Nate's next words faltered as he considered that phrase. "What do you mean, Marisa was loyal?"

Charles shifted in the chair, focus downward. "Just that there were a lot of guys up there who'd have, you know, liked to get to know Marisa better. She's, you know." He looked back up. "She's gorgeous. Guys with a lot of money and influence made her a lot of offers. But she never strayed from Vinnie."

The information didn't surprise Nate. "Leslie told you Vinnie was considering going to the FBI?"

"She didn't know for sure. She said she overheard him say something about the FBI, but she didn't know exactly what he'd said. Anyway, I—"

"Just a second." Nate needed to process that. Maybe Leslie had had a bigger role to play in what had happened eight years earlier than Nate and Marisa had ever comprehended. "Sorry. Go on."

"Everything okay?"

Nate nodded. "You thought Vinnie was considering going to the FBI—"

"I wasn't sure what Leslie had heard, but the FBI's involvement—that scared me. On the other hand, Vinnie had always been loyal to me. I wasn't sure I even believed her. I figured he'd just confessed what he'd been doing to his girlfriend. That's what I'd hoped, anyway." Charles took off his glasses and cleaned them on his drab shirt.

He kept his gaze downward when he continued. "I hired Buckley to scare him into keeping quiet. He wasn't supposed to kill him."

"That's not what Buck says."

Charles looked up, met Nate's eyes. "He got a reduced sentence for turning against me. But he knows." Charles nodded and looked at the wall. "He knows."

"You have no idea who else could have stolen the money."

"I didn't tell anybody. I figured I could keep it quiet, protect Vinnie—"

"Protect him?"

"From Anderson."

"Russell Anderson?"

"Right. He'd taken over the operation at that point. Another smart guy from the wrong side of the tracks, but unlike Vinnie, Anderson hadn't always kept his nose clean. He'd been in some scrapes as a young guy. He was a little rough around the edges and still had contacts with... He's the one who introduced me to Buck."

"You told him Vinnie had confessed?"

"No, no. Just that I needed someone to do me an unpleasant favor. I gave him the impression it was a family matter. I didn't want Anderson anywhere near this. I didn't know what he'd do. I was trying to protect Vinnie."

Protect him? That seemed a stretch, considering Vinnie ended up dead.

"But maybe Buck told Anderson who he was really after," Nate said. "Maybe Anderson convinced Buck to kill him. Or, after the fact when Vinnie turned up dead, maybe Anderson put two-and-two together. Maybe Anderson's got the money."