Page 116 of Dead Man's List

“Rita trusts you. Please. You too, Emma.” She opened the door and found that, yes, the room was now a very tight fit. Two twin beds had been okay. Three twin beds, three teenage girls, two big dogs, plus herself and Sam made a crowd.

Kit left the door open, gesturing for Emma to go in first. The tension in the room was so thick that it was palpable.

Rita looked up, dread on her face. “Is Pop okay? I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“Oh, honey.” Kit shoved at the new dog until he got off Rita’s bed with a huge doggy sigh. He was going to be enormous. He was already huge. But, once he was trained, nobody would mess with Rita or the other girls. “Pop looks fine, but we’ll get him checked out. He’s always had a healthy heart up until now. Mom makes him go for checkups every year, even though he grumbles. Hopefully he just got scared seeing you nearly become roadkill.”

Rita winced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have run across that busy road. That was dumb.”

“Don’t be sorry. I get it.” She scooted backward on the beduntil she and Rita had the wall at their backs. “Let’s get the obvious issue out of the way first. I will move heaven and earth so as not to let that bastard Drummond get a deal. We’ve been working all day to figure out what he might know so that we can circumvent him completely. That means we’ll go around him.”

Rita scowled. “Iknowwhat ‘circumvent’ means, Kit.”

Kit chuckled, relieved to hear some of Rita’s natural snark return. “Good. It’ll make your college entry exams a breeze.”

“Did you?” Tiffany asked. She tried to look forceful, but Kit could see the scared kid she and Sam had met just months before. “Did you find a way?”

Healing happened slowly, Kit knew. Things might appear normal on the surface but she knew that each girl struggled with her fears every day.I still do.

“I think we may have. Once we’re done here, I need to get back for a few interviews, but…yeah. We have a good lead. One I’m not going to tell you about, so don’t even ask.”

Three teenage mouths snapped shut in unison.

She looked at each of the girls in turn. “I’m not mad that you listened, Emma, but that was a private conversation between me and Pop. What else did you hear?”

“Just that sometimes cutting a deal was the lesser of two evils.”

Kit suspected she’d heard more, but let it go for now. “Sometimes it is. With Christopher Fucking Drummond, it’s not. Nobody I talked to today—on our side, anyway—wants to give that bastard a single fraction of an inch.” She hesitated, then pulled Rita closer. Rita relaxed into Kit’s side. “We know what he did, Rita.” Kit wouldn’t say that Drummond had raped the teenager. Not in front of the other two girls. “We will fight tooth and nail to make sure he goes to prison forever.”

“They know. Tiff and Em. I told them what he did.” Rita’s swallow was audible. “Whatelsehe did.”

Kit studied Tiffany and Emma and saw nothing but loyalty. And anger, but Kit figured that was directed at Drummond.

“Okay,” Kit said. “Then I can be blunt. That he murdered a woman in cold blood is enough for a criminal trial. That he murdered the child she was carrying is also enough for a criminal trial. We don’t need to bring in the fact that he assaulted you, not right now. If it comes to it and you’re ready, we’ll tell Joel. But know that you have time to decide if you want to come forward and press charges. Lots of time. That you haven’t doesn’t mean Drummond can go free for the murder of your mother. They’d be separate trials.”

Rita looked to the door where Sam was standing. “Should I tell Joel?”

Kit couldn’t blame Rita for wanting a second opinion. She’d trust Sam for the truth in the same situation.

Sam shook his head. “Not until you’re ready. And if you’re never ready, that’s okay, too. Kit’s telling you the truth. And nobody in this house blames you for not pressing charges.”

“Even if Drummond gets off on a technicality?” Rita pressed, her voice cracking.

“Even then,” Sam said in his soothing voice. The tension in the room began to drop, and Kit felt like she could breathe again. “Joel knows that Drummond has threatened you. He might be able to use that against Drummond when he goes to trial, because trying to intimidate you is against the law, too. For the time being, don’t panic. Nothing is different now than it was yesterday except that Drummond is getting desperate.”

“What do you mean?” Rita asked warily.

Sam looked to Kit. “That explanation’s yours.”

“He means,” Kit said, “that if Drummond is offering to give us information on the case we’re working, then he knows about a crime he didn’t come forward about on his own. Depending on the crime, that could make things worse for him.”

“Oh,” Emma breathed. “It’s because Munro was blackmailing people. Maybe Drummond was getting blackmailed, too.”

“I thought you’d heard more than you let on,” Kit said dryly.

“Sorry,” Emma said with a wince. “But that’s right, isn’t it? If he knows about blackmail, maybe it’s because he was being blackmailed, too. And if he was being blackmailed, he’d have to tell you all about that, and since he kept it a secret, that would be another crime you could arrest him for.”

Kit’s lips twitched. “You wanna be a cop, kid?”