“Better to let me think you abandoned me?” she cried, shoving his chest. “That it was just a stupid summer fling and you didn’t care about me?”
“What would you have done if I called you? Used your scholarship money to bail me out? Ditched class so you could come with me to my arraignment? You think I wanted that for you? You think I wanted you to skip sorority parties and football games for the next nine months so you could drive me to my court-ordered community service gigs, picking up trash on the side of the highway and serving lunch at the old folks’ home? I did care, Vero! I cared about you too damn much! That’s why I told Ramón to leave me in that cell. Your mom was right. Youworked too hard to waste your shot on someone like me. You were better off not knowing.”
She jabbed a finger at the air between them. “Since when doyouget to be the one to decide what’s good for me? You’re no better than my mother and Ramón!”
He winced as if she’d landed another blow. “Why is it so wrong that I wanted to protect you?”
“Because you’re an idiot, Javi! I never wanted your protection! I just wanted to love you!” She shoved him again. He caught her fist and held it between them, knuckles white.
“Say that again.” His voice was rough, like it had been dragged over hot coals.
“You’re an idiot,” she said stubbornly.
“Not that part.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
He pulled her to him. Her eyes closed as he caught her mouth with his. Slowly, she un-balled her fists. Neither one of them bothered to come up for air as he looped an arm around her waist, the tenderness and intensity of their kiss making me feel like I should turn away. I told myself it was the smoke in the air that was making my eyes water.
Sirens wailed a few blocks away. I cleared my throat. “We should probably get out of here before the police start looking for us.”
Javi looked up, still a little dazed as two police cars and a fire truck roared past the end of the alley. “Trust me,” he said, “no one in that chop shop stuck around long enough to say a word to the cops about any of this. If we leave now, we can get the car back to Ramón’s before sunrise.”
Vero and I exchanged a look.
I spoke first, sparing her the lie. “Vero and I can’t leave town yet. My kids and my mother are back in the hotel waiting for us, and you’re in no condition to drive home.” Javi looked exhausted. For that matter, so did we. And with a bullet hole in the back window and another in the trunk, the Aston was far too conspicuous to risk driving very far. “We should find a safe place to hide it for the night.”
“Where’s your hotel?” he asked.
“Some dump on the boardwalk called the Royal Flush,” Vero answered.
“Good. The crappier the hotel, the less likely anyone will come looking for the car there. We’ll cover it and leave it in the parking garage until Ramón can get here with his tow truck tomorrow. Give me your phone.”
Vero put a protective hand over her pocket. “You’re not calling my cousin.”
“You have a better idea?”
“What are we supposed to tell him?”
He stepped close, his expression tender. “Maybe we should all start telling each other the truth for once.” He brushed her lower lip with his thumb, and I was pretty sure she would melt into a puddle as he pressed a last soft kiss to it.
“You’re going to owe me for the next four years for this,” she warned him.
“You can beat me up over it tomorrow,” he said, waving the phone he’d just picked from her pocket. “For now, I just want a hot shower and some sleep.” He held up a hand for the car keys. I tossed them over.
An irrepressible smile stretched across Vero’s face as she watched him get in and shut the door. “We did it, Finn. We found everything we were looking for, exactly like Romelda said we would.” She started toward the car, frowning as I held her back. Vero had indeed found what she’d desired in someone close to her, someone who was letting his secrets fester in broken pieces inside him. And hehadrevealed the truth, just like Romelda had predicted. But we hadn’t found everything we were looking for. Not yet.
“Cam’s thumb drive isn’t in the Aston,” I said. “Someone must have found it.”
“I doubt any of those guys at the chop shop will be lining up to give it to the police. We have Javi and the car. We’re two for three. I call that a win. Let’s go.”
“The spreadsheet Cam stole isn’t the only thing on the thumb drive,”I blurted. I had no choice but to break my promise to Cam. Too much was at stake. He had seen too much, and once Charlie’s hunt for the car was over, his search for Cam was sure to begin. Our only hope was to find that thumb drive, make sure there was nothing on it that would incriminate Vero and me, then turn the whole thing over to the police. Joey would have all the proof he needed that Charlie was a criminal, and Nick would have no choice but to believe him. They could put Cam under witness protection, arrest every dirty cop in the department (including Feliks’s shady lawyer, Kat), and shut down Feliks’s entire operation. With nothing to come back to, he could live out the rest of his years avoiding extradition in Brazil, far away from me and my family.
I took off my wig and looked Vero in the eyes. “The key to Feliks’s cryptocurrency is on it. I don’t know how it works exactly, but apparently that key is the only way to access the money.”
“How much money?”
“Fourteen million dollars.”
