“I don’t know, pumpkin. He was a kid. Dirty, unkempt, living on the streets.”

Before I could stop it, a hand covered my mouth at the mental image. My left knee instinctively rose to steer Misery until I could lead my hand back to the wheel. I totally needed a hands-free phone accessory.

“He said he didn’t do it. Once. And then never spoke to me again.”

The sting in my eyes couldn’t be helped. That was so like Reyes. Stubborn. Rebellious. And yet, maybe it meant more. Maybe he’d given up, like an animal that had been exposed to so much abuse, it figured, Why bother? Why fight back?

“But it was the way he said it,” Uncle Bob continued, his mind clearly lost in another time. “He looked me in the eye, his stare so strong, so powerful, the weight of it was like a punch to the gut, and said simply, ‘It wasn’t me.’ And then nothing. Not another word. No talk of lawyers, rights, food … He just shut down.”

My lips pressed together hard as I drove. “We can fix this, Uncle Bob,” I said, my voice shaking.

“No, we can’t.” He seemed resolved to the fact that Reyes would hate him until the day he died. And then he added, “I grabbed him.”

Startled, I asked, “You what?”

“By the shirt collar. At one point in the interrogation, I was so frustrated, I lifted him from the chair and threw him back against the wall.”

“Uncle Bob!” I said, not really sure what else to say and realizing he was lucky to be alive.

“He did nothing,” Ubie continued, oblivious. “Just stared at me, his face blank, and yet I could feel the hatred simmering just beneath the surface. In all the years since, that look has haunted me. I’ve never forgotten him or the case.”

“He’s a powerful being, Uncle Bob.”

“No, you don’t understand.”

My brows furrowed as I steered through a mountain range.

After a long moment that had me wondering if we’d lost connection, he said, “I knew, pumpkin.”

I could almost picture Ubie’s head in his hand as he spoke, his voice pregnant with such regret, such sorrow, it caused a cinch around my chest. “You knew what?”

“I knew he didn’t do it.”

I stopped breathing as I waited for an explanation.

“I’m not stupid. I knew he didn’t do it, and I did nothing. All the evidence pointed directly at him, and because I didn’t want to look like a fool, I didn’t question it. Not for a minute. So you see,” he said, resigned to his fate, “we can’t fix this. He’ll come after me.”

I blinked in surprise. “No, he won’t. He’s not like that.”

“They’re all like that.” He seemed to welcome the idea, as though he deserved to be punished.

I sat stunned to my toes, not sure what to say, how to proceed. “Can I see the interrogation tape?” I asked him, clueless as to why I’d want to see it.

“You won’t find my outburst.” His tone had changed again, hardened. “I had friends in high places, and strangely that part of the tape was erased.”

“It’s not your outburst I want to see. It’s him. I met him when I was in high school, remember? I know how powerful he is, how dangerous. But he won’t come after you, Uncle Bob. I promise,” I said, mentally adding my name to the roster of the Big Fat Liars Club. I had no way of knowing what Reyes would do. What he was capable of. And I was helping to free the one man who might want my uncle dead. Deep down inside, I wondered if that made me a bad niece.

18

There are very few personal problems that can’t be solved with a suitable application of high explosives.

—T-SHIRT

When I got to the sheriff’s department, I jumped out of Misery and hit the ground running. My plan worked. I was in an interrogation room before Garrett could get inside. I told the sheriff everything I knew. Farley Scanlon was a bad guy. He practically threatened me with a knife and then left when he saw Garrett, then he slashed my tires while we ate. It wasn’t a difficult story for them to swallow, but I still had to account for every minute of the night, and they wanted to talk to Garrett to confirm.

So, while they interrogated him, I took off back out to Farley Scanlon’s house, the weight of Uncle Bob’s story still heavy on my chest. Or it could have been the fact that if Earl Walker was still at Farley Scanlon’s place, or happened to stop back by the scene of the crime, I’d just ditched my best defense. That would suck.

My cell sang out. I answered it. “Hey, Cook. I just ditched Garrett.”

“Good for you. You two weren’t really right for each other anyway.”

I grinned.

“So, here’s the word off the street.”

“I love it when you talk dirty.”

“Yolanda Pope’s niece almost died after having a routine tonsillectomy.”

“No way.”

“Way. Minutes after the good doctor showed up on the ward.”

“Which is suspicious because?”

“He had no patients that day. He’d performed no surgeries and had no one to check in on, yet he checked onto the ward. Yolanda’s niece went into cardiac arrest minutes after he checked out.”

“Oh, my gosh. How old was she?”

“Twelve. They chalked it up to a reaction to the anesthetic, but she makes it through the entire surgery just fine, then has a reaction over an hour later?”