“Oh my god!” Chaz cried, scrambling for his seatbelt.
Mati and David, Reese noted, already had theirs on. He decidednotto view that as commentary on his driving. The tires squealed as he swung back onto the road. Chaz clung to the oh-shit handle with both hands.
As soon as they were pointed toward town, Reese snapped. “What the fuck is going on, Chaz? Why the hell were you in Boston? Why did you break into my house? Were you the one who tried to kill me five years ago?”
“No! No no no! I wouldn’t—I never—”
David let out a low growl.
Reese passed a minivan in what he would argue was a passing-optional stretch of road. Yellow lines were open to interpretation in some cases.
Chaz gasped. “I didn’t try to hurt you.” He looked at Mati. “You weren’t supposed to be there. He should never have chased you. That wasn’t the plan!”
Mati glared at him. “Why were you there at all?”
“I needed to find the deed. You said Reese was working on a project. I had to find his copy of the deed to the forty acres in Fredericton.”
“Why on earth do you want that?” Reese asked as he cut through a residential neighborhood at three times the posted speed limit. “And why the fuck didn’t you just ask me for it?”
“My dad stole it!” Chaz cried. He pressed his face to his arms and squeezed his eyes shut. “He must have thought your father wouldn’t notice. Your dad had him do all the paperwork and filings when it came to the estate. My father must have believed he could make that property disappear when you inherited since he was the executor of the will, but your father signed everything over to you before he died!”
Reese’s head spun, trying to make sense of it. “What the fuck did your father want with a track of farmland outside Fredericton? And why didn’t you just tell me? Or sign it back over?”
“It’s not farmland! Not anymore. My dad sold it to a developer and there are houses there now. Lots of them. I think that’s how he paid for my school. Muffy’s, too. And Hunter’s trust.”
“So your solution was to run me off the road, then break into my house years later and scare the ever-living shit out of Matilda!?”
“No! No, I didn’t do that. I’ve never tried to hurt you. Or anyone! That was—” Chaz gulped so loudly it was audible over the rush of pavement under their tires and the roar of the engine. “That was my dad, I think. I think my dad tried to hurt you. I think he may have tried to hurt your dad.”
His confession rang inside the car, no one moving.
“Did your father kill my father?” Reese asked far more calmly than he felt.
“No. I was with him that day. I don’t blame you for asking, I would have wondered myself once I figured out the rest of this, but I remember that day. I remember him getting the call. He’d been with me all morning in the office.”
Reese let out a slow breath, a morass of emotions tangled in his chest. It wasn’t like confirming his father had committed suicide wasgoodnews. Particularly since they’d just confirmed Chaz’s father may have played a hand in driving him to it.
“God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Chaz sobbed, breaking down into tears. “My father was an asshole. I didn’t figure any of it out until Ms. Viveiros called me saying you’d requested some missing documentation and I started digging.”
“So, you decided to take up a life of crime five months ago?” Mati asked incredulously. “That seemed like the best option to you?”
“I thought it would be simple. Get rid of any proof you’d ever owned it, or draft something up so it looked like it had been sold legally, and it would disappear. That’s what my father must have thought would happen. I had to figure out what documents you had and how to make them invalid. I couldn’t risk my father’s reputation. Our whole firm was built on his name.”
Reese sighed. “You fucking asshole. If you’d come and told me about it, we could have figured something out. If you truly didn’t know…”
“I didn’t! I swear!”
Reese shook his head.
Chaz looked at him imploringly in the rearview mirror. “Now can you drive slower? I told you everything.”
Reese frowned, and Mati bit back a guffaw.
Apparently, Chaz thought Reese’s driving was an interrogation technique.
Not exactly a vote of confidence.
“No,” David said with authority. “We have more questions.”
