“Give me your wallet and phone.”
Sean arched his back and lifted himself from the seat and pulled out his wallet. He handed it to Kenny.
“If it’s money you want, I can give you a lot more than the fifty bucks I have on me. Please just tell me who is behind all this. I promise, I’ll keep you out of it.”
“I was just supposed to scare you. That was the deal. I didn’t know he was gonna…” His voice trailed off.
“Who, Kenny? I can’t help if I don’t know who you’re talking about. You came to my house for a reason tonight. Please…”
Kenny seemed to be coming down from whatever he had smoked. “I need help getting outta town.”
“Whatever you need.”
Kenny thought about this. “Come with me.” He opened the passenger door quickly and stepped out into the downpour.
“Kenny, wait,” Sean said, but the door slammed shut. Sean jumped out of the SUV after him. He caught up with Kenny, who was heading toward one of the ground-floor rooms in the motel. Sean wasn’t going into a sketchy motel room with this man. He grabbed Kenny’s arm.
Kenny turned back at him. “It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. He fooled everybody.”
“Who?”
“He set it all up, he—”
Sean heard a pop and felt a sting of liquid and what felt like bits of gravel lashing his face. He wiped at his eyes, then he saw Kenny’s body on the wet ground, head exploded.
CHAPTER 53
Raindrops pounded the windshield as Sean raced down the highway. He was breathing raggedly, and his eyes kept flicking to the rearview to see if anyone was following. In the mirror, he saw the streaks of red on his face. He fought back images of Kenny stretched out in the puddles of brown water in the parking lot, his head a shattered watermelon. The gunman must have been nearby. Sean had ducked down, retrieved his wallet and phone, then jumped in the SUV and taken off.
When he arrived home, Emily was waiting for him at the door. She studied him for a moment, then thrust her arms around him.
It was time. She deserved to know the truth.
“Come with me,” he said. “I need to show you something.”
*
In the flickering light of their attic, they sat on two boxes, facing one another. She had a bewildered expression on her face as he dug through another box and found his old Def Leppard album. The attic wasn’t cold, but Sean had been shivering since witnessing Kenny’s murder. He steadied his breathing and pulled out the newspaper clipping about the storekeeper.
And he told her everything.
About a stolen bottle of whiskey from a Japanese liquor store. About three boys and a scuffle with the storekeeper. About a thirty-year-old murder. About the oath. And about how Sean had gone to his father who demanded they keep quiet about the crime. He also told her about his remorse and the shame that prevented him from being honest with her, though he’d wanted to. And how his past had roared back when someone—maybe Senator James—tracked down Kenny Baldwin. He told her about Kenny bumping into him on the subway. About the bottle Kenny put in the SUV. And about tonight, how Kenny said someone had hired him to play mind games with Sean and then something went wrong. He choked up when he reported that Kenny had told Abby about the crime. And he told her that Kenny said Sean knew the man behind it all, but was murdered before he could reveal his identity. He didn’t know whether to believe a word of what Kenny had said. But nothing else seemed to explain why he’d reemerged recently, why he’d come to Sean’s house tonight, or why he’d been killed.
When Sean finished, Emily was silent. He scrutinized her face in the shadows. Her expression was indescribable. It wasn’t betrayal or disbelief as he’d expected. Nor anger. Maybe the expression was just shock—the kind of look someone gets when they fall through the ice into a freezing lake. Except instead of bringing a rope to save her, Sean had brought a hammer. He waited for her to speak, to say something, anything. And then she did.
“Did he have a family?” Her voice was quiet, steady. “The storekeeper.”
“Yes, his wife worked with him at the store. When I got the life insurance money from my dad’s death, I hired a service to see if there were any other relatives. I’m not sure why or what I planned to do, but I thought maybe I could send some money or help them. But the storekeeper’s wife had passed away and they found no other relatives.”
Emily looked at him. “You’ve carried this around since you were fourteen?”