“Figured he wouldn’t show,” Jules added.

“Never liked that two-faced, do-gooder punk,” Snipe muttered.

Brick picked up his glass and drank, enjoying the heat of the cognac on the back of his throat. “Do either of you know if the cops have any leads?”

Snipe shrugged. “Haven’t heard.”

“I’ll ask around at the gallery,” Jules offered.

Brick nodded. “Look, what happened to Pudge could have been a random thing. A robbery or something. He made all that real estate money back in the ’90s.”

He could tell by their expressions, neither of them believed it. He wasn’t even sure he believed it. Still, it was better than the alternative.

Across from him, Snipe finished his whiskey, set the glass down with a little too much force. “It was her.” He said the words without looking up. “Or someone else is a dead ringer and knows what went down that night.”

“Nobody knows what happened,” Jules whispered. “Except us.”

“The Amish kid,” Brick offered.

“He didn’t see our faces.” Snipe rubbed the back of his neck.

“What do we do?” Jules’s eyes searched theirs. “About the notes?”

“Lock your doors.” Having had his fill of ghost stories and nonsense, Brick scooted from the booth. “And hope she can’t walk through walls.”

He left without finishing his cognac.

CHAPTER 7

John Tomasetti left his office in Richfield at just before 3 P.M. and took Interstate 77 north toward Cleveland. He assured himself he wasn’t going to do anything ill-advised. Just a little recon. He liked to know what he was dealing with, after all. A cop could never have too much information, even if he didn’t use it.

Regardless of his intentions—or lack thereof—he had to be careful. Three years ago, there had been rumors about John Tomasetti. Ugly rumors that after his wife and children were murdered, he’d gone rogue and taken the law into his own hands. Nothing had ever been proved. Cops made the best criminals, after all. Besides, everyone knew that certain kinds of people tended to have a short shelf life. Just because you had a reason to want someone dead didn’t mean you’d done the deed.

But Tomasetti knew that if anything happened to Joey Ferguson in the coming days or weeks or months, he would be scrutinized. He might as well have the word “motive” tattooed on his forehead. He hadn’t missed the way people looked at him this morning when he’d walked into the office. Some of his coworkers had gone out of their way to say hello and ask him how he was doing. Others had steered clear, as if maybe they were worried he might prove all those rumors true and snap. None of them had had the guts to ask him how he felt about Ferguson’s release.

Tomasetti wasn’t too worried about it. He had a better handle on the situation this time around. A more solid grip on himself. He’d had three years to deal with his losses, to climb out of that black abyss of grief, and to extinguish the wildfire of rage that had burned him from the inside out. He’d come to terms with the past and learned to accept the unacceptable. He was fine with a capital F, and everyone who mattered knew it. That’s what he told himself as he headed north to a city he’d avoided for the better part of three years.