"Are you sure about this?" Woody said, keeping his voice low, so Leif and Sable couldn't hear. "Showing her our space."
"Why wouldn't I be sure?" I asked. "Seems to me like you showed her a lot more than space back there."
"It was spontaneous," he said, as if still trying to get his head around it. "She wanted to."
"Of course she did. You wouldn't have done it otherwise." He was dubious as hell, but he'd never force himself on anyone. Not to mention, Sable would have called out if he tried. Leif and I would have been by her side in a heartbeat.
"No, I wouldn't," he agreed. "I still think this is a bad idea. Can we trust her?"
"We have to," I said. "She was there with us tonight, when we dealt with Bob."
"I know," he said darkly. "What if she goes to the cops?"
"She won't," I said. "If she does, it'll be her word against ours. Who do you think will be believed?"
Woody considered that for a moment before nodding. "Not her."
"Exactly," I agreed, although I hated the reality.
She could tell them in great detail exactly what we did and it would be dismissed. Why? Because I had influence and power and Leif was a celebrity.
And because we were men.
"We won't give her any reason to say anything to anyone," I said. "But I know she won't. She's in this as deep as we are. Her reasons are probably better than ours. She knows how it feels to be on the receiving end."
"Because of my father," Woody said his gaze boring into the back of her.
"You understand she was the victim, don't you?" I said. "You need to stop blaming her for what happened. It was all on him." Everything he did. The actions were all his. Part of me wished he wasn't dead so I could kill him myself. Better yet, so Sable could kill him.
Would she have done it? Not before but now, having seen us kill Bob, something changed in her like a switch was flipped.
If she was going home to Wolfgang tonight, I wasn't sure he'd last until dawn.
Woody started to say something but I held up a hand.
"You saw the evidence Archer gave you and you're still questioning?"
He exhaled long and slow his shoulders slumping. "I don't know what to think. He was still my father."
"Only by blood. He was never there for you when you needed him." I should be careful what I said. I wasn't there for my own sons either. Not through any fault of mine. That is to say, I could have tried harder, but their mother didn't give me many opportunities.
Should I have pushed? Yes, but I didn't and I'd live with that regret for the rest of my life. We had time to make up for. I was doing the best I could, whenever they let me.
"I should have killed him," Woody said "If I knew what he was like. If I'd met her before."
"You didn't know about her?"
"Not really," Woody said with a sigh. "I heard something about him getting married, but I didn't pay any attention. He and I, we didn't have much time for each other. He didn't invite me to the wedding." He didn't sound too bitter about it.
"Would you have gone if he had?" I absently toyed with my phone in my pocket.
He looked over at me. "I don't know. Maybe. I might have told her to walk away."
"She didn't marry him because she wanted to," I said. "She was forced into it by her parents."
"Sounds like her parents are gems like mine," he said sarcastically. "Should we be focusing our attention on them next?"
Which loosely translated to, 'should we kill them?'
