“I got this. Just find out what the hell is taking so long.”
Eddie left through the back door and Roselita took a seat at the table. She stared at the untouched glass of whiskey. “I’m sorry, Kirby.”
“I don’t even know what’s happening here, Rose, so maybe you should start filling me in so I can help you unfuck whatever this is.”
Roselita kept looking at the glass.
“C’mon, Rose, why are you doing this?”
“The money,” she said, and it exhausted her as if the word itself weighed fifty pounds. “The money we were trying to retrieve from Arnie Blackwell, before August shut us down and brought you in. We knew who he was ten minutes after we found his body. We knew there was over a million at play, and that whoever had killed him hadn’t gotten their hands on it yet. At least not all of it.” Roselita walked over and squatted down to face Dane. “I found the joint on the floor, Dane, long before you got there. It was in my damn pocket the whole time you were giving me my big break in the case. We already had a good idea who and where his partner was and hopefully his half of the winnings from the Slasher. We’d put everything together and were about to move on Turo—and then, well, then there was you—and everything went up in smoke. Those flip fuckers got to the money first while we were catching you up and acting like we didn’t already know. It could’ve been over in hours, but you came along and fucked everything up. We lost every dime to those evil bastards, so our only option was to try and find the kid and sell him off to somebody who would be willing to pay for him as a reimbursement.”
“Reimbursement,” Dane repeated. “For a bag of money that wasn’t yours to begin with?”
Roselita looked as if she would be sick. “It was the only option.”
“That’s not your only option now, Rose. You can cut me loose and we can get the hell out of here. We can get William somewhere safe. This can’t be about money anymore. That’s not who you are.”
“You have no idea who I am, Kirby.”
“I know you’re not someone who would sell a child to these assholes. For a payday? You’ve got a kid of your own on the way. Is this the way you want to start off being a mother?”
Roselita stood up. Dane expected the punch she was going to throw at him to hurt, but Roselita just looked more sickened than anything else. “Props for finding him, Kirby, and ending all this shit. Truthfully, I hoped you’d figure it all out before we did. I hoped you’d feel in your gut that you were being played. Then you would’ve stayed away from me—from all this. You wouldn’t have called me to go walk into the lion’s den with you. I mean, you handed the kid right over to us. I told you. I had no choice.”
“Yes, you did, and I didn’t get played, Rose. I trusted you. Big difference.”
Roselita walked back over to the table and finally drank the bourbon. She picked up the radio, set it back down, and stared into the empty glass.
“Roselita, listen to me, you’re not a murderer. And you’re not someone who would do this to a child.”
“I told you, you don’t know shit about me, Kirby. I am a murderer. I killed a pregnant woman. We killed her.” Roselita picked up the glass and threw it. It shattered on the far wall, glass raining down all over the hardwood flooring. Dane flinched but felt more confused than frightened.
“You were with me when the Sellers woman was killed. How can you say we killed—” Dane stopped. He understood. “You’re not talking about you and me. You keep saying we—you’re talking about you and Dahmer, aren’t you?”
Roselita didn’t answer.
“That’s why you were so tore up when you found out the Sellers woman was pregnant—because your partner is the one that killed her? And you’re blaming yourself?”
“Shut up, Kirby.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen, was it? Did she survive the attack from the Filipinos? Did Dahmer go finish the job? I saw your face when you found out. Why didn’t you tell me? What does he have on you? I know this isn’t who you are.”
“He doesn’t have anything on me. He’s my partner. He’s saved my life too many times to count.”
“And he’s a killer, Rose—a cold-blooded murderer. Cut me loose and let me help you out of this. We can put a stop to all of it—together.”
“There’s no stopping it, Kirby.” Roselita sat back down at the table and sank her head into her hands. “When Gold Mouth’s uncle gets back with the cash, they are taking the kid and I’m going to have to live with what I did. I’m sorry it played out like this.”
“Tell me then, why haven’t you killed me already?”
“Shut up, Kirby.”
“Because you can’t, Rose. Because you’re not Dahmer. You’re waiting on him to get here so he can do it, aren’t you?”
“I said, shut up, Kirby.”
“You can still stop this, Rose.”
Roselita jumped out of her seat and pulled her gun from her hip. She pressed it into Dane’s forehead. “Stop calling me Rose.”
“Stop letting a man who would kill a woman with a baby in her belly and sell another child like property make your decisions for you.”
Roselita closed her eyes tight and stood quietly before lowering her gun and looking at her watch.
“We’re running out of time, Roselita. And just so you know, that piece of shit out there in the barn right now has no intention of paying you anything. He’s waiting for your partner to get here so he can take us all out at once. Believe that.”
“That guy out there may be stupid, Kirby, but he’s not stupid enough to kill federal agents. Not if he wants to continue to live his life above ground. Nobody is that stupid.”
Dane actually laughed at that. “You still don’t have any idea where you are. Do you, Rose? The only reason he hasn’t put a bullet in both of us already is because he needs to make sure Dahmer eats one, too. Loose ends matter up here, Rose, not federal agents. Jesus, wake up.”
Roselita shook her head frantically, but it looked to Dane like she was listening. She took a breath and settled herself. She spoke smoothly and calmly. “I’m not going to tell you again to shut up, Kirby. This is happening, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. It’s done.”
Dane stopped squirming. He sat up as straight as he could, ignoring the pain in his neck and skull. “There is no honor in that man out there, Rose. Trust me on that. I know.”
Roselita stayed quiet. She just wanted all of this to go away.
Dane’s voice took on a more conversational tone, as if he wasn’t being held against his will. “Rooster was there when my wife and daughter died.”
Roselita snapped back to the moment. The words wife and daughter punched her in the chest and her shoulders sagged back. Her voice had lost all its bravado as well. “Sorry, Dane. After I talked to your friend Keith, I did my research on you. What happened to your wife and daughter was an accident. I read the report.”
Dane spoke from a faraway place, as if he could feel himself out in those woods again. “If you read the report, then you know I hit a deer, right? That’s what caused the truck to flip.”