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“I never thought he was all that smart,” Bobby said. “If he was, he could’ve taken over their business a long time ago and gotten rid of Aaron. Which is what I would have done.”
“Me too, but Dewey needed Aaron’s contacts. It’s not like any of those high-society types would give Dewey the time of day, looking like he does.” Dewey made the product and left the networking and sales to Aaron, whose clientele were the wealthy people who’d rather buy his drugs than pay him to invest their money. Aaron made tons more as a drug dealer than he had as a financial consultant. “Did you take his phone? He’ll be able to see the story if he goes online. It’s everywhere.”
“I’m using the signal jammer.” They frequently used the device while on a job, disrupting cell reception for whichever mark they’d been hired to kill. No good to have the victim call 911 before the hit. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Corey,” he added, sounding irritated.
“Sorry, B. Cut me some slack, okay? I haven’t slept a wink. Look, we’ll question Dewey together when I get there, find out what he knows.”
“He’ll tell us. I can be persuasive.”
Corey grimaced. Bobby could be downright scary. “That you can. Talk to you soon.”
He slid the phone into his pocket, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I’m beat.”
“You’ll have time to catch some z’s before the meeting tonight,” Ed said. “We’re still having our meeting with Zach and Allyson, right?”
“Yes. We need to review the plan one more time.” Zach and Allyson were key to making their plan work. Both were members of Bella Butler’s security staff. Both had secrets they’d do nearly anything to keep hidden. In other words, they were perfect accomplices. “I’m going to catch some shut-eye. Wake me up if anything happens.”
Corey’s eyelids had begun to droop when Ed swore viciously. “What?” Corey demanded. “What’s wrong?”
Ed passed his cell phone over the car seat to Corey. “The perimeter alarm at Three Vets just went off. Check the camera. The app is open. Who is it?”
“It’s that bitch reporter, Noni Feldman. She’s peeking in the windows. And cussing, it looks like.” There was no audio, but the woman was definitely saying “fuck.” “She must have thought we’d go to the office and she could snag a one-on-one interview. As if.”
“Has she broken in?”
“No. She’s looking in the window of the break room. All she’ll see is Bobby’s nudie pics on the wall.”
Ed scowled. “And all the pictures of Bella Butler he taped up. I kept taking them down and he kept putting them back up.”
That was a bit of a concern. Bobby had insisted on hanging the photos to get “in the zone.” Sometimes it was easier to let him do his own thing than to argue. I should have argued. But many of the Bella pics were racy poses, so they didn’t look too out of place on the wall.
Corey watched the woman looking into the other windows before finally leaving, disappointment on her face. “She may need to be dealt with. She’s way too interested in us.”
Ed raised his hand, mimicking a kid in school. “Pick me! Pick me! I’ll do it!”
Corey almost chuckled. “Fine, if it comes down to it. Just don’t pull an Aaron, okay? No more videos.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t. What a dumbass.”
“No argument there.” Corey returned Ed’s phone. “Aaron’s always been a dick, but he didn’t used to be stupid.”
“Comes from taking your own meth,” Ed said derisively.
That was the truth. “He was always so careful with his passwords.” But after Liam’s death, Aaron’s meth use had skyrocketed, and he’d become careless.
So careless that he’d left a guidebook and travel brochures to the Bahamas out where Dianne could find them. She’d initially hoped that Aaron would be taking her, but he’d been cruel in his rejection of that idea. So cruel that Dianne had finally had enough and spied on him when he was typing his password into his laptop, which, in the past, he’d kept locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Dianne had gone searching for dirt and had found the hard evidence of what she’d feared for years, but that everyone else had known—Aaron was a cheating bastard and was planning a grand escape to the Bahamas. Which she’d then shared with Corey in between drunken sobs.
That had been the day before Aaron’s arrest.
Hours after Aaron’s arrest, Corey had searched the laptop. He hadn’t cared about Aaron’s affair. What he did care about was Aaron’s money from his and Dewey’s drug business. He’d hit the jackpot, finding the usernames and passwords to his brother’s offshore bank accounts, where there was lots and lots of money. Millions of dollars.
Aaron’s meth business had been far more profitable than he’d ever let on, but the prick had never intended to share any of it. Even though Corey had allowed Aaron and his partner Dewey to deliver their product in Corey’s construction trucks to keep from paying so many outsiders to do the distribution. Corey had even made deliveries himself.
He’d never asked for a dime. He’d done it for Liam.
Aaron had done it for Aaron. He’d allowed Corey to think that he needed the drug money to pay for Liam’s experimental treatments. That his insurance wasn’t covering them.
It hadn’t started out as a lie but had quickly become one that Aaron had never corrected. Initially, Aaron’s insurance hadn’t paid for the treatments. That was back when Aaron had been an independent financial consultant and was not making enough to get the deluxe policy. But once he’d started selling drugs with Dewey Talley, he’d been able to upgrade Liam’s coverage. Everything had been paid for.
