Page 15 of Luck of the Devil

I stared at him in shock, then quickly recovered. “I’m not staying with you!”

“Why the hell not?”

I started to say because I didn’t trust him, but that wasn’t true. I wouldn’t be here on a bridge with him if I didn’t. He’d proven multiple times that I could, but the idea of staying at his house still felt weird. Wrong.

Or maybe too right.

“Okay, then,” he said with a small grin of triumph when I didn’t present a reason. “That’s settled.” He glanced down at his phone. “I’ve got to be getting to the tavern to work the evening shift.”

“Great. You can just drop me off at my apartment.”

He snorted. “What part of you not staying at your place do you not understand?” When I started to protest, he said, “I know your laptop was stolen, and I doubt you already bought a new one. You can work on my laptop in the tavern office while I’m workin’.”

When I didn’t respond, he gave a satisfied nod. “Good, it’s settled.”

“Fine,” I said in disgust, trying not to look too agreeable, otherwise he might get suspicious, but deep down, I was grateful to not have to stay at my place. Besides, if I stayed with him, I could watch him like a hawk to make sure he wasn’t keeping things from me. “But I need to get some things from my apartment.”

He started walking toward his car. “Once we get there, you have ten minutes to get some shit together.”

“Generous,” I muttered sarcastically as I followed him.

“More than you know.”

He actually gave me nine minutes because he counted the time it took me to climb up the stairs and unlock the door. Not that it mattered. I didn’t have much to pack other than some toiletries, a few days’ worth of clothes, and my phone charger.

I was dying for a drink, and it felt like Keebler Elves were building an industrial-sized cookie factory in my head, but I resisted the pull to my kitchen sink cabinet and instead grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge with shaky hands along with a couple of aspirin. Malcolm noticed, because he seemed to notice everything, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. After I packed my bag, I slipped off Malcolm’s jacket. Even though I threw on a pullover sweater, I was already feeling partially naked without the jacket. I told myself it was because it had warmed to my body temperature, not because of who it belonged to.

I gave Malcolm a smug look and held out the jacket. “Six minutes.”

He took it and studied me for a moment before pivoting and heading wordlessly to the door.

We drove to the tavern in silence while I stared out the window, going over the last month with my mother. She’d started acting strangely after my dad moved out.

And then there was my father. He’d claimed he’d moved out because of how my mother was treating me. But what if there was some other reason?

I sat up and turned to Malcolm. “I need to speak to my dad.”

“We already decided he was safe. We don’t want to tip him off that you think she might have been murdered.”

“I don’t want to warn him,” I said in frustration. “I want to ask him more details about why he left her. I think she got scared after he moved out. What if she discovered something dangerous about my father and that’s why he moved out?”

He frowned. “You think she found out he was working for Simmons?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. But I do know my father’s desk in the home office is completely empty, so he took everything with him when he left.” I shrugged. “What if she found something before he cleaned it out?” A slimy feeling coated my skin. “This feels wrong. Sure, my father had a business dealing with Simmons, but that doesn’t mean he’s crooked.”

He was my dad. The man who’d made pancakes every Saturday morning before Andi died. The man who’d taught me how to play basketball in the driveway and how to build a campfire. That man wouldn’t have murdered anyone. But what if I didn’t really know him at all?

The look Malcolm shot me suggested he thought my father was very crooked. “Frankly, I’m happy you’re lookin’ at all the options. I expected you to need more of a push.”

I could understand why he’d thought so, but at the moment, my father was the most obvious place to start.

“If I were with the LRPD, I wouldn’t interview him first. I’d probably start with searching her suitcase and house.”

He cocked a brow. “Well, you’re not with the Little Rock PD, are you? Good thing too since your mother died in Lone County.”

It took a couple of seconds to realize what he was insinuating—that the LRPD was out of Lone County’s jurisdiction. “Wow,” I said dryly. “That was sort of a joke.”

He gave me a wry grin. “I’m just sayin’, you’re not bound to any rules about how you go about this. If you want to start with your father, then go ahead, but take everything he says with a grain of salt. You can’t trust him to be truthful, but hear what he has to say and we can sort it out later.”