She barks out a fake laugh. “So you thought the answer to that was spying on me. Are you fucking kidding me?”
“My intentions were pure.”Ish.
She walks away from me into her living room and sits on the edge of the sofa with her hands placed neatly in her lap. Her eyes are fixed on the floor. She’s quiet, closed off. Something’s wrong.
“I think it’s time we contact the police,” she says.
I kneel in front of her and take her hands in mine. “I’m close to figuring it out.”
“You keep saying that.” Her words sting. “You said you would take care of it. It’s not just messages anymore, Logan—it’s photos! I’m becoming paranoid. He’s still out there.”
I swallow. She’s right. My head hangs between my shoulders before I blow out a breath and get to my feet, then pace back and forth in her living room.
“We still don’t know who it is?—”
Stopping midstride, I spin to face her. “It’s Billy.”
She presses her head into her palm and massages her forehead like I’m feeding her riddles. “Billy who?”
I stuff my hands into my pockets. “Billy Akers.”
Her head snaps up, and she narrows her gaze at me. Kelly is all business when she says, “Start talking.”
“The day Jason showed up at the shop, I was already in a bad mood because I had received a letter from Billy.”
“So what? He retired years ago, I don’t understand what he’s got to do with any of this, he was a friend of my dad’s.”
“No, he wasn’t,” I argue, halting my steps and pointing at her. “No, he fucking wasn’t.”
Shit, this conversation is going to end up in the goddamn weeds. Here we go. She sits back on the sofa and crosses her arms, waiting for me to continue.
“You were supposed to get the shop when your dad died.”
“Me?” She points to herself with wide eyes, blinking a few times. “I wasn’t ready to run a shop. I didn’t even have my license then.”
I nod. “Didn’t matter. It was still yours. That’s what your dad wanted. Toward the end, I tried talking to Billy to make sure we had plans in place to keep Black Rabbit running. He was too quiet, something felt off, so I started digging. Billy had been embezzling money from the shop, slowly bleeding it without anyone catching on. So, while the rest of us were wrapped up with your dad’s palliative care at the end of his life, Billy was cutting deals and lining his pockets.”
“He embezzled money?” She winces; the look of betrayal on her face is obvious.
“Yeah, but that was the least of our worries.” I wave my hand. “He tried to sell Black Rabbit. I’m not talking about the building or the chairs, I’m talking about thename. To some company out in L.A. They had plans to turn this place into a fucking reality show, come out with our own line of shitty ink, branded merchandise, it was a huge money grab. Not at all in the spirit of what this place was founded on.”
She leans forward, burying her head in her hands. “I can’t believe this.”
“I knew your dad wasn’t a sellout. In fact, your dad already had the paperwork filled out. He trusted Billy to file it, but he never did. He sat on it. Used the window between Clyde’s trust and the legal handoff to try to sell everything your dad built right before he died. He was not your dad’s friend.”
“Okay, but we didn’t sell.” She drops her hands and sits up straight. “So what the fuck happened?”
I shrug. “I did what I had to do. I made him a better offer. I bribed him in order to kill the deal. Billy neverretired, he ran.”
“Youpaidthe man who betrayed us?”
“To protect Black Rabbit and everything your dad built? Yeah, I paid him.”
“How much?” she asks. “That’s not important.”
“How much, Logan?”
“I had a trust fund.”
