“You can’t,” I grumbled, sliding into the Geo’s passenger seat. “You have our phones.”
“What is this?” I snapped, glaring at the two men hovering just outside the door to what looked like an old fishing shack. A pile of wood had been stacked to the left of the door and the porch roof sagged, shingled with cedar. It looked like it might collapse should anyone slam the front door in a fit of temper.
Repo gestured for us to follow them inside. “Come on. We need your help.”
“My help? Wait a minute. Burro said this was about you helping Jenn.” I pointed a finger at Isaac once we were inside.
The first address Burro had texted was the convenience store in Hill country. Which is to say, it operated near the Hill family compound in the mountains. Once there, Jethro explained—following standard Iron Wraith modus operandi—we needed to go inside and ask for the keys to the bathroom. The old guy behind the counter wrote something down on the back of receipt paper.
A new address.
Jethro knew it. Before we left, Jet bought a stick of gum, left a twenty-dollar tip, and we were off.
“It’s about Diane. Diane is being blackmailed.” Repo rounded a small primitive table in the middle of the room, around which were set four chairs. “Here, sit down. We’ll explain—"
“I’m not sitting down, and neither is Jet. Who is blackmailing Diane? Or do you know?” I crossed my arms.
Repo was the one to answer. “Kenneth Miller.”
Jethro looked to me. “Farmer Miller? The one who sold Ms. Donner the cows?”
Inspecting the two men and the severity of their expressions, I decided to take a seat. “Okay, now you have my attention. But Jet isn’t sitting. Continue.” I’d put two and two together at the will reading and it equaled Farmer Miller being in league with Elena Wilkinson. The ex-dairy farmer blackmailing Diane offered further proof of what I already knew to be true: he’d been the shooter.
“Diane got a note, a handwritten note”—Repo sat across from me—“on white paper in black marker. It was a few days after the murder. It said something about knowing what she did and having her gun.”
“Diane doesn’t have a gun.” I peered at Isaac. “Unless you bought her one.”
Isaac said nothing. He glared. At me. Mute.
Meanwhile, Repo leaned his elbows on the table. “Right, but the note said they—the blackmailer—had the murder weapon and her fingerprints are all over it.”
I felt like I already knew the answer to the question, but I asked anyway. “Are they?”
“No. She never touched it.” Repo—expression open, honest, candid—looked how I felt. Desperate. “But the note said they’d send the gun to the police.”
“I mean—let them.” I shrugged, standing and turning for the door. “It’s a bluff.”
“Is it?” Finally, Isaac spoke.
Repo was on his feet again, his hand stretched out to me. “I don’t know how much you know, Cletus, but Diane did run from the police that night. She shouldn’t have, and that’s my fault because I misunderstood what I was seeing, but she did run. She didn't kill Kip.”
I sighed, rubbing my face with both hands. I didn’t want to be here, but here I was.
Turning back to the two Iron Wraiths, I spread my arms wide. “Fine. Okay. Why don’t you back up and tell me what happened that night, Repo? What do you know?”
“Diane didn’t kill him,” he said on a rush. “She opened that car door. She tried to stop the bleeding, and when I saw what she was doing, I thought . . .”
“You thought she’d shot him.” Jethro filled in the blank.
Repo nodded, looking gutted. “I got her out of there. Took her to the bakery. I had to get the blood off her hands. Then we ran like hell. They chased us through the woods, but we got to my bike first. She didn’t do it.”
“So you keep saying.” I let my hands drop to my thighs with a smack. “If she didn’t shoot Kip, then why are y’all worried about her fingerprints being on a gun she didn’t fire?”
“Her fingerprints are on the car. Bloody ones.” Repo gripped his forehead, seeming earnestly grief-stricken.
I worked to assemble these missing puzzle pieces into the picture I’d already sketched. “But the police can’t confirm the bloody print is hers because she won’t leave her house. They have no way to lift her prints if she doesn’t leave the house.”
Repo glanced at Isaac, and they both nodded.
“Whose idea was that?” My attention bounced between them.
Isaac shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “My idea.”
“Smart.”
He nodded, accepting the compliment.
“But I still don’t understand the blackmail. Why do you think Miller is the blackmailer?”
“Because of the cows.” Repo jabbed his finger at the top of the table, his other hand on his waist. “The blackmail demands. All they want is the dairy cows from the lodge.”
“Are you kidding me?” Jethro scoffed. “Is this a joke?”
“No,” Repo said, looking like he wished it were.
“What do you need me for? Go get your fancy fraternity brothers to go beat the shit out of him.” I glanced at my watch. We’d been gone too long.
“I can’t.” Repo shook his head. “The Wraiths can’t know about Diane and me. It’ll put her in danger.”
I started to say something, I didn’t know what, likely something flippant, when Isaac added, “And it would put Jennifer in danger too.”
Gritting my teeth, I glanced at Jethro. He nodded subtly, confirming what they’d said was true.
“Well, then turn in the blackmail notes to the police. Call his bluff. What is wrong with you?”
“What if he did put her prints on the gun?” Repo’s stare settled squarely on Jethro, like he was trying to communicate something of importance, or make a request. “Jet. Help me. We can’t take that chance.”
I looked at my watch. Another minute had passed. “He’s probably lying.”
“Cletus,” Jethro stepped up next to me, his eyes on Repo. “Miller might be telling the truth, it could be he put her prints on that gun. We’ve, uh—” Jethro rubbed his forehead, looking agitated “—I’ve done it before.”
“What?” I reared back from my brother. “You did what?”
“I’ve put false fingerprints on a weapon.”
Now I fully faced Jethro, inspecting him. A long moment passed where we stared at each other until I said, inanely, “Is that so.” But it was so. At one point in his past, my eldest brother’s moral compass had been darker than mine.
Jethro looked like he might be sick, and his voice was rough with guilt as he said, “It was a long time ago.”
“That’s why you wanted me to bring Jet.” I glared at Repo. “Because y’all did the same thing to someone else.”
Repo looked to Jet, an apology clear as day written all over his face, and gave me a stiff nod. “Plus, he’d know how to get here, once you made it to the convenience store.”