“I told Victoria not to let her look at the records, but Victoria does what Victoria does. At first, Denise went along with it, but she wasn’t happy. But when she found out that we were working on a plan to squash the Kiefer project, she balked. Said no way. Harrison said he would destroy her. She had … well, she had done things for us. Helped us hide some money, move things around. She would have been in serious trouble, lost her license, gone to prison. Victoria convinced her to leave town, used their friendship—saying that if Denise went to the authorities they would all go to jail. She’d never see her kids again. Victoria loved Denise, but she loved the game more. I planned to take her across the border—and if she had just gone when I told her to none of this would have happened! But she talked to her husband, and he was talking her out of it. He was going to go to the police. Denise told him he couldn’t, that Harrison was dangerous, so they agreed to leave together. I took the money for Denise. To help her make a new life in Mexico. And … also, she wouldn’t be able to come back if she was wanted for embezzlement.”

He looked longingly at the near-empty Scotch bottle.

“And then?” Lucy asked.

When he didn’t say anything, Nate pounded his fist on the wall. “What happened then? Did you shoot them?”

“It went to hell. Carl Chavez and his asshole cousin shot them all. Just shot them in cold blood and I stood there and didn’t do anything. I didn’t know that’s what they were going to do. They didn’t have to kill them! I told Harrison that they were leaving town, and he was good with that. Harrison … he said he didn’t know that Carl was going to kill them.”

“Excuse me? You can’t be saying that Carl Chavez spontaneously decided to kill an entire family!”

Nate was on edge. He’d spent hours with Ricky Albright and knew what that poor kid had suffered.

“I told Harrison. I was a mess that weekend—hell, I’ve been a mess for the last three years. Harrison said he told Chavez to make sure the Albrights crossed the border, that was it. He wasn’t happy, but hell, I don’t know anything anymore.”

Lucy frowned. This was not the clear statement that she wanted. Maybe she should have waited until Simon was sober.

“How involved was Faith Monroe in this scheme?” Lucy asked.