Page 136 of Property of Bob

“I know.”

“No. Think about it.” I pushed myself out of the chair. “We thought maybe whoever attacked us said that because Bernice had already told somebody something. But this proves they were worried about her before that.”

Anchor looked down at the note.

Skull stepped closer. “Ron knew.”

“Yeah.”

“Question is how much,” Post muttered.

I looked at the stack. Probably more than we’d ever get out of him now.

“What if these were instructions?” Vin asked.

“They look like instructions,” Piney said.

“No. I mean actual instructions Ron was getting from the killer.” Vin pointed at the notes. “Not shit Ron wrote down for himself.”

I nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Why keep them?” Post asked.

That was the part that didn’t make sense. If somebody was sending Ron instructions to get Bernice here, plant posters, or whatever else he’d done, why the hell would Ron tape the evidence beneath his desk?

“Insurance?” Skull suggested.

Anchor looked at him.

Skull shrugged. “Ron knew he was in deep. Maybe he kept them in case he needed something against whoever was controlling him.”

“Or he got scared,” I said.

Nobody answered.

I looked at the note about Bernice again. Maybe Ron had known exactly what he was doing at first. Maybe he hadn’t.

Either way, at some point he’d started saving the messages instead of destroying them.

“Could’ve been planning to give them to us,” Piney suggested.

Post scoffed. “Then why didn’t he?”

“Because he blew his fucking brains out before he got the chance,” Skull grunted.

“Or because he never planned on giving us shit,” Anchor cut in. “We’re not turning Ron into some fucking victim because we found six pieces of paper under his desk. He planned on Bernice getting killed. He knew Erin was taken. He helped this asshole. Whatever his reasons were, he made his choices.”

Nobody argued with that. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to.

Ron hadn’t been the mastermind. We’d already known there was somebody else, but now I could almost see the chain.

Somebody told Ron what to do. Ron did it.

Somebody told him where to put things. Ron put them there.

Somebody told him to get Bernice onto Skull Island.

“Hey, who suggested Pearl paint the haunted house?” I asked.