Chapter 29 – Finn – The Truth I Paid For #2
He blinked, licked his lower lip, which was definitely a nervous tell. “Don’t get sentimental, boy. Your stepmother came to me because she wanted a fresh start. Richard’s a big catch. Some women fish. Some dynamite the pond.”
“And the motive?” I asked, though I knew it; I wanted him to say it so I could use it.
He tipped his head, whistled a tuneless bar.
“Money. Status. The right last name on the right invitations. And, if you want the story she’d tell, love.
Poor Eleanor. You’d think she’d learn the lesson: chemicals kill, after it killed her first husband.
Instead, she learned the other one: chemicals work.
” He laughed again, breath hot and rotten.
“She’s efficient, though. I like efficient women. ”
My mother on the path, ponytail bouncing.
My mother on a slab, toe-tagged. In my mind, the two images tried to fuse but they didn’t.
There was a gap nothing could bridge. I wanted to put my fist through his teeth and then through the wall and then through time, but violence in that moment would’ve been an indulgence.
I filed his words under exhibit A: his mouth, and made a second file for exhibit B: his cowardice.
“I need proof,” I said. “Or you’re just a drunk trying on importance.”
He smirked, pleased to be necessary. “You’re sitting in it, kid.
Cash transfers, off the books. I never put my own name on anything that matters, but I keep a memory of kindnesses owed.
You think I’ve stayed alive this long because I’m pretty?
” He tapped his temple. “Dates. Places. People in the room. If you want a document, well…” He leaned in, conspiratorial.
“Talk to your computer boy. The gallery accounts? They bled money at just the right time. Fancy people call it an install. I call it the price of a ghost.”
He finished the drink, set the glass down with a click that made my molars ache. Then, he patted the inside pocket of his jacket like he was that asshole in a movie with a tape labeled INSURANCE. I logged the gesture. I would take that jacket off him later, one way or another.
“Why tell me?” I asked. “You could keep bleeding her. Keep calling. Keep collecting.”
“Because your calls pay faster,” he said, easy. “And because I was curious what kind of man you are. Your father’s the type who cries quietly in good suits. You, though?” He looked me over. “You make things stop moving.”
He stood, wobbling, and smiled like we’d had a lovely evening. “Pleasure doing business, Mr. Wagner. Tell your stepmother I said hi. Or don’t. Surprises are better, anyway.”
He swayed toward the door, whistling off-key. I watched him go with my hands folded. I waited a count of thirty. Then, I rose.
Outside, the parking lot was half asphalt, half oil slick. The neon sign buzzed like it was holding onto dear life. Waren patted his pockets, found his keys, and the laugh hadn’t left his mouth. He thought he was untouchable because he’d told the truth and still had his legs under him.
I lit a cigarette I wouldn’t finish and thumbed my phone with my free hand. The voice on the other end belonged to a man who only existed when I said his name.
“Make it look like an accident,” I said. “Tonight.”
No questions. That’s why he earned what he earned. I flicked the cigarette into the dark, watched the ember travel like a tiny meteor and then go out.
Waren got into his car. The engine coughed to life. He reversed crooked and pulled onto the road probably still whistling. It was the last song he ever finished. He deserved worse, but I wasn’t in the philanthropy business.
I didn’t smile. I didn’t look away. I stood there until the taillights vanished and the night put its mask back on.
Back at the motel I sat on the bed and breathed through the bile. I texted Eric: We’re done with him. Pull every wire in Rhode Island. I want Eleanor’s origin story threaded and labeled by morning.
He called. “Define every wire.”
“Where she worked before she married him. Who introduced her to the gallery world. Who she fucked. Who she tipped. Who she threatened. I want managers, owners, bartenders, old roommates who hate her because she stole their shampoo in 2008. Find me the bar.”
He was quiet for a beat. Then: “You’re thinking of the story she told about Providence. The temp job at the gallery that turned into magic.”
“I’m thinking of the drunk who told me my mother died because a housekeeper giggled,” I said, rubbing my eyes hard enough to make stars. “She learned the trick there. People don’t invent ruthlessness in suburbia. They import it.”
Eric exhaled. “I’ll get Jim to knock on the right doors. Digitally.”
“Get him to stand in a room too,” I said. “I want faces. Not just metadata.”
“You’re asking my hermit hacker to leave his lair.”
“Tell him I’ll pay double.”
“He’ll ask triple.”
“Then tell him I’ll introduce him to a human woman who knows what sunlight is.”
Eric laughed. “Now you’re promising miracles.”
I was gone a week. That’s what I did with it. I hunted the ghost that killed my mother, pinned it to a ledger, and laid the first match at Eleanor’s feet.
Rhode Island smelled like damp brick and cheap coffee.
The train rattled me there, but I’d been there before— years back, trailing after Dad when he thought he could teach me something about “the business of art.” That was before I realized art was just another kind of money-laundering for people who wanted to pretend they had taste.
The place hadn’t changed. It was still a town where ambition wore too much lipstick and desperation hid in every alley.
Eric slid into step beside me, smooth as ever, the kind of man who could charm the last drink out of a dying man’s hand.
Jim lagged behind, hoodie up, tapping his iPad like it was an emotional support animal.
He muttered about hating daylight and germs, but he was there because I paid him enough to shut up and because he liked being close to the fire, even if he pretended he didn’t.
“You sure about this dive?” Eric asked, tilting his chin at the bar ahead of us. Dory’s. Peeling paint, neon beer sign, a door that stuck like it was hiding something inside.
“This was her nest,” I said. “Where she sharpened her teeth.”
Jim groaned. “God, I hate it when you get poetic. Just say she worked here like a normal psycho.”
I didn’t answer. Because he was wrong. She hadn’t just worked there. She’d built something there. A persona. A ladder. And every rung on it had been carved out of someone else’s spine.
Inside, the bar looked exactly like it should: sticky floors, cracked vinyl booths, the smell of old lemon cleaner fighting a losing war against years of spilled beer.
The woman behind the counter was cunning, late fifties maybe, with the look of someone who’d seen too much to be impressed.
Selena, according to Jim’s payroll records.
“Beer or questions?” she said as we slid onto stools. “You can’t have both.”
“Questions,” I answered. “Money after.”
“Money before,” Selena shot back, palm out.
I peeled off enough bills to make honesty sport instead of charity. She tucked it into her apron and leaned on the counter like she was settling in for a show.
“Eleanor worked here,” I said.
“Everybody worked here,” Selena replied. “Some left with dignity. She left with a man’s last name.”
Eric chuckled softly, nudging her along. “Did she stand out?”
Selena smirked, her southern accent thickening.
“She walked like men should move. Talked like she was always selling something, even if it was just herself. She poured drinks, sure, but she spent her afternoons at gallery openings, smiling at anyone with cufflinks. Knew how to listen like a priest and smile like a shark.” She gave me a long, assessing look.
“You look like someone who’s been fed to that smile. ”
I said nothing.
Jim piped up, nervously tapping on his iPad. “Payroll shows cash advances around the time…” He glanced at me, faltered. “Around the time your mom died.”
“Say it,” I told him.
He swallowed. “Around then. Extra shifts, extra cash. But here’s the kicker, there’s a second ledger. Her boss’s brother signed off the books. Money in, money out, perfectly timed. Not huge transfers. Just consistent. Enough to grease the right palms.”
Selena nodded, confirming. “She was ambitious. Didn’t waste time. Said Richard Wagner was the weather, inevitable, going to change your plans whether you liked it or not. Said he’d never leave his wife. Then, she smiled. God, I hated that smile, and said, ‘Not unless…’”
“Not unless what?” Eric asked, playing dumb.
“Not unless the story changes,” Selena said flatly. “And women who smile like that don’t mean divorce. They mean the knife behind the curtain.”
My throat burned. My mother’s face flickered in my mind, alive and laughing, running beside me. Then, the morgue version, lifeless and pale. My hands tightened on the bar.
Jim broke the silence with his nervous typing. “Emails from a gallery back office ‘tailored installs’ billed at the exact weeks those transfers hit. That’s code for cash. Burners connected to gallery numbers. I traced them. Same towers Eleanor’s gallery office pinged in. It’s airtight.”
Eric spread photos and copies of ledgers on the bar like exhibits in a trial. “She wasn’t just in the right place at the right time. She built the place. She built the fucking crime scene.”
I pocketed the drive Jim pushed toward me. Photos. Files. Proof. Receipts carved in binary. Enough to choke her.
Selena poured herself a shot and tossed it back. “So, what now?”
I met her gaze, flat and observant. “Now? I burn her. Without mercy. Your part is done.”
I left money on the counter. More than enough to keep her mouth shut. Outside, the air tasted like rot, and my chest felt full of knives.
Ariane’s face rose in my mind, my Ariane, sleeping in the house of the woman who built her life on my mother’s corpse.
Now, I have what I need. Now, I can burn Eleanor Wagner to the fucking ground.