“Um…okay.” Marjorie didn’t meet her brother’s gaze.
“What’s going on here?” Talon asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “In fact, I was just leaving. Good to see you.” I walked quickly out of the kitchen.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Why couldn’t I leave her alone? Or why didn’t she tell me to get lost?
This was going to be an issue. A big issue.
I left the house and checked in quickly with my mom. She and Henry were fine. Then I got into my car, the Mustang that had been my father’s. It was only a year old. My father had purchased it shortly before he died. With cash, I’d found out when I’d processed his estate. The title was in a locked file cabinet.
My father had always handled the bills, and my mother, being an old-school wife, had never questioned where money came from or went.
I hadn’t questioned him either.
How had I been so naïve as to not see him for who he truly was?
I could sell this car. Indeed I’d thought about it. But it was brand-new, gorgeous dark highland green, and loaded.
Paid for by…
Yeah, I was definitely selling it. I was surprised the Feds hadn’t confiscated it, but they couldn’t prove it had been purchased with dirty money.
Maybe it hadn’t been, but I couldn’t take the chance.
So why had I held on to it this long?
Not because I loved the car, though I did love it. I could easily sell it and buy another that I picked myself. Or, more likely, I could take the money and buy something cheaper. Or I could drive my own damned car, which I also loved.
Could I be trying to hold on to something from the father I knew? The man who’d taken Joe and me camping and fishing? The man who had taught me…how to be a man?
For he had. He’d been a good father to me, and somehow I had to reconcile that with what I now knew he’d done to innocent people.
Including Colin Morse.
Including Talon.
I sighed.
I didn’t know why I did half the things I did these days.
In the rearview mirror, I watched Talon get in his truck and take off to the main road to pick up the boys at the bus stop. He wouldn’t be gone long.
I started the engine and looked behind me—
I jolted slightly when the passenger door opened.
Marjorie Steel sat down beside me. “Hey.”
“What are you doing?”
“Nice car.”
“It was my dad’s.”
“I know.”