Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 51744 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 172(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51744 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 172(@300wpm)
“How do you know that?”
He shrugs. “If you two were as hot as you say, then why is she back and upset?”
I have no fucking clue. “What does it matter? She was eighteen. She could have stayed.”
“Eighteen is such an arbitrary damned age.” Miles draws in a breath. “Hell, when I was eighteen, I thought I knew everything. It’s amazing how much less I know now than then.”
“And this has what to do with my situation?” I push, trying to figure out why he knows all about my love life—or lack thereof—and wants to give me advice.
“I’m just saying.” He scratches the back of his neck and looks my way. “She was barely eighteen. Her mother was the one constant in her life. Don’t blame her for not having the strength to venture out on her own. I mean, could she? Did she have the money? A support system—besides you—to stick around? Maybe she didn’t have a choice if she wanted a roof over her head.”
“She had me!” I snap. “Look, I would have understood if she had to leave. Hell, even if she wanted to leave, for that matter. But she should have told me. Fuck it all. Did she know that day at the spring?”
He looks at me, confused. “Day at the spring? What the fuck are you talking about?”
I sigh. He might have picked up slivers of info from me and ’Carly, but he doesn’t know everything. I sure as shit don’t kiss and tell. “Never mind.” I set my empty coffee cup in the sink and walk back to my bedroom.
Time to stop feeling fucking sorry for myself. There’s work to be done.
And once I’ve kicked my brothers’ asses with manure shoveling? I’m going to head into town, find Avery Marsh, and make her talk to me.
9
AVERY
* * *
Ten minutes pass before a middle-aged man with dark hair and a beer belly is led to the small cubicle where I’m sitting.
He sits across from me behind the thick plexiglass and picks up the phone.
I do the same. “Mr. Hopkins,” I say in my work voice, “I’m special agent Avery Marsh with the FBI. I have some questions about the murder of your son, Joseph Hopkins.”
“I don’t know shit about what happened to him. He was an ingrate, for sure.”
Lovely. A deadbeat father.
I keep the look on my face non-committal. “An ingrate?”
“Yeah. He could have gone into business with me, and he chose not to.”
“Your construction company?”
My research shows his business is in bad shape, though it once thrived when Hopkins was younger. What happened?
One look at him tells the tale. Alcohol. The man’s in withdrawal, and it shows. Bloodshot eyes, swollen skin, red nose like Rudolph. I’m pretty sure this is where Joey Hopkins’s missing liver went. No way Curt would have gotten a liver from anyone else without getting off the sauce for at least a year.
“Tell me your connection to Racehorse Hauling,” I say.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“According to your daughter’s affidavit, she found an ashtray with the company’s logo in your living room.”
He rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair. “Rainey probably found it at a garage sale. Or Joey gave it to me. He worked for them.”
“But you’re maintaining you had no connection to Racehorse whatsoever?”
“That’s exactly what I’m maintaining, lady.”
“Special Agent Marsh,” I correct him. “What was your connection to Jonathan Bridger?”
He cocks his head. “The rich fucker? Didn’t know him.”
“So you weren’t aware that over a dozen corporations—all of which Jonathan Bridger held majority ownership in—contracted with Racehorse Hauling to transport hazardous chemicals across state lines and across the Canadian border for illegal disposal?”
“Do I look like I even know what a hazardous chemical is, la—”
I glare at him.
“—dy?”
I draw in a breath and count to ten. Or try to. I only make it to three.
He sure as hell does look like he knows what a hazardous chemical is. He is the personification of a hazardous chemical.
I try a different direction. “When’s the last time you saw your son, Mr. Hopkins?”
A shrug pushes up the orange prison shirt. “He disappeared a couple years ago.”
“So you had no contact with him prior to his death, which examiners estimate to have occurred about three to four months ago?”
“Why would I have contact with him?” His voice rises. “He was a shithead ingrate.”
Ingrate. Again. Why am I even surprised? This is a man who held his only daughter at gunpoint. That’s why he’s in prison.
Working for the FBI, I should be hardened to assholes. I’ve met enough of them.
“Do you know why a portion of your son’s liver had been removed prior to his death?”
“What?” He widens his eyes.
Okay, maybe that liver isn’t inside Curt Hopkins.
“Looks like your son was a live liver donor.”
“I don’t know shit about that.” He shakes his head. “Who the hell would want his liver?”