“How is she doing?” Hark asked.
The tension in Ledger’s chest let up a few notches. He still wasn’t happy, but at least Hark hadn’t spoken to Abigail. If he had, then he’d have known…
“We don’t talk,” Ledger said. “Not since Bell’s trial.”
They’d agreed to disagree then. It turned out it was a lot easier to do that with too many miles between them to yell at each other.
Hark shrugged and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a slick, metallic gray phone and held it up so it could scan his face.
“It’s sad when families lose touch,” he said as he swiped his finger over the screen. “But she still has a vested interest in Conroy’s estate. Something that in her absence, I, as her representative—”
“You’re not a lawyer.”
“Well, not in Ohio,” Hark admitted. “Luckily, no one asked.”
Ledger shook his head and snorted softly. “She is going to eat you alive,” he said. “You havenoidea.”
“I’m sure I’ll manage,” Hark said dryly. “Especially once I tell her that her loving brother was going to burn down the family home, leaving her with a cut of nothing. Or…”
“Or?”
“I leave her out of it, and you let me handle the disposition of the assets.”
“For pennies on the dollar?” Ledger said. “If I wanted to sell, I could do it myself without having to split the proceeds with you.”
“But you don’t want to,” Hark said. “So why not throw an old friend a bone?”
“We’re not friends.”
Hark ignored that as he lifted the phone to his ear. “I’ve already got a buyer on the hook,” he said. “They’ll give me a flat rate for it as a job lot—fixtures, fittings, and filed-down teeth—and they can come and clear it themselves. Didn’t even barter. I guess they don’t get a chance to have the first pick at the Sinporium very often.”
The back of Ledger’s neck itched, and his mouth went sticky-dry. That didn’t sound right.
He’d been gone a long time. Things changed. Even in Sutton County, where people were set in their ways, and there wasn’t much reason for outsiders to buy up the houses, people died and businesses changed hands.
They had a Starbucks now.
That was the mundane world, though. The sin-trade was hidebound, the topography of the business circuit—more or less—the same now as it had been a hundred years ago. And there was no one within a hundred miles who’d be interested enough to buy a whole house full of Bell Conroy’s old shit.
Around here, Bell was the monster children checked under the bed for. To therealmonsters, though, the ones that scooped sin out of a molar’s pulp, he wouldn’t even shift the dial.
“Who?” Ledger asked.
Hark smirked at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he said. “You’re not the only one with contacts, Ledger.”
Before Ledger could press the point, Hark put his hand up in his face and turned away. In profile, the flesh under his chin was soft and badly shaved, scruffed with short gray stubble.
“It’s me,” Hark said. “I’m with Conroy now. He’s willing to hear you out on a fair offer.”
“No,” Ledger said immediately. He tried to grab Hark’s phone, but Hark dodged him and kept one arm up to play keep-away. Ledger raised his voice to try and make sure whoever was on the other end heard him. “I haven’t agreed to anything. I want that witnessed.”
The wind had picked up. It pulled at Hark’s tie, the end shiny with grease from years of being used to clean glasses. The smell on the air was rancid. It coated Ledger’s tongue and the back of his throat.
“Just the wind,” Hark said into the phone, still smug.
Ledger tried to grab the phone again. This time Hark stiff-armed him away, a hard jab from the heel of his hand against Ledger’s shoulder.
“Don’t—” Ledger tried to warn him.
