“I told you,” I said slowly and firmly, “You don’teverpoint a gun at someone you don’t intend to shoot.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you did tell me that.” He kept the gun pointing just past me, but it was wavering a bit. If he pulled the trigger, he wouldn’t have a zero chance of hitting me. “You also told me to protect myself. To trust no one. Was I supposed to include you in that equation,Johnny?”
I stood still where I was, my mind racing. “Whatever your father said to you—”
“Why do you like me?”
I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. “What?”
“Why do youlikeme?” he repeated. “What is it about me that’s sospecial? What is it about me that has you thinking, hey, we should go on vacay together. Leave this city. Go start a new fuckinglifetogether. What, exactly, specifically, is soamazingabout me, that it makes you want to do that?”
I didn’t know what he was looking for. Had I been too stingy with my feelings? Yes, probably. “I’m not used to talking about that kind of thing,” I said, because it was honest, but it wasn’t the right thing to say.
His face darkened.
“There are,” I tried, “amillionthings about you, sweetheart, that—”
“Don’t,” he spat. Suspicion and doubt were crowding his face.
I spread my arms, despair shooting through me cleaner than the handgun would be able to do if he let off a shot. “You want me to tell you, you need to let me talk.”
He stood up and I backed off a few steps. I wanted him to feel safe. I wanted him to smile at me again, to let me wrap him up in my arms and tell him how much I loved him.
I’d been trying to find a way to say it that didn’t sound corny or desperate or stilted. But here and now didn’t seem like the right time either, if there was a fifty-fifty chance I’d end up with a bullet lodged in me.
“You know what my father said?” Miller went on, still sounding dazed. “He said he’s no friend of your Boss. In fact, he told me that theCastellaniskilled Annie.”
I sucked in a breath. “Maybe they did.” The shock on Miller’s face made me hurry on. “I’ve been wondering the same myself, lately.” It jived with a theory I’d been building about the burglaries, about Anaïs Beaumont and her Bernardi-loving friend Rochford, and about exactly why she’d disappeared in the first place. “I think my Boss had his own reasons for wanting to know where your sister was,” I admitted. “And maybe he even ordered her killed. But if he did,Iwasn’t in on that. In my business, the higher-ups keep things to themselves.”
“In yourbusiness?”
“You know what I am, Trouble.”
“Yeah. And that’s what doesn’t make anysense. Why send a hitman after someone if youdon’twant them dead?”
What he said made perfect logical sense. Ciro Castellani knew I was the best eraser he had in his Family. Why send me after Anaïs Beaumont if not to kill her?
“Didyou do it?” Miller asked, his voice cracking.
“No.” I stepped forward, and he raised the gun, waving it now as his adrenaline started to pump. I put out my hands, trying to steady him from a distance. “No. Miller. Look at my face. Believe me. I didn’t kill her.”
“You know,” Miller said, his voice faint, “the thing I hate most is that Iwantto believe you, JJ. I know I can’t trust my father. But maybe I can’t trust you, either. Maybe you’ve been lying to me.”
“Please.Please. It’s killing me that you could even—”
“Why don’t you want me to see those crime scene photos?” Miller was still in interrogation mode. “Is it because there’s something in there that points to the killer? To—you?”
I’d taken the USB from the motel, along with Miller’s gun. There had been no way I was leaving either lying around the room. So I pulled the USB out of my shirt pocket now and held it up to show him. “I don’t want you to look at these because I don’t want you to see your sister like that. But if it’ll prove anything to you, here—” I threw the USB onto the sofa. “Just promise me you won’t hate me for letting you look.”
He put the safety on the gun, carefully, slowly, and put it down on the sofa next to the USB. It seemed like a good sign, but his eyes were still hard when he looked back at me. “Tell me why you think your Family’s involved.”
He wasn’t going to like what I had to say, but I couldn’t lie. “Okay. I think your sister was part of the burglary ring, along with Rochford. And I think your sister might have dragged Harper Connelly into it, as well.”
He gave a high, strangled laugh. “Wow. You really hate my sister, don’t you?”
“I didn’t know your sister.”
“No, you didn’t. But you sure have formed an opinion about her.”
