77
WHAT’S SO urgent?” Leah asked, eyeing her brother warily.
It was just after nine a.m., and given that Jeremy rarely showed up to work before ten, his mere presence in her office was cause for concern. Then there was how terrible he looked: bloodshot eyes, haggard face, like he’d come straight from a bar. Once they’d gotten through this mess, perhaps the next thing would be an intervention.
“The reporter, Snow,” Jeremy said. “She’s got the story on the Aurora, all of it.”
Leah blanched. She tried to stem panic by telling herself that she couldn’t take her brother’s word for such things. “What makes you say that?”
“She’s been talking to people from my personal life, asking them about it. She knows about the money, knows about Fowler’s role and why he was killed.”
“If she really had the whole story you wouldn’t be hearing rumors about it; you’d be seeing it on the front page of the paper.”
Jeremy was looking carefully at his sister, a queasy expression on his face. “What really happened to Jack Pellettieri?” he asked after a moment.
Leah was puzzled by the question. “What’re you talking about?”
“The reporter’s telling people his body washed up in New Jersey. Did you have Darryl kill him?”
“Of course not,” Leah said, relaxing a little at this. “That proves it; she’s running a bluff is all. She’s trying to get us to panic by throwing a bunch of shit at the wall.”
Jeremy didn’t look reassured. “You promise that Darryl didn’t take out Pellettieri?”
Leah found herself hesitating. She wasn’t entirely sure whether Darryl might have made an executive decision to kill Pellettieri and not told her. “As far as I know, Pellettieri is quite alive, on a beach in the Caribbean somewhere. What is the reporter claiming?”
“That Jack’s body washed up, and that the police are looking at us for it. That Darryl’s guys did it, on our orders.”
Leah was getting a bad feeling about this. Would the reporter really just make up a phantom dead body? She needed to confront Darryl, see if there was something she didn’t know. And if Pellettieri’s body really had just washed up in New Jersey, and the cops were looking at them? It was ridiculous, of course: she hadn’t arranged for Pellettieri’s murder; she hadn’t even known about it. Could her family be brought down by it regardless? It was an irony too terrible to contemplate.
“I’ll talk to Darryl,” Leah said.
“Call him now.”
“Darryl isn’t much of one for phones,” Leah said dryly.
“This reporter’s going to run a story saying we had Fowler and Pellettieri killed. It’s going to ruin us, even if we don’t end up getting arrested.”
“Just because she’s sniffing around on this doesn’t mean she has anything,” Candace replied. She was trying to figure out whether there was any way the reporter could have enough to actually publish a story. She didn’t see how she could, but then, she didn’t know what the reporter knew. The story on the Aurora had caught them off guard, after all. “And besides, Dad has pretty much shut her down over there anyway—unless she can backup every single word there’s no way they’re running any story.”
“I think we need to tell Dad,” Jeremy said.
“Tell Dad what?”
“All of it.”
Leah never would have thought she’d hear Jeremy suggest taking a problem to their father, let alone the particular set of problems they were facing now. “Are you crazy?” she replied. “First of all, he’ll kill us. And what is it you think he can do that we can’t do ourselves?”
“He’s been at this a lot longer than we have. He knows all the tricks.”
“I can’t believe you’re serious about bringing Dad into this. You made me promise I wouldn’t tell him about any of it.”
“’Cause I thought we could handle it. If I’d known then …”
Leah’s eyes narrowed, her whole face going tight. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that this never seems to end. People get killed, and it just gets worse.”
“Don’t you dare blame me for the mess we’re in,” Leah said angrily.
Jeremy did blame her. He knew it was his mistakes that had started it, but it was her decisions that had escalated it to where it was now. But he knew better than to say that.
“We need to find out exactly what it is the reporter knows,” Leah continued. “Who’s she been talking to?”
Jeremy didn’t want to bring Alena into this, didn’t want his sister dragging her in for some kind of interrogation. “I told you,” he said. “It’s people I know socially. I have no idea why the reporter would think they’d know anything.”
Knowing her brother, Leah was sure a woman was involved. “Does she?”
Jeremy pretended not to understand. “Does who?”
“Whoever this woman is that Snow’s talking to. Does she know anything about the Aurora?”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Jeremy said. “The question is, does the reporter have enough to run a story, and if she does, how can we stop it?”
“I’ll talk to Darryl today,” Leah said. “You just lie low.”
DARRYL ADMITTED it at once. “I went there to get him to run, like we’d talked about,” he said, his eyes meeting Leah’s via his Lincoln’s rearview mirror. “He wasn’t interested. We couldn’t trust him, so I did what had to be done.”
This wasn’t close to good enough. “And you never told me?”
“You said you weren’t going to ask about Jack because you didn’t want to know,” Darryl countered.
Leah wasn’t buying it. “I meant ask where he was, not whether you’d decided to kill him, for Christ’s sake. You can’t do something like that without our okay. Who else are they going to look at for killing Pellettieri than us?”
Darryl didn’t look particularly defensive. “Why would they look at you?” he said. “You never even met Jack Pellettieri.”
“You know that’s not the point.”
“Sure it is. You didn’t know Pellettieri was dead, let alone tell anyone to smoke him.”
Leah wasn’t persuaded her lack of knowledge really meant she was out of harm’s way. “Why would the police be keeping his death a secret? Can they do that?”
“Not for long,” Darryl said. “And not for a damn good reason. The strangest thing is that someone would leak it while the lid was on.”
“Doesn’t that suggest the police are up to something? Planting a trap?”
Darryl shrugged. “I can find out what the reporter’s got,” he said.
“How would you do that?”
“It may take some pressure.”
Leah didn’t like the sound of that. “What are you suggesting exactly?”
“Accidents do happen,” Darryl said. “Even to reporters.”
Leah shook her head sharply. Jeremy was right: violence had only made things worse for them, and going after a reporter who was known to be working a big story about their family was not something they could get away with. “No way,” she said. “All that does is get us deeper into shit. You stay away from the reporter. Are we clear?”
Darryl looked at her, his gaze blank. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
SIMON ROTH made no attempt to hide his displeasure at his son’s abrupt appearance in his office. “Can’t it wait?” he demanded, then stopped short when he saw the look in Jeremy’s eyes.
“I’m in big trouble, Dad,” Jeremy said.