It should have been an easy nail in their marriage’s coffin—proof that their relationship was flawed past the point of repair. It should have been an easy and quick decision for Mike, but he failed in that decision, just like he had failed in how he handled Lillian finding out about his “affair.”
So I had to kill her. I had to make the decision for him. It wasn’t easy, but it helped that she had been so selfish, of late. It helped me to look at our friendship and realize how one-sided it was. Just like her marriage to Mike, my friendship with her was all about helping Lillian. Supporting Lillian. Picking up her pieces as she fell apart and putting her back together.
Killing her was the end of a long road, with plenty of places for her to veer off and into safety, had she just been less selfish and more considerate of others.
And now, even in death, she’s being a pain. Luis wants me in Lynwood, so I’m canceling a showing and driving over to do a puppet dance for him and his thugs. I’m certain this is about Colorado, and I have all the figures with me, but pulling out of our pending deals, as I told Mike, is a mistake. Not my mistake, thank God, but no one would be freaking out if Lillian were alive and the cops weren’t sniffing around Mike.
Maybe it was a mistake to make the fake calls from Lillian’s phone. At the time, I’d considered it to be brilliant. No one would be looking at me, the dearest friend, not when there were two fantastic candidates for her murder—David and Mike. And if Lillian had killed herself, she would certainly have called and ordered her own obituary. It’s the exact kind of off-the-wall action she was known for.
I originally moved to Los Angeles to become an actor, so mimicking Lillian’s quiet rasp was a breeze, especially given that I mocked her sayings regularly to Mike. The phone-call recipients had certainly bought it. The concern in the voice of the domestic-abuse center’s operator—Do we need to get you someplace safe?—had been a testament to my vocal skills, and I had driven an erratic trek through the city, dropped her cell in the back of a courier truck, then spent the drive back to Malibu patting myself on the back for my creativity while Lillian’s body rolled around on the back seat.
Now I’ve followed Luis’s men through a shitty ranch-style home, and we are walking down a set of unfinished stairs into a basement. There is a group waiting for us, and I duck my head to avoid hitting the ceiling and squint as my eyes adjust to the dim light.
Jacob’s is the first face I recognize, and my stomach sinks at what it means if he is here. Luis turns in his chair to face me, and just past him, seated at a folding table beside Jacob, his head in his hands, is Mike.
Okay. So it’s this sort of meeting.
CHAPTER 71
SAM
This basement is filthy. In prior meetings with Mike’s clients, we met at steak houses and expensive hotel suites and, once, on a G5. This is the sort of exchange I’d prefer to stay out of, though the danger factor of the cartel business has always given me a sort of bad-boy factor that I have enjoyed, a secret hidden layer of my life that added dimension.
Now, seeing the looks on Mike’s and Jacob’s faces, I realize that I might be in over my head. My first thought is that this is about what I did to Lillian, but the cartel doesn’t seem to care about personal squabbles, as long as they don’t affect business, and I made sure that I always kept my affair with Mike and my friendship with Lillian clear of work.
My mistake—the voice mail to the domestic-abuse center, which undoubtably put some attention on Mike—pokes at me, but again, how would they pin that on me?
I meet Mike’s eyes, and they are afraid and apologetic, and maybe I shouldn’t be the one worried about my mistakes. I take in the scene. There’s a stiff tension in the air, and a half dozen cartel members stand around as if ready for war. Luis is their stark counterpoint in his clean and pressed attire.
“Good evening, gentlemen.” I smile warmly, and my father’s belief that my acting classes were all a waste is proven wrong, once again. The greeting comes out smoothly and confidently, and when Luis looks at me, I can tell that he is gauging and confirming my innocence in this—whatever this is—from my poise and calm demeanor. “What’s all this about?”
“We’re trying to move Colorado,” Luis says, and tilts his head to Mike. “Mike says he’s lost the private key to the Bitcoin account.”
“W-w-what?” I gawk despite my best efforts. “What do you mean, ‘lost’?”
“I hid it with a bottle of liquor in our safe,” Mike says dully. “Lillian apparently took it out on the morning she died.”
A bottle of liquor. Lillian apparently took it out. The puzzle pieces click into place, and I think of the box of liquor that was with Lillian when I picked her up. I found it when I was cleaning out the SUV I had borrowed for the task, and recognized it as their anniversary token. I took it home as a perverse F-you to Lillian and toasted the end of their marriage on my back deck, overlooking the ocean. The bottle and box are in my trash compactor, safe and sound until the maid arrives in the morning. My heart beats faster at the realization of what I have. The key to the Bitcoin balance of Colorado, which has to be close to half a billion dollars. I look from Mike’s stricken face to Jacob, who looks as if he is about to have an anxiety attack, to Luis, who has a few beads of sweat along his hairline. For a man who prides himself on staying cool under pressure, that is tantamount to a mental breakdown.
I’m the only one who knows where it is. The power behind this knowledge is staggering, and I slide my hands into the pockets of my shorts so that I can ball them into fists without anyone seeing.
“So.” I clear my throat. “Why am I here?”
“Well, you’re here for motivation.” Luis smiles. “We’re hoping to jog Mike’s memory—plus you know Lillian. Any idea of where she might have put this bottle?” He glares at Mike with clear disgust at him putting something so valuable in such a weak hiding place.
“Because I got to tell you, Sam.” Luis clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Without that key, we’re going to have to start punishing everyone involved. And I’m not saying that you’re involved, Sam . . . but we all know the fondness that Mike and you share.”
Punishing. I’ve seen what that looks like. Mike once showed me a photo that Luis sent him, of a developer who had screwed us out of a real estate commission. The man’s eyes had been cut out while he was still alive.
Hmm. The moral dilemma here is tough. I could share that I have the key, but then Mike would know that I saw Lillian after she took the bottle, which would lead to him figuring out that I am the one responsible for her death. Sharing the key would save his and Jacob’s lives but certainly ruin any chance of us getting back together—so Mike would be officially, from this point forward, lost as a long-term relationship prospect. My heart sags at the thought because I truly did see us together. Not in my house—we’d buy a much bigger property and travel. So much travel. Mike always told Lillian that he was afraid to fly, and that was why they road-tripped everywhere, but those road trips had been to cover up items that he was transporting and side errands that he went on. In truth, Mike loves a first-class seat as much as the next man, and we’ve escaped on mini-trips all over the country together. I had anticipated so, so much more, once we were out from underneath her thumb.