Page 129 of Faded Gray Lines

Forty-Four

Mateo

“Jesus, Leighton, what have you done?”

Leighton’s entire body coiled. “Don’t you dare judge me,” she wheezed, exhaustion pulling at the corners of her eyes. “He killed my father. He blackmailed me and kept my child from me. All he cared about was saving his own ass.” Finally, she shivered. “They’re all alike.”

That shiver gave her away. Slaying her dragon didn’t stop him from breathing fire. I couldn’t extinguish a flame that burned inside of her. There would always be another dragon. Another monster. Another Finn. Another Emilio. Another Alex.

In my understanding, I reached for her.

“Don’t,” she said, cringing and stepping back.

“You have blood on your hands, Leighton, and for what? Some fucked up revenge that won’t make you feel any better?”

“Won’t make me feel any better? Are you fucking kidding me? I feel like a cloud has been lifted.”

The way she talked sounded too familiar. Too brutal.Too cartel. “You’re in over your head. These people will chew you up and spit you out.”

She lifted her chin. “Not if I bite first.”

She had no clue what the hell she was talking about. Leighton was a tiny tiger fish swimming with a school of great white sharks. The high she rode right now wouldn’t last. As soon as reality set in, she’d crash and burn. Unfortunately, the blood she’d spilled would still be fresh, and the great whites would come calling.

Unless...

“Your mother thinks you’re dead,” I reminded her, the thought resurrecting itself in my mind. “I’ll say I did this.”

At the mention of her mother’s name, Leighton gave me a pensive stare. “I have to tell you something else.”

“If it’s about your call to Professor Bright, you can save your breath. He called me not long after you took off. I know everything.”

Leighton lifted her heavy lashes. “Then you’ll understand what I have to show you.” Holding onto the trees for support, she stumbled past me. “Let’s go back to the car.”

Thirty minutes later, we sat in the front seat of Atwood’s wrecked sedan. The car was fucked up. I had no clue how she managed to start the damn thing, much less drive it. But I didn’t care about that—not while staring at the small black wristband laying on the seat between us. At first glance it looked just like one of those Fitbit bracelets worn by obsessed exercise fanatics.

Leighton ran her finger along the sleek band and smiled. “My dad was a detective. He told me all about how his department used to bust drug dealers. They’d plead out as informants, so he’d wire them and send them back into the lion’s den to get a confession.”

“This is a recording device?” I asked.

She nodded, an almost proud look crossing her face.

“Where the hell did you get something like that?”

“How do you think politicians get shit done?” Anticipating my next question, she cut me off. “You should know better than anyone that elected officials in this town are figureheads, Mateo. It’s their aides who run the show.”

Only one woman had been by Lilith’s side long enough to garner that kind of power.

“Jackie?”

“Jackie,” she confirmed, seemingly pleased with herself. “And believe me, I didn’t have to twist her arm, either. Although after the way we left things, I don’t think we’ll be seeing her again.”

As the rain beat against what was left of the windshield, I remembered the message Leighton left her mother. “Is this what that phone call to your mother was all about?”

She wasn’t expecting that. I could tell because she pawed at her throat, grasping for a symbol of security that wasn’t there. “How do you know about that?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Yes. I called her, Emilio, and Alex.” As if needing a replacement for her missing pendant, she picked up the wristband and twirled it between her fingers. “There’s only sixteen hours of battery life on this thing, so I had to kill three birds with one stone.”