Page 26 of Luck of the Devil (Harper Adams Mystery #3)

Unsurprisingly, Malcolm was already in the car by the time I came out. He must have raided a vending machine, because he had a couple of bottled waters, multiple bags of assorted chips, and some Oreo and Nutter Butter cookies.

“Oh,” I said, picking up the package of Nutter Butters. “I haven’t had these in years.”

“Maybe I wanted those,” he said with a laugh as he started the car and headed toward the highway.

“Then you should have hidden them.” I picked up the laptop again and put in my mother’s password to wake it up.

While I nibbled on the cookies, I transferred the videos to the laptop, then worked on isolating still images of the mystery woman and the two men.

When I was done, I sent the pictures and the videos to Carter in a text with an explanation of what they were.

He quickly responded that he’d get on it.

I was in the process of trying to determine which of my mother’s friends to send the woman’s image to when my phone rang. I picked it up and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the number on the screen.

Mason Deveraux really wanted to talk to me.

That was not a good sign.

I silenced the call and let it ring, not wanting to let Deveraux know I’d screened his call.

“Not gonna take that?” Malcolm asked, his hand draped over the steering wheel.

Opening the laptop, I started to connect it to my phone hotspot. “I’m sure it was spam.”

He tapped his thumb on the steering wheel, and I wondered if he’d seen the number on my screen when Deveraux had called earlier. The caller ID didn’t give his name away, but all he’d have to do was give the number to Carter. He’d probably find out who the caller was in a matter of seconds.

What would Malcolm do if he knew I’d called Deveraux for information about him? Would he be mad enough to leave me on the side of the road? Would he kill me? How well did I really know him? I knew he valued loyalty, and he would see calling Deveraux as the epitome of disloyalty.

But strangely, I was less worried for my safety and more worried about losing his respect and his friendship.

Dear Lord. Did I have Stockholm Syndrome?

I kept my gaze on the computer screen, resting on my fingers on the track pad. “I asked you before how many people you’d killed,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “But you didn’t answer.”

“You think I have an answer.” He gave me a devilish grin. “Maybe I lost count.”

I turned to look at him. “No. I don’t think you did.”

“You think I remember every person I’ve killed?” he said in a stiff tone.

I considered it for a moment. “Maybe not every one of them, but I think you remember the ones that mattered. Like the Sylvester brothers.”

His brow rose and he turned to face me, studying me for a full second before turning back to the road. “They don’t deserve to be remembered.”

He had a point. But I suspected we’d both remember them until our last breath anyway.

“Why ask me now?” he asked. “Last time you asked me, you quickly changed your mind and said didn’t want to know.”

“Maybe I realized that you know a whole hell of a lot about my past, but I know very little about yours.”

His laugh was a short bark. “That’s bullshit if I ever heard it. You know plenty about me.”

“I know what everyone else knows. That you were the Fenton County crime boss until you were arrested. You worked for J.R. Simmons before that, as one of his Twelve.” One of the twelve crime bosses he’d sent out around the state to run their own empires, all while still offering fealty and likely a share of their profits to Simmons.

“See? Not many people know I was one of the Twelve, so you already know more than everyone else.”

“A little more, maybe, but not much.”

He tapped his thumb on the steering wheel a couple of times before he said, “I wasn’t one of the Twelve until I went to Fenton County.

After Simmons sent me back there from El Dorado and a short stint in Little Rock.

” He shot me another glance, his eyes hard.

I was momentarily taken back, but I knew he wasn’t mad at me.

He just didn’t like talking about his past.

“You grew up in Fenton County?”

“Yep.” Was his bitter reply.

He obviously hadn’t been happy about returning. “Did he send you back as punishment?”

“No, I was still his one of his prize protégées, although I didn’t feel like it when I found out where I was going.

But he wasn’t happy with who was runnin’ it, and he expected me to make a power move at some point and take over.

He thought the fact I was familiar with the county would help,” he said, some of his roughness gone.

“But I was under his thrall, so I didn’t question it.

I wasn’t happy to go, but I went nonetheless. ”

“Because you wanted to run a crime syndicate? Was that your ultimate goal?”

He released a short laugh. “Hell, no. I went because I didn’t want to be dirt poor.”

“You were raised dirt poor?”

“As poor as you can get.”

I didn’t know anything about his childhood other than the bits and pieces he’d told me.

That his father was a drunk, and he and his younger brother, Scooter, had been through hell—so much so, it had driven his brother to drinking.

Malcolm had said he’d spent his life trying to protect him and sometimes he’d been successful and other times not.

Was he referring to their beatings? Or the fact that Scooter had become an alcoholic?

It seemed kind of ironic he’d named his tavern after his alcoholic brother.

Ultimately, despite caring deeply for his brother, Malcolm had left him behind. I’d inferred that this was his exile.

I wasn’t going to press the matter, so he surprised me when he said, “I met Simmons when I was fourteen years old. He pulled into the gas station I was workin’ at.

I saw his fancy car and suit, and I told him I wanted to be just like him someday.

He got a chuckle out of that and handed me a business card and told me to come hit him up for a job when I turned eighteen. ”

“And you did.”

“I didn’t know what he did back then, just that he had a lot of money, and as far as I was concerned, if I could get money, my troubles will be over.” He released a self-deprecating laugh. “Little did I know.”

“Did your parents disapprove?”

“My father was long gone, not that I gave a shit about what that bastard thought.”

“He was a mean drunk.” It wasn’t a question, more of an acknowledgement.

“The meanest. He used to beat my brother and me for the fun of it. He’d beat my mother because of any imagined wrong.” He shot me another long glance before he turned back to road, saying, “He was the first man I killed.”

If he’d meant to shock me, he was about to be disappointed. “Because he’d pushed you too far,” I said. “He’d hurt your mother or brother one too many times.”

“You really want me to be noble,” he said in disgust. “It would help the narrative you’re trying to build in order to justify working with me.”

Maybe he had a point, but this wasn’t one of those times. “That has nothing to do with the fact that you killed him to protect someone you loved. I’ve seen it before. I know what it looks like.”

He was quiet, the only sound was the creaking of leather as he wrung the steering wheel as if he were strangling it.

“Did they arrest you?”

“No.”

“Did they know you did it?”

He laughed. “No. They thought it was an accident. We told them he fell in a drunken stupor and hit his head. Nobody questioned it. Everyone knew he was a drunk and a mean one at that. Good riddance to bad rubbish.” He turned to look at me again, his face devoid of any emotion. “You plannin’ to turn me in?”

“Sounds to me like justice was served. Besides,” I said flippantly. “I’m sure you have some kind of immunity deal with the feds.”

He didn’t confirm or deny my statement. Instead, he looked lost in memories.

“Are you close to your mother?”

“She’s long dead.”

“Any cousins? Aunts or uncles?”

“Nope. My brother’s the only one left.”

“After you started working for Simmons, and especially after you became one of the Twelve, it must have been hard to form attachments to people. Anyone you were close to could be used against you.”

Releasing a sigh, he said, “Like I said, little did I know.”

“But you must have been close to someone . You told me you betrayed someone back in Fenton County. It was someone you cared about.”

He was quiet for a long moment, and I didn’t think he was going to answer when he practically whispered, “His name is Jed.” He hesitated as though unsure he should continue, then said, “We grew up in the same poor neighborhood, if you could call where we lived a neighborhood. We went through some dark times.” He paused, wearing a haunted look.

“When I came back to Fenton County after workin’ for Simmons for several years, I hired Jed to work for me.

He became my right-hand man. He took care of my business, and I took care of him financially. ”

“And you betrayed him?” My stomach twisted, but this time it had nothing to do with my withdrawal. Maybe I couldn’t trust him after all.

“Not how you’re thinkin’,” he said, sounding exhausted.

“I made sure he was out of reach when the whole deal with the Hardshaw Group went down. I didn’t want Hardshaw messin’ with him, and I wasn’t about to hand him to the feds on a silver platter either.

I made damn sure they wouldn’t try to charge him with anything. ”

Malcolm had made a deal with the Feds to help deliver the international crime ring to them, but something had gone wrong.

He sighed. “It didn’t stop them from threatening to renege on their offer after I didn’t follow their guidelines for the Hardshaw bust to the T.

” He paused again, his jaw setting as a dark look crossed over his face.

“But they soon realized it was in their best interest to see our original agreement through.”

What did Malcolm have that the feds wanted so badly?