60
ANSON
Looking over Ruddy’s shoulder, Detective Moss quickly studied the Kid’s small room and the four of us. When Ruddy realized she was standing behind him, his freckled face grew red. He mumbled some excuse and vanished down the hallway with the clipboard.
Detective Moss placed her hand on the edge of the doorframe. “May I come in?”
Paul and Vincent simultaneously responded with, “No,” while the Kid and I told her she could.
Her gaze fell on the Kid, and apparently, she decided it was his room, his call. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her before turning to me. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Father had taught me years ago never to let anger rule my decisions or cloud my thoughts.
He said it was an unproductive heavy fog draped over rational thought, and no good came from acting on it.
I reminded myself of that when I said in the calmest voice I could muster, “I’m thinking you set me up. ”
She didn’t deny it. “I did. And I would do it again. But not without knowing I could ensure your safety.”
Vincent drew closer, his red nostrils flaring. “You painted a target on his back and told some killer where to find him?!”
If she was in any way intimidated by Vincent, she didn’t show it. “You’re assuming they dropped that picture by accident. I don’t think that was the case. I think they left it there for us to find. I think that was their way of telling us Anson’s next.”
“Why would they tell you that?”
“Not me.” She shook her head. “Other people on the force. The wrong sort of people.”
When none of us replied to that, she lowered her voice.
She studied each of our faces. A long moment slipped by before she spoke again, and I didn’t expect what she said next.
“Half the cops I work with are on the Genovese payroll. The other half are scared of the first half. When a clue like this is left out in the open, it’s no accident.
It’s someone sending a message. We want this kid, and there’s a sizable payday in the future for whoever finds him. ”
“If that’s true, it means the killer is working for the mob, too.”
That came from the Kid, and honestly, it surprised me that he came to it so fast. I hadn’t known him well at Finicky’s, but I was quickly realizing he was much smarter than I had assumed. Particularly for his age.
Detective Moss nodded at him. “That may very well be true.”
“Then why would he target Andy or Emily or all the others?” I asked her.
She didn’t have an answer for that and said nothing.
“We’ve got access to a car,” Vincent said. “We’re leaving. This isn’t our fight.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Stash said nobody had to stay if they didn’t want to. We don’t want to.”
“He wasn’t talking to you,” she said flatly. “He was talking to everyone else. If it had been up to me, we would have cleared everyone but the four of you.”
This only made Vincent angrier. “You can’t keep us here.”
“Yet, oddly, I am.” She shifted her weight to her back foot and looked directly at me.
“Look, I don’t think this is just about some roundup so they can line their trafficking coffers.
I think that may be some kind of half-truth, a smokescreen.
I think you’re their real target, Anson.
I think you may even understand why. You don’t trust me enough to share, I get that, but your silence doesn’t make it any less true.
” She gestured at Vincent, Paul, and the Kid.
“I’m curious, have you at least told them?
They’re your friends, right? They deserve to know. ”
I felt their eyes on me, then. All of them.
Vincent drew closer. “Spill it, Bishop.”
I swallowed. “Before coming to Finicky’s, my neighbors stole something from that company I mentioned, Talbot Enterprises.
He worked in their accounting division. He .
. . died . . . and his wife ran off with whatever he stole, along with my mother.
” I didn’t mention Kirby, the man who ran off with them—that would only bring on more questions.
“Stole what?” Vincent pressed.
“Money,” I told him. “A lot of money. Information, too. My neighbor, Mr. Carter, he was an accountant.”
“An accountant for who?” Vincent asked.
Criminals, Father muttered. Isn’t that what Mrs. Carter said? A dozen of them, maybe more. Even a few members of the Genovese family. He helped them hide their money.
“He was an accountant for the mob,” I said softly.
Detective Moss looked me dead in the eyes. “For the Genovese crime family?”
“I think so.”
Vincent ran his hand through his unruly hair. “Jesus, Bishop . . .”
Detective Moss asked, “And your mother and this Carter woman ran off with it?”
I nodded. “They must think I know where they are.”
“Do you?”
I shook my head. “Mother never told me where they were going; she just ran. Her and Mrs. Carter.”
They left you, Champ. That’s what they did. They abandoned you to deal with this mess all alone.
Detective Moss placed her hand on my shoulder. “She hasn’t been in contact with you?”
“No.”
“The baddies don’t know that,” Paul said quietly. “Do you have any idea what people like that will do when they get hold of you?”
“They won’t get to him,” Detective Moss replied. “I won’t let them.”
Vincent let out a huff. “You just said half the cops on your force are on the Genovese payroll. How the hell can you keep him safe?”
“I’ve got this place under complete lockdown with people I trust. Cops I know aren’t dirty.”
“Just so we’re clear,” Paul said, “that’s the half who are scared of the first half?”
“Jesus, you’re an idiot,” Vincent snickered.
“No, he’s right,” Detective Moss said. “It’s a valid point. But fear also keeps them sharp, and they see this as an opportunity to remove the bad members of the force for good. Those people are like a virus; we all want them gone. They won’t get in here.”
Vincent went quiet. Something he rarely did.
His eyes bounced across those of us in the room, but spent the most time on the Kid, and I had a pretty good idea what he was thinking.
We couldn’t move the Kid, not yet, which meant he had to stay here.
If he had to stay, we were all staying; that wasn’t a question.
Vincent might be part Neanderthal, but he was also loyal, protective.
He’d do what he had to do to keep us safe.
I knew he had his .38 tucked into the back of his jeans, and when his hand dropped to his side, I thought he might reach for it, but he did not.
Instead, he took out Paul’s drawing of Meagan from his pocket.
He gave me a quick glance, and when I nodded, he unfolded the sketch on the Kid’s bed in front of the detective.
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
So I told her that part, too. How Meagan was at the house in Simpsonville. How she had taken the photograph of me. The same photograph she’d found on the sidewalk.
What the detective said next surprised me.
“This is good.” Her face lit up, and for the first time, she looked excited. “She doesn’t know about this, right? She doesn’t know that you know?”
I shook my head. “We haven’t told anyone.”
She seemed to consider this for a long time, then said, “Does she have a room here?”