“You had really long hair,” she said.
“Yeah. You did, too. You were so beautiful?—”
“Don’t,” she said.
So he stopped. “Okay.”
“I’m amazed that he didn’t kill you,” she said. “Just right there, on the spot. I’m assuming Carlotta wasn’t home.”
“No,” he said. “She wasn’t.” Because yeah. Carlotta would’ve ended him. No doubt about that. “I was a little surprised you didn’t recognize me.”
“I think it was the long hair,” she said. “And, you know, the jeans and T-shirt. I think I just imagined you always wore a bowtie, like you did in court, for the arraignment.”
Mick laughed a little. “Yeah, that was... not by choice.”
Emily was quiet for a moment, but then she asked, “What was your plan? You really wanted my grandfather to sue your father, and presumably you, too, to get all of his money—your money?”
“When I found all the evidence that proved I wasn’t in town on the night of your mother’s death?—”
“Murder,” she said.
“Your mother’s murder,” he corrected himself, “I wanted you—your family—to know the truth.”
“You said you wanted to clear your name,” she said.
“I did. But I also wanted you to be compensated for your loss.”
“My mother’s life is worth way more than twenty million dollars,” Emily countered heatedly.
“I know that,” he said. “There’s no dollar amount that can replace her. I lost my mother, too, Em. You can’t fix dead—I know that, on a very personal level, I do.”
“Why go to my grandfather?” Emily asked. “Why not take the evidence you found and go to the police? If you hated your father so much, why not get his ugly ass arrested?”
“I didn’t trust the police,” Mick admitted. “I still don’t. My father and Harper, both, were so well connected. I’m pretty sure someone in the LAPD—a police detective—helped my father frame me. Between the cop and Harper, they knew the justice system inside out. They knew exactly how to set it up so I’d do the time. Frankly, I was a little afraid that if they knew I’d found evidence that cleared me, they might kill me.”
Emily was silent, so Mick kept talking. “Four years earlier, back before I went to prison, after I made the decision to plead guilty—there was so much pressure from my father and Harper, too—someone wrote up a confession and Isigned it. I was still at home. I don’t know why I wasn’t in custody, but I wasn’t yet. I remember going into my father’s office—the estate library—and he wasn’t in there but there was a gun, a handgun. It was just there on his desk. Right on a pile of scripts. Just out. Lying there. I remember thinking, like, where didthatcome from? My father didn’t own a gun. But I think he borrowed it, probably from some cop, who left it there, loaded, like an invitation. An option B. In case I didn’t want to go to prison.”
Emily was horrified.
“It would’ve been a much tidier end to the story,” Mick said quietly. He’d thought about that often while he was going through counseling before his release from prison. Hestillthought about it a lot.
“Do you know the name of the cop?”
Mick looked up, surprised to see Rod standing in the living room archway, leaning against the frame. How long had he been there, listening? Not that it mattered.
“I don’t,” Mick said. “And believe me, I’ve searched through all kinds of records, but whoever he was, he was careful not to leave a paper trail.”
Rod nodded, then asked, “What kind of handgun was it?”
“Hmm,” Mick said. “You’re asking the wrong guy. It was... bigger than I’d imagined that kind of gun would be. Definitely not a revolver, you know, a six-shooter cowboy gun. Not one of those. It was kind of dull metal and... I didn’t touch it. I didn’t get near it. But I remember there was a case—like a metal case with heavy duty locks, off to the side, on the floor next to my father’s desk. It had initials monogrammed on it, which I thought was really... so weird. Like it was a case for a bowling ball or a briefcase. Except it was for this... death machine. Why would you want your initials on that?”
“People who love their firearms oftenreallylove them,” Kevin said from beneath his blanket. “My father had an arsenal. I was lucky—he was good about keeping them locked up. But yeah, he’d put some kind of identifier on the case so it didn’t get mixed up with Uncle Bob’s when he tossed it in the trunk on the way to the firing range.”
“That is... very much not my world,” Mick admitted.
“It’s not mine either,” Kevin said, “but I grew up in it.”
“Do you remember the monogram?” Rod asked.
