Page 129 of Things We Left Behind

Nolan’s gaze landed back on me. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

I shook my head. “She mentioned a family party of Metzer’s that Dilton crashed. He made a show of getting close to his family. Probably to drive home a point of just how close he could get.”

“Playing a little ‘look at me eating your mom’s potato salad and playing horseshoes with Uncle Joe so you better not fuck me over,’” Nolan mused.

“That’s what it sounds like. And Metzer disappeared while Dilton was still alive. So it’s possible he’s the answer to both questions.”

“That would leave only Hugo on the revenge list. And since you’re already working with you-­know-­who on that, it sounds as if your to-­do list just got a lot shorter.”

I grunted. “But why would he have put Nash’s name on the list and then be the one to pull the trigger?”

Nolan shrugged. “The guy was an opportunistic egomaniac. He saw a chance to take out the guy who booted his buddy from his job. Then he got the opportunity to get paid to be the one to do the taking out. Hated him enough to want him out of the picture but not enough to make it happen until someone sweetened the pot with a cash offer.”

It made sense in that it was a stupid move and Tate Dilton had been full of stupid moves.

I frowned over my drink. “I don’t like the connection to Felix and the feuding Hugo father and son. How would a crooked small-­town cop land on any of their radar?”

“Criminals are like one big inbred family. Dilton didn’t just suddenly up and go bad like an avocado. That boy had been rotting from the inside for a long time. He could have done a favor here for Daddy Hugo and worked a job with Hugo Junior over there. Hell, you know, a bunch of bad guys sit down for afriendly poker game when one henchman says he’s looking for a getaway driver, and another henchman says, ‘I got a guy.’”

“That’s possible,” I agreed.

“You’ve seen Dilton’s finances. That dumbass was sitting on a lot more money than just a cop’s salary. It didn’t all have to come from the same employer.”

Raucous laughter echoed from the opposite end of the U-­shaped bar where several men were gathered in a tight circle. Probably around a woman, I guessed.

Nolan sniffed the bourbon appreciatively, then sipped. “Damn, that’s good. Do they just keep a bottle here for you in case you show up?”

“It pays to own the hotel,” I said dryly.

Of course there were drawbacks, like the hungry eyes zeroing in on me. Some wanted to make deals. Others wanted to stand close enough for a photo op. Still others wanted to get even closer in hopes of being chosen for a more intimate kind of fun.

“Ever get the feeling like you’re in a zoo?” Nolan asked observantly.

I smirked. “Only every day.”

“You could try being less handsome. I mean, I’m a straight guy, but even I know a suit daddy when I see one. Maybe shave the beard, lose a few teeth,” he suggested.

A tall blond wandered by with a seductive swing to her hips. She was dressed in Alexander McQueen, and I could smell her cloying perfume from six feet away. The hair was what caught my eye, but I immediately rejected her. She didn’t have green eyes and glasses.

Damn it.

I set my glass down with a snap.

Ever since she’d shown up at my office, it felt like Sloane had infiltrated this life too. Not just the one I carried on periodically in Knockemout. I needed to get her out of my head. I’d tried everything over the years. Except one thing…

That one thing slammed into me like a train. The fastestway for me to get bored with a woman had always been to take her to bed. Sex always triggered a countdown clock. Once the hunt was over, so was the interest for me.

A vision of Sloane perched on my desk, her thighs and lips open for me, had my blood racing to my cock.

“So if that fuckface Dilton is the one, then it’s case closed. At least on that end of things,” Nolan said, oblivious to my predicament.

I gritted my teeth and willed my body to have some fucking self-­respect.

“As long as Anthony Hugo doesn’t get it in his head to revisit the list,” I said.

“It would be stupid, not to mention pointless. The CIs who stuck around after finding out Hugo had a target on them were all shipped off courtesy of WITSEC. If anything happens to any cop on that list, Hugo knows he’s the first person they’ll look at,” he pointed out.

“Let’s make sure it was Dilton,” I decided.