“Except none of us was in on the supposed hit,” I said.
“Right, but we didn’t know that. As far as Nieves knew, the information was good, and she’d intercepted it instead of you, Rock. So we had leverage.”
“Leverage to do what?” Rock demanded.
“Hoss came to me with Nieves and Leta in tow,” Manny said. “They wanted to brainstorm about how we could potentially get a payoff with this info.”
“And where did that brainstorming lead?” I said harshly.
“Nowhere I ever wanted to go.” Manny said. “You’ve got to believe me.”
“Does it really matter what we believe?” I asked. “Actions speak louder than words. Now what the fuck happened?”
“Hoss wanted to contact Derek Wolfe himself, but the three of us were against that.”
“Good choice,” I said.
“Then we talked about going to you.” He met Rock’s gaze.
“You didn’t come to me, though,” Rock said.
“No, we didn’t.”
“Why not? You knew me. Knew where I was. Who I was.”
Manny looked down. “We also knew you didn’t have any money.”
“Ah…” From me. “Not surprising.”
“Hoss took the lead, and we came up with a plan. We’d contact the NYPD with the evidence we had and ask for compensation for the information.”
I laughed this time. “You really thought the NYPD was going to give you money?”
“Hey, it was a good plan. The Helena PD offers rewards for information all the time.”
“New York ain’t Helena,” Rock said.
“Yeah. Well, we found that out. Turned out someone at the NYPD already knew about the hit, or at least they said they did. They weren’t interested in this information, and they basically told us to fuck off.”
“But you didn’t fuck off, did you?” I said.
He shook his head. “I wish we had.”
“Keep talking,” Rock prodded.
“Nieves went back to your place one day while you were at work,” Manny said. “That’s when she took your gun.”
“Why the fuck would she take the gun?” Rock demanded.
“The rest of us didn’t know at the time, but someone had contacted her, asking what kind of guns you had. She didn’t know, so she went to your place. The Glock happened to be out of the safe, and she didn’t know a handgun from a shotgun, so she took it. Then she gave the information to the person who contacted her.”
“Who contacted her?” Rock demanded.
“He didn’t give her a name, but he promised a hundred grand would be sent as soon as the deed was done.”
“And was it?” I asked.
Manny shook his head. “Nope. Never.”
Rock laughed uproariously. “All this shit, and you didn’t even get paid! That’s classic.”
“Question,” I said. “How did Nieves know our father had been killed an hour before it actually happened?”
“The dude she was talking to let her know.”
“And you never bothered to find out who it was?”
“He wouldn’t say. And before you ask, yeah, we’ve looked at Nieves’s phone records. The number changed each time.”
“Burner phones,” I said. “At least he’s not sloppy.”
“The only sloppy assholes are Manny, here, Hoss, and the Romero sisters.”
“Leta came to me later, under the guise of being a patient. She was scared. She wanted out of the whole thing. So did I. But Nieves and Hoss still thought there was money to be made.”
“You wanted out, huh?” Rock shook his head. “Too little too late. I hold all four of you responsible for this. You let information about the hit leak to the NYPD, and my dad had all kinds of moles there. He also probably had people there who hated him and who decided to capitalize on this information. His fake hit turned into a real hit. You set this whole goddamned thing in motion, Manny, and now my wife has been arrested for my asshole father’s murder. I ought to—”
I pushed Rock away from Manny before he brought his foot down on his head.
“We need him. He hasn’t told us everything yet.”
Rock let out a slow breath. “You were supposed to be my friend, you fucked-up psycho.”
Manny said nothing.
“You’ll pay for all of this,” Rock promised. “If I have to go down for murder myself, I swear to God, you’ll pay.”
26
Lacey
Morgan finally left, and I squealed with glee. Literally twirled around in that damned hotel suite giggling. For a moment, the past forty-eight hours disappeared, and I was on top of the world.
We had him. We had Morgan asking for a bribe.
I had no idea where Rock was at the moment. Still en route to the Pacific, and no way could I reach him. Ditto Reid. Texting Riley or Roy this sensitive information wasn’t a good idea either. It would have to wait until morning when I could talk to them in person in a safe place.
Rock had shown me how to access the video and audio from my laptop, so I fired it up to save a hard copy. That had to be done quickly, for once Morgan realized he’d been set up, he’d make the evidence disappear.