Page 20 of Not Quite Dead Yet

Andrew rubbed his nose. ‘Luke thinks it’s gonna be him next, doesn’t he? That he’s going to be the Mason, your dad retiring, leaving the company to him. Well, I know something you don’t. Man, I’d love to be the one to tell him.’

‘Tell him what?’ Jet said, losing track. ‘What do you know?’

‘Your daddy’s not leaving the company to little Luke.’ His breath whistled through his teeth. ‘He’s going to sell it. To Nell Jankowski.’

Jet narrowed her eyes and Andrew licked his lips. Must have enjoyed the confusion on her face, ate it up, a substitute for her brother. This couldn’t be true, could it? Andrew was making shit up; he was a drunk, maybe even a murderer.

‘How do you know this?’ Billy asked, stepping in.

‘She told me herself. Nell.’

‘The chief’s wife?’ Billy asked.

Andrew nodded. ‘She’s got a construction business too, out of town. Makes sense she’d want to expand here, in Woodstock, now they live here, now he’s running the police. She’s going to buy Mason Construction – they’ve already started talking, she and your daddy.’

Jet blinked, coming through the shock, recovering just enough to ask: ‘Why wouldn’t my dad leave the company to Luke?’

Andrew inhaled the air from his beer bottle, long empty. ‘Nell said Scott doesn’t think it would be fair, to give the company to one of you, when he has two kids. Well, two kids still alive.’

And now Jet did almost believe him, because that sounded exactly like something Dad would say.

He was all about fair. But this wasn’t fair: Jet would never want the company – she’d wanted to do her own thing, something big to prove that she could, and Luke was dying to take over.

Dad knew that – everyone knew that, even this drunk fuck sitting across from her.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, a lie of her own.

‘You’re not the first to say that.’ Andrew grinned.

‘What do you mean?’ Billy piped up. ‘Who else have you told about this?’

Andrew shrugged. ‘I’m not good with secrets. Never tell a drunk your business plans. I like Nell, she’s nice.’ He rolled the empty bottle away from him. ‘I need another drink.’

Jet stood up, righting the bottle, slamming it down with a thud. She’d had enough of his face, of his wheezing laugh, of collecting reasons why this man might have killed her.

‘Come on, Billy,’ she said, walking away, past those stripey legs that came from another world.

Billy came, caught her by a lamp with the body of an ostrich, shade covering its head.

‘What are you thinking?’ He lowered his voice, eyes on Andrew at the bar.

‘I’m thinking he has no alibi for the time of my murder, and he has motive. A few to choose from, actually.’ Jet sniffed. ‘Blames my family for losing his house, for his daughter’s death. Maybe he thought it was Mom’s head he was bashing in, I don’t know, got me by accident.’

Jet glanced back at Andrew. He’d ordered a harder drink this time, whiskey, nursing it on the way back to his table.

‘He’s going to be drinking down here for a while,’ Jet said. ‘We could just go upstairs, break down his door, search for my iPhone in his apartment, prove it that way.’

That should have got more of a reaction from Billy, more alarm, but he must have been distracted, eyes spooling through some unknown thought.

‘What?’ Jet demanded the thought from him.

‘Just thinking. If he brought the phone home with him, why did it last ping on River Street? That’s nowhere near here, and definitely not on the way from your house. What’s the connection?’

Now Jet was distracted by Billy’s thought too. It was a good point.

‘Fine,’ she said, marching back over to Andrew’s table, not taking a seat this time.

‘You’re back,’ he laughed, choking on the amber liquid.

‘One more thing,’ Jet said, sharpening her voice, aiming for the back of his head. ‘River Street. You know anyone who lives there?’

‘River Street?’ he repeated, spinning in his chair to glance up at her. ‘Yeah, I know people. Used to be my neighbors.’

‘What?’ Jet said, too breathy, forced out by her quickening heart.

‘I used to live over there. My old house, it was on North Street. Just off River Street, the only way to get to the house.’

Jet’s head snapped to the side, finding Billy’s eyes. Now the alarm was there, where it belonged, a coating over that watery blue. Probably a matching look in hers.

‘You’re saying there’s a Mason Construction site on North Street?’ Jet asked the back of Andrew’s head, still intact. ‘Your old house?’

‘It’s your family’s company.’ Andrew took a large gulp. ‘Down the end. They’re only just starting the new building now.’ Another. ‘Why you asking me about River Street?’

Because it had been the wrong question, and the wrong street.

North Street.

That blue dot hanging in the road right on the corner, where River met North, and Jet had been chasing down the wrong one.

She hooked her arm through Billy’s, dragged him away.

‘We were looking at the wrong street,’ she hissed, heading for the exit. ‘Maybe Andr– th-the killer turned the phone off, then headed down North toward the construction site. Didn’t continue along River like we thought.’

‘You think it is Andrew, then?’

‘Well, he’s connected to that location.’ Jet glanced back at the man, sitting in shadows, seeing off his glass of whiskey. ‘Probably doesn’t know we have the phone data, that we can see it was turned off there, the idiot.’

‘And if it’s not Andrew?’

Jet gave Billy his arm back. ‘If it’s not Andrew, if someone else killed me, then maybe it’s not about the killer’s connection to that site. Maybe it’s about mine. ’

Billy stopped by the door, a glint in his eye as he paused to ask: ‘To North Street?’

‘To fucking North Street,’ she answered.