“By the Wraiths?” Billy seemed to mull this over. “I doubt it.”
“I know!” I lifted a finger into the air. “By the DEA, right?”
Twilight blinked twice, real fast. Meanwhile, I ignored the look Billy was giving me. I could guess what it looked like since I’d neglected to mention that Twilight was likely, in fact, undercover DEA. But what I didn’t know was whether Twilight’s tapping of Jenn’s house had been sanctioned by the DEA or if he’d gone rogue. I couldn’t imagine Kip being murdered had been sanctioned . . .
“No, son. The DEA doesn’t give a shit about you.” I said, giving my head a somber shake. “You shot your daddy, so he’s gone. You framed your mother for it, so I doubt she’s going to—”
“I didn’t frame her. I framed Elena!” In a fit of unveiled rage, Twilight attempted to surge to his feet. I didn’t flinch because Billy placed a hand on the blond man’s shoulder, forcing him back down like he was swatting a fly.
Twilight was big, strong. Billy was bigger, stronger.
“You framed Elena. Okay. That sorta answers a question.” A surge of urgency, shouting that I wrap this up and get a move on, repeated loudly and insistently inside my brain. Hurry! the urgency pleaded. Hurry up hurry up hurry the fuck up!
I ignored it.
I would be chill. Nothing would distract me ever again because I would never be caught unawares ever again. Jennifer’s future safety depended on it. If she has a future . . .
Swallowing against a rough thickness, I shoved that thought away. I couldn’t think about that. I wouldn’t think about that.
Instead, I pressed onward. “Jackson called to tell me Elena—the woman you supposedly framed for your father’s death—kidnapped Jenn. Your turn.”
I could feel the weight of Billy’s gaze on me, searching, worried.
I ignored him.
“You don’t want to—I don’t know—get going, then?” Twilight asked, sounding angry and looking at me like I was insane.
I shook my head. “Your turn. How did you frame Elena? Actually, no.” I shook my head faster. “I want you to tell me the whole damn story. We’ll see what I choose to answer next.”
Twilight glared at me but surprised me by responding almost immediately. “Fine. Elena reached out to me before your engagement party. Weeks before. She wanted my help killing my—killing Kip. I met with her and she told me her plan. She’d brought this fishing rope—you know the kind used for crabbing?—back from their last trip to the Florida Keys, took it off the boat. She really wanted to kill him with it.”
“She took it off his boat?” I had an ah ha! moment and subsequently felt like an idiot. Of course. I should’ve realized Kip’s big boat in the Keys had been the source of the rope.
“Yes. Said she hated the boat, hated Florida, hated him. She’d already somehow swiped one of the Donner Lodge’s credit cards, ordered a roll of it to be sent to the lodge. She then planted it in my mother’s office and cut off a length matching the one she had from Kip’s boat.”
“So what were you supposed to do?” Billy asked, sounding curious.
“She wanted me to go to the party, draw the police away, and then she and Kip would make a scene. Then they’d leave. She said she’d talk Kip into coming back to the lodge somehow and then she’d kill him in the car, strangling him with the rope. She’d toss it into the pond after and then leave a tip with the cops to drag the pond, putting the gloves in my mother’s office to be found with the roll of leaded Polysteel.”
“That’s all she wanted you to do? Cause a distraction with the police?” Billy looked at me, and I could see he had a hard time believing the only thing Elena wanted was Isaac to show up and draw the police away. I agreed.
“She wanted to be the one to kill him, she was adamant. But no. That’s not all she wanted me to do. She wanted me to serve as lookout, make sure no one saw her in the car strangling Kip or tossing the rope in the pond. Make sure she could get in and out of my mother’s office unseen to plant the gloves. She also wanted me to get my hands on Jennifer’s phone, text my mother, ask her to meet me—as Jennifer—in the parking lot. Then she wanted me to anonymously call the cops that Kip was dead in his car, or that I’d seen something bad, etcetera. Once that was done, she wanted me to drive her to their home on my motorcycle, her alibi being that she’d stayed at home while Kip turned around and came back to the party on his own.”
“That’s an insane plan.” Billy made a face.
Isaac half-turned his head but didn’t look up at Billy. “Well, she’s insane.”
“Why didn’t you turn her in?”
Isaac glanced down and to the side, his jaw working, surprising me again with his answer. “I wanted him dead. I reckon y’all know what that’s like.”
Billy and I shared a look, but too much pain resided there, too many scarring memories. Our gazes cut away almost instantly.
I cleared my throat against the emotion I refused to entertain and asked, “So, what? What did you do?”
“I told her I wouldn’t do it, and I told her I wouldn’t stop her. I waited at the edge of the parking lot where I knew she’d planned to kill him. But I—” Isaac blinked real fast again, sucking in a breath “—I changed my mind. When it came right down to it, I didn’t want him to die. So as soon as I spotted the car, I ran over and banged my gun against the back window, hoping I wasn’t too late.”
“But you were,” Billy guessed, lowering to his haunches to untie Jennifer’s brother.
“I was. She’d already killed him, with the rope.” He slid his jaw to one side, then the other, his stare hooded. “Anyway, seeing it was done and that she might get away with it—”
“Wait. Why didn’t you just keep her there? Call the cops?”
“Because, fuckface, I’m an undercover agent, as you well know. Do you think babysitting my father’s murderer until the cops show up to arrest her, giving them a statement, cooperating would look good to the Wraiths? No. It would blow my cover. And I’ve worked too goddamn hard and put up with too goddamn much for my father’s death—that worthless piece of shit—to mess it up.”
Billy and I shared another look, but Billy was the one to say what we both were thinking, “Fair enough.”
Now that Isaac was untied, I tossed my keys to Billy and tilted my head toward the door. “Let’s go. You drive. You”—I pointed at Isaac—“come with us. I want the rest of this story before we get to the hospital.”
Isaac grabbed my wrist before we could move. “Wait, wait a second. Tell me what happened to Jenn. I’ll go, but what happened?”
“Elena kidnapped her using my Geo. Somehow, Jenn ended up driving the car into some trees going over sixty. Neither of them had seatbelts on. Jenn broke—” I had to stop, suck in a breath, fist my hand to stop the tremor “—both of Jenn’s legs are broken, she’s unconscious, the ambulance took her to the hospital. Elena is dead. Miller, in the back seat, is also dead. That’s all I know.”
Isaac nodded, all color draining from his face, his next breath just as shaky as mine had been. “Fuck,” he said on an exhale. “Let’s go.”