and the door creaked open behind me. Stuart Mosley stepped out into the garage and shut the door behind him.
“Yes, sir?” I asked.
Mosley crossed his arms over his chest. “I saw you lurking around outside. Are you actually going to come into the house and pay your respects to Mrs. Vargas? Or are you going to hide out here in the garage the whole time?”
I grimaced. “I spoke to Isabelle on the front porch earlier. She made it quite clear that she doesn’t want me to set one foot inside her house. Trust me, she doesn’t want me here, and neither does anyone else.”
“True,” Mosley said. “But you need to be here. You needed to see this, Finn. Every single second of it.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face, trying to get rid of the sudden ache shooting through my temples. “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, you don’t have to. Believe me, I have plenty of guilt all on my own. Shame, embarrassment, self-loathing. I am chock full of every bad emotion there is.”
My boss stared at me, his hazel eyes sharp and bright in his lined face, but I couldn’t tell what he was really thinking. Mosley had a better poker face than anyone I’d ever met, including Gin and my dad. Despite all the days that had passed since the bank robbery, I still expected him to start yelling at me at any second—before he fired me, beat me to a bloody pulp, and then personally dragged me through the lobby and threw me out of his beloved bank. Instead, Mosley just kept staring at me, his face a perfectly blank mask, keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself.
“Well, if you’ve already paid your respects to Mrs. Vargas, I suppose you can leave now,” he finally said. “Although I expect you back at the bank later tonight. I still have some safety-deposit boxes to sort through that you can help me with. We’ll be working until they’re all finished tonight, no matter how long it takes.”
It wasn’t a request, and I nodded at him. “Yes, sir. I’ll be there.”
Mosley stared at me a moment longer, then went back inside the house, shutting the door behind him and leaving me alone in the garage with my guilt.
I finished my inspection of the house and the surrounding area, got into my car, and left. But I didn’t go to the bank, to the Pork Pit, or even to my apartment. For an hour or two, at least, I wanted to go someplace that wouldn’t remind me of Deirdre, how badly she’d fooled me, and how many people were dead because of my mistakes.
So I drove to a nearby coffee shop to check my messages and kill some time. Gin and Bria had both texted me, asking how the funeral had gone. I texted them back, saying that I was still at the Vargas house and would get in touch with them later. I got a cup of coffee, even though it wasn’t the strong chicory brew I loved, and made myself choke it down, along with a piece of hard, dry blueberry pound cake. I didn’t feel like eating, and it all tasted like ash, just like Gin’s hearty barbecue lunch earlier, but I needed to stay alert and keep my strength up for what was coming tonight.
After I polished off my coffee, I was too restless to sit in the shop, so I got into my car and drove back to Blue Ridge Cemetery. The workers had finished putting Peter’s casket into the ground, and all that remained were the red and white roses strewn across the cold earth. Soon they too would wither and die.
The thought depressed me, but I stayed by Peter’s grave for several minutes, silently paying my respects again and thinking about what I was going to do tonight. My plan was simple, really: make sure that Bart the Butcher got the message to leave Isabelle alone for good.
By any means necessary.
Once I’d finished at Peter’s grave, I went over to another one—my dad’s.
Fletcher Lane flowed across the tombstone, along with the dates of his birth and death. It was a plain, simple marker, far smaller than some of the massive angels, spires, and ornate slabs of stone that rose up from many other graves. The only thing that was remarkable about it was that Gin’s tombstone was right next to it, featuring her spider rune, along with the date of her supposed death earlier this year. The thought of how Gin had suckered Madeline Monroe into thinking she was dead brought a ghost of a smile to my face, but it quickly faded, and I focused on Dad’s tombstone again.
A small jar of barbecue sauce perched on top of the marker, telling me that Gin had been here recently, whispering her secrets to Dad and any other ghost who would listen. I reached out, swiped the glass container off the stone, and slid it into my coat pocket. She always brought a jar of sauce and left it for the old man, and I always took it, just to make her think that Dad was getting her presents in the great beyond. It was a silly tradition on my part, but I thought the illusion made Gin feel just a little bit better, like Dad wasn’t completely lost to her. That made me smile too, but the expression quickly slipped from my face again.
My gaze went past Dad’s tombstone and up the hill to where Deirdre was buried. For years, her casket had been empty, although Dad had let everyone, including me, think that she was dead and resting in peace up there. He’d even brought me to the cemetery a few times when I was a kid to put flowers on her grave, never once letting on that she wasn’t actually in there.
Well, she was definitely buried there now, thanks to me.
I’d put three bullets in my mother to save Gin, including a kill shot right through her ice-cold heart. After the coroner had released Deirdre’s body, Gin had asked if I’d wanted to have a service for her, but I’d said no. At that point, I’d just wanted my mother to be dead and buried for real—forever. I just wanted to be done with Deirdre fucking Shaw and all the lies she’d told, once and for all.
Easier said than done.
I pushed away my turbulent thoughts, crouched down, and focused o
n Dad’s tombstone again.
“Well,” I said, “I’m sure you know everything that’s happened. How much I fucked up. Everyone else certainly does.”
Of course, Dad didn’t answer me. But for the first time in days, no one was hovering around, no Gin pushing food at me or Bria giving me sympathetic looks. No one was trying to make sure that I was okay, and I felt I could breathe just a little bit easier than before. Or maybe that was just because no one was around to glare at me with accusing, tear-filled eyes, letting me know that I was the cause of all their pain, misery, and heartache.
“I know you’re disappointed in me,” I said, plucking a blade of brown grass out of the ground and twirling it around in my hand. “That I didn’t take Gin’s warning—your warning—about Deirdre to heart. That I didn’t listen to Gin when she told me about that letter you’d left for her. I should have listened to her and to you too. I will always regret that. I just wish you had told Gin to give me that other letter as soon as Deirdre came to town. The one you wrote to me. But you were hoping that Deirdre had changed, weren’t you? You wanted me to give her a chance. Now people are dead because of your hope and my foolishness. And there’s nothing I can do to change that. There’s nothing I can do to fix it.”
The emotions rose in me again, as cold, bitter, and caustic as ever. The guilt, the shame, the crushing disappointment at the fact that Deirdre had just been using me the whole time. My chest tightened, and my lungs felt like two chunks of elemental Ice in my chest, as though they had been flash-frozen by my mother’s magic. But I closed my eyes and forced myself to take in slow, deep breaths, riding the wave of emotions until they had subsided to a more manageable level.
I opened my eyes and stared at Dad’s tombstone. “But most of all, I wish you were still here so I could tell you how sorry I am. For not appreciating you more when you were alive. For not realizing how much you always looked out for me, protected me, loved me. I am the man I am today because of you, and I will always be grateful for that, my mistakes and all.”
Unwanted (Elemental Assassin) Page 4
