Page 172 of A Quick Buck

“Please, listen to me, Landon,” Noah pleaded desperately. “I know I’ve been an asshole to you too. But I’m trying… I’m trying to be better, okay? I’m trying to be better than my parents were.” He gulped. “Can you maybe put the gun down now? Can we talk about this?”

“No. No, no, no.” Landon shook his head. “You’re trying to confuse me. I don’t believe you. This is more of your bullshit. No. I’ve been planning to kill you foryears, and I’m not gonna stop now—”

“Did you kill my uncle, huh?” Noah demanded. “Was this you?”

He had to keep Landon talking. There was literally an entire house full of dangerous armed men and one woman only a few yards away. He didn’t want to see Alistair get shot or get shot himself, and he prayed someone would come out to see what was taking them so long to come inside.

“No.” Landon scoffed. “I didn’t kill Patrick. Medina did. I killed Jason Carbone.”

“What?” Alistair snarled quietly. “You?”

“That was the deal.” Landon scowled. “I met Medina weeks before you idiots”—he glared at Noah—“hooked up at the club. Found out we had a lot in common, especially hating your family. He wanted Carbone and Patrick out of the way, and I wanted you and Patrick dead. It was fair. Totally fair!

“Medina was supposed to kill Patrick and pick up some dumb slut and get an alibi for himself while I killed Carbone. We had everything set up beautifully! Everything! Evidence! The car! Prints! I even had my own victory party planned out with DJ Quigs—”

“Wait, my party with DJ Quigs?Thatparty?”

“Yeah! If you actually knew anything about me, you’d know he’s my favorite DJ too! Why do you think we went to that show together? Asshole! See, I figured it might take a day or two for the rum to kill you, so I had time to plan out the party on your fuckin’ dime. It was going to be great! But of all the dumb sluts in the fuckin’ world, Medina had to pickyou! Noah!”

Alistair took a step forward.

Landon whipped the gun toward Alistair, an obvious warning to stay back, and he continued ranting, “I tried to tell him what a stupid idea it was, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He saw you at the club, and, and he justhadto fuck you before you died! Thought it was gonna be hilarious! One last fuck you to Patrick!”

“Christ,” Noah whispered anxiously.

“I was actually shocked to see you that night. I thought you’d have woken up and killed yourself already by chugging all the rum I left you.” Landon shrugged, looking down at the gun. “This isn’t exactly what I wanted for you, but I guess it’ll have to do—”

“Wait. When did Medina kill Patrick?” Noah pressed. “When?”

“You idiot.” Landon scoffed. “Patrick’s been dead since the day you met Medina. While you were sleeping off your latest hangover that morning, Medina was at your house taking care of him.”

“He killed Patrick… and then what? Left me the poisoned rum in my mini-fridge?”

“No!” Landon shrieked angrily. “I put the rum there! I did! Me! Rum with my father’s blood pressure medicine! I wanted you to die like that! I wanted it to be something from my parents that killed you! I wanted it tomeansomething!”

Noah wasn’t going to address how insane that was, instead asking, “But why kill Patrick? Why?”

“We needed someone to pin the blame on, didn’t we?” Landon groaned and lowered the gun for a moment. “Medina already wanted to kill Patrick because of the thing with Odie, and I hated Patrick almost as much as I hated you for all the horrible things he told people about my parents after they died. It should have been so easy! The plan was great! But, ugh, Medina clearly had no fuckin’ idea thatyou”—he pointed the gun at Alistair now—“would be so bent out of shape over Carbone dying!”

“He grossly underestimated how much I care about my friends,” Alistair said smoothly. “A critical error.”

“Obviously!” Landon shook his head. “Medina was an idiot. But I guess you owe him a thank you, Noah. If you hadn’t shacked up with him, you would have been home where you were supposed to be, drinking the poisoned rum. Heh. It doesn’t matter now, I guess. None of this matters…” He looked skyward, seemingly lost, but the gun was still pointed right at Noah and Alistair.

“We can still fix this,” Noah insisted. “We don’t have to do this, Landon. All you gotta do is put down the gun, okay? We can, uh, we can talk some more. We can help you.”

And by help, I mean that Alistair is probably gonna send you to see Medina in hell, but hey!

“I was trying to move Patrick’s body.” Landon didn’t appear to have heard anything Noah said. “There’s been all those guards around, and I was so worried that someone was gonna find him soon, but I think… I think I’m just gonna kill you two and leave. The cops will probably think it was some gangster bullshit, and no one will even know I was ever here.” He smiled sadly. “You didn’t even call the police after that bomb, after all. Would be pretty easy to just let you guys clean this up.”

Noah glanced past Landon to the corner of the garage, trying to will someone to come out of the damn house. So much for the volunteers who were still supposed to be patrolling the grounds. He couldn’t believe no one had come out to find them yet. He crazily wondered what was going to kill them first, Landon’s twitchy trigger finger or his damn mouth talking their ears off.

Still, talking meant not shooting, at least not yet, and Noah didn’t know what else to do except try to keep stalling.

“The bomb? That was you too?” Noah asked hurriedly.

“Who else?” Landon frowned. “I mean, come on. You didn’t drink the damn rum I put in your room. I couldn’t get you to drink enough at the party to kill you, the party that was supposed to bemine, you know. You needed to die, Noah. So, I tried to help Medina out, and he still couldn’t do it. I should have… I should have done it all myself.” He shook the gun. “I should have just gotten a gun to start with, walked right up to you—”

“Landon, please.” Noah could see Landon was getting antsy, and the gun could go off at any second. “I’m sorry. Please. Don’t do this.”