“It’s hard,” she said. “It all happened so quickly.”
“Where were you? Did you get a good look at any faces?”
“They all wore ski masks. Black, except one was brown, I think.”
“Where did it occur?”
“I was leaving the doctor’s office.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Oh? Dr. Manfred?”
“Yeah. How did you know that?”
“Nieves must have mentioned that you see him.”
“Did she? She hates him. But he’s the highest-rated gynecologist in our area.”
“What were you seeing him for?”
She stayed quiet for a moment. Then, “I found a small lump in my breast. He did a breast exam and he thought it was probably normal tissue, but he was going to set me up for a mammogram just to be sure. We never got that far.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was leaving his office, and…” She closed her eyes. A yawn split her face. “Ow!” she cried.
That yawn must have hurt like hell.
Man, I should let her rest. But we came here to find answers, and damn it, I was going to get them.
“You were leaving Dr. Manfred’s office…” I prompted.
She sighed. “Yeah. I didn’t make it to my car. I don’t think I did, anyway. It’s all a blur after that.”
“Can you tell us anything else? We’d really like to help you.”
“That’s kind of you. How do you know my sister again?”
“She and my brother used to date.”
“Oh. What’s your name again?”
“Mike Bush. My brother is Dave.”
“She never mentioned either of you.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“They didn’t have the best breakup. Anything else you remember?”
She didn’t reply. I opened my mouth to prompt her again, when—
“Mike,” Rock said softly.
“Yeah?”
He shook his head and mouthed the words, “no phone.”
Which meant Leta did not make the call from Nieves’s phone.
Someone else did.
22
Rock
“We’re renting a car,” I said.
Reid furrowed his brow. “We agreed to stay under the radar.”
“Do I look like I care? That woman got fucked up after seeing Manny. We’ve got the fake IDs. No one has recognized us so far. We need a car, man. We need to go see Manny. We’ll pay cash.”
Reid sighed. “Fine. You’re probably right. Taking cabs everywhere would only leave more of a trail. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you’re not Derek Wolfe. Or a professional investigator. Or a cop. Neither of us is. But we need to start thinking like them if we plan to solve this mystery.”
My brother nodded. “You’re right.”
I shook my head, repositioning the dumbass Yankees ball cap I wore. “In a million years, I never would have suspected Manny of any of this, but now…”
“Money does weird shit to people,” Reid said. “I’ve seen it time and again.”
“Hoss skates over ethics sometimes, but Manny? This is some crazy shit.” I clenched my hands into fists. “I’m going to fuck both of them up.”
Reid nodded. “Get in line, bro.”
“All those years, I lived here. Never asking for a dime from anyone except what I was owed for my labor. What is it with some people?”
“You’re stronger than most, Rock. Er…Dave,” Reid said.
“Am I?”
“Hell, yeah. You knew what our father was worth, and you turned your back on that life, even when you could have returned to New York when you turned eighteen and made him pay.”
“Could I have?”
Reid paused a moment. “Now that you mention it, probably not. It’s like Riley said. If we’d known what he was doing to her and tried to stop him, he’d have made us pay.”
My stomach cramped. My little sis. I had known what he was doing to her, and rather than return to New York and try to stop it once I was of age, I escaped to Montana to begin a new life. A life free from Derek Wolfe.
It had cost me my lifestyle. It cost Riley much more.
“I know what you’re pondering,” Reid said, “and stop it. Even if you’d tried, it wouldn’t have worked.”
I shook my head. “I still should have tried.”
“Water under the bridge, man. Water under the bridge. All we can do is deal with the situation as it is now.”
“Right on. We’re getting a car, and we’re getting Manny.”
I drove up to Manny’s suburban mansion. Being a doctor paid well, of course. Being a mercenary paid even better.
Fucking Manny. He’d crawled right underneath my asshole radar.
Yeah, I could be wrong. But in my gut I knew I wasn’t. Manny was involved in this. Hoss probably was too. Somehow they were in it with Nieves and Leta.
Fuck my ass.
“You think he’s home?” Reid asked.
“Where the hell else would he be? It’s after nine.”
“He married?”
“Not that I know of.”
“This house screams wife and kids.”
“You’re not wrong. But I don’t see any bicycles or footballs lying around.”
“True enough,” Reid said. “You want to go in alone?”
“Nah. I can use some backup. The first punch is mine, though.”
“Let’s get the info out of him before we start throwing punches. He could be innocent.”