Chapter Forty-Seven
Quinn sits in the car watching the house.
After darting out of the apartment in the middle of the night, he’s starting to realize Holly is right, he’s obsessed.
What will he say if she notices he slipped out?
And what does he expect to gain from skulking outside Kenny Pearl’s house?
He’s already dug into every facet of Kenny Pearl’s life.
He’s talked to the man’s neighbors, Mom’s work friends at the plant, searched public records.
He’s confronted Pearl himself, once as he left the factory, another time at a sports bar, another time outside his home, another time when Pearl was on a date.
Pearl talked with Quinn at first, but shut things down after that last encounter.
That’s when he called Quinn’s office. Threatened to involve the police, get a restraining order.
Quinn’s jerked out of the thoughts by the bang on the driver’s side window to the car. An electric current travels through him at the sight of Kenny Pearl in the street gripping a baseball bat.
Quinn rolls down the window, forcing himself to take deep, slow breaths to keep calm.
“This needs to stop!” Pearl says, his voice tinged with anger and perhaps fear.
“I just need to know what—”
“Enough!” Pearl says, squeezing the bat so tight his hand is white. “I liked your mom, I respected your mom, but you’ve crossed the line.”
Quinn steps out of the car. Kenny Pearl backs away, still ready with the bat.
“You’re just like your father.”
A fire rages through Quinn at that. “Keep my dad’s name out of your—”
“You think he was so perfect. But I know the truth.”
Quinn’s heart is banging hard now. “What are you fucking talking about?”
Kenny Pearl shakes his head. “You don’t know?” He guffaws.
Quinn is dumbfounded at the turn.
Pearl continues: “I had nothing to do with what happened to your mom. Nobody would ever want to hurt her. But your dad? Oh, he had enemies.”
Quinn steps toward Pearl. He’s not sure he can contain the fury, not sure he’ll be able to stop himself from snatching that bat out of Pearl’s hand and beating him with it.
But then Pearl says something that sends Quinn’s world off-kilter. “You want to go off on some quest to find imaginary murderers, fine, but leave me the hell out of it. Talk to Megan Tucker’s family—they’re the only ones with a beef with the Rileys.”
Megan. The name in his mother’s file.
Shadows of Kenny Pearl’s neighbors are appearing on porches now. Quinn hears a siren in the distance.
“Get out of here. And don’t ever come back.”