Page 25 of Luck of the Devil (Harper Adams Mystery #3)

We watched the rest of the video, which lasted several minutes. Different lights went on and off in the house, and then my mother’s car pulled into the driveway. She got out and walked to the back of the house, but we didn’t see the men come out.

“She’s in the house with them,” I said.

Malcolm grunted his acknowledgment.

A few seconds later, a faint light appeared in the dining room, faint enough that I was sure it was from the kitchen. There was still no sign of the men leaving the house, and I wondered if they’d escaped out a back window and slunk off through the backyard. But why was the clip still playing?

Nearly a minute later, the front door opened, and the two men walked out the door. Their faces were shadowed, but I could make out a few of their features.

“That isn’t Pinky and Mike,” I said, the hair on my neck standing on end. “And I’d bet money they made contact with my mother.”

“Agreed,” he said with a tight voice.

I glanced over at him. “Do you recognize them?

He shook his head. “No, but as soon as we’re done, we’re sending these to Hale to see what he can find.”

I gave a short nod as I turned back to the phone, but I didn’t start the next video.

I needed a moment to let this sink in. Two men had broken into my mother’s house, remained in the house after she came home, and very likely confronted her, and she’d never breathed a word of it.

Had she called the police? I reached for my laptop and connected it to the hotspot on my phone.

“What are you lookin’ for?” he asked.

“To see if she called the police.”

“It wasn’t on her phone records,” he said.

He was right, but I looked anyway and came up with nothing.

“Why wouldn’t she call the police?” I asked as I closed the laptop lid.

“Maybe she was scared,” he said. “What if they made some kind of threat?”

“They were obviously looking for something,” I said. “And when she came home while they were still there, they must have decided to be more direct.”

“Give them what they were looking for or something bad would happen,” Malcolm said.

“I guess you’d know,” I said, my irritation rising out of nowhere.

He was silent for a second, then calmly said, “You’re referring to my previous life?”

“What else?” I snapped. “Or are you still threatening people now?”

“I don’t think you really want me to answer that,” he said, his voice calm—but not the scary calm he exuded when he was being threatening. “You’re lookin’ for someone to blame, and I happen to be the closet target.”

He had a point. He hadn’t threatened my mother or had her killed. He was on my side, but he was sitting beside me. A convenient scapegoat.

“Sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t sure why. He’d undoubtedly employed the same tactics on other people in the past.

“We’re gonna find out who did this,” he said, his usual hardness gone. “The lot of ’em were sloppy when they showed up at your mother’s house. We have three faces to look up. We’re gonna find them, Harper.”

I nodded, trying to breath normally despite the fact it felt like a vise was wrapped around my chest.

“Do you need a minute before we watch the next video?”

I was about to say no, but I kept thinking about how scared my mother had been over the last month. She knew I was a former detective but hadn’t told me about any of it. Why?

Malcolm waited patiently until I took a breath and reached for my phone with shaking fingers.

He pulled his flask out of the side pocket of his door and handed it to me.

I wasn’t sure if my shaking was from withdrawal or my nerves, but I took it, struggling to remove the cap. He gently took it back from me and unscrewed it before handing it back.

“Just a sip,” he said. “You’re gonna be tempted to take more to ease the pain you’re feelin’, but drag that stubborn bitch out and show it who’s boss.”

I laughed despite myself, then took a tiny sip. He was right. I wanted to drink the rest of the contents, then drive to a liquor store and get more. But I was a stubborn bitch, and I wasn’t giving in. Not now that I’d allowed myself to acknowledge the problem.

He took back the flask and screwed the cap back on.

“Are you sure you weren’t an alcoholic?” I asked with a scoff. “You seem to know a lot about it.”

“My brother was a drunk for a while,” he said, surprising me with his willingness to share something personal.

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s not hard to understand why he took to it. Sure, he saw the evils of drinkin’ with our father, but you can’t live through something like our childhood and escape it unscathed.”

“Then how did you escape unscathed?” I asked, genuinely curious.

His brow lifted. “Who said I escaped unscathed?”

“So, then what’s your vice?” I asked, turning in my seat to face him. “Because you say you didn’t drink to excess, and I don’t think you’d use drugs.”

“You’re right,” he said, turning to face me. “How did you deal with your trauma?”

“You already know,” I said with a hint of incredulity. “I started drinking.”

“You didn’t start drinking until after you shot that kid last fall.

I’m talking about your sister’s death. And the only reason you finally succumbed to alcohol was because you’d been through so much already it was either drink to smother your pain or you were gonna lose your fucking mind. ” Then he quietly added, “Or worse.”

I started to respond, then stopped, unsure of what to say. He’d accused me of having a death wish, wishing that I’d been killed last fall instead of the boy I’d shot. I suspected he was right. But I’d never outright considered actually ending it myself.

“After your sister, you buried the pain and let is simmer.”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

He released a short laugh. “Believe it or not, I’ve learned it helps to talk about it.”

“What if you don’t have someone to talk to?” I asked in a huff. “And don’t you dare say I should talk to a therapist. I’ve been down that road with the department’s quack. He was more worried about getting through the required number of meetings than making sure I was okay.”

“You’re basing your opinion of therapy on a LRPD-assigned therapist?” he shook his head. “You need to find another.”

“Wait,” I said, sitting upright. “Are you suggesting that you’ve seen a therapist?”

“Yes,” he said with no hesitation.

It took me a second or two to process that piece of information. “When?”

He paused, then said, “Recently, and we’ll leave it at that.”

I gave one slow nod, still chewing on his admission, which I was sure hadn’t been easy. A guy like him needed to keep up appearances, and if word got out he was talking to a therapist it could make him look weak, something he couldn’t afford.

And yet he’d told me.

I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

“And you think I need to see one too,” I said in a whisper.

“It sure as hell wouldn’t hurt, but until you make that decision for yourself, you need to find someone you trust who you can talk to.”

Who was that? While I trusted Louise, I wasn’t sure I felt comfortable unloading my trauma on her.

She didn’t deserve it, for one thing, and for another, that would mean opening up about Malcolm and there was no way I could do that.

In my apartment, he’d suggested I could talk to him, but I’d never considered it a real possibility.

Then why was part of me yearning for that very thing?

“Okay, enough armchair psychiatrist,” I grumped, picking up my phone.

“We have work to do.” I started playing the next video, which showed the night Pinky and Mike broke into my mother’s house.

They knocked, then picked the lock and went inside.

Similar to the video of the previous break-in, lights went on and off in the house.

Then the video ended. The next video was of Malcolm showing up shortly afterward and finding me in the garage.

We disappeared into the back of the house.

The next video was of Malcolm leaving to get his car, then me getting inside.

The last video was of him bringing me back to my mother’s house.

“Why do you think she sent these last videos of you?” I asked.

“Hard to say,” he said, staring out the windshield. “Maybe she knows who I am.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong or illegal. And besides, she thinks you’re my boyfriend, which means you’d have a reason for coming over.”

He didn’t seem disgusted that she’d thought we were a couple, but he didn’t acknowledge it either. “Maybe this is her way of showing you she’s watching.”

“Maybe.” But I didn’t like it. “That’s the last video.”

“You gonna take screenshots of the woman and the guys who broke in the first time?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’ll send a screenshot of the woman to my mother’s friends, and I’ll send all the videos to Carter.”

“Good.” He nodded to the concrete block building across the lot. “I suggest we go to the bathroom since we’re so close to your grandparents’ house.”

I drew a breath to settle my nerves. “Good idea.”

“You hungry?”

I lifted a brow in surprise. “Are you?”

“No, just checking on you. We can stop and get something to eat. We got delayed with construction traffic when we went through Little Rock so it’s later than I expected it would be.”

I glanced at the clock on his screen, surprised to see it was already a little after two. “I’m not hungry.”

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

I got out and strode to the restroom, unnerved by the way he was considering my needs, but the thought of Big Bad James Malcolm going to therapy quickly took over.

How did that work? Was it like The Sopranos ?

Or more like Ozark , where the therapist didn’t know what the patient did, and when she found out…

But if Malcolm could not only go to therapy but recommend it, it made me wonder if I should give it serious consideration.

I quickly squashed the thought. This wasn’t a self-help mission. I was on the hunt for a killer.

But something in the back of my head whispered, “Why can’t it be both?”