Page 56 of Love Always

“Three-thirty.”

“That gives us an hour,” he says, pulling into The Inn’s parking lot.

“For what?”

“To decide how to handle Kevin Barr.”

It’s the first time since I confessed all that he’s brought up his name. “Handle him?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m shutting that down.”

I lay a hand on his arm before he can open the door and shake my head. “You don’t understand. Kevin’s dad gets away with stuff and Kevin benefits from having his dad in high places.”

“Oh, I understand the moving parts. We’re just going to jam ’em up.” He takes one of my hands and kisses the top. “One question, and I have to ask. Sorry.”

I hold my breath. Depending on how he asks could determine how he feels about me.

“Is there any chance Kevin Barr is the—”

He intentionally leaves off the last word so I don’t have to hear it.

I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”

He starts to get out of the car, stops, leans over and kisses me quickly. “Good.”

I’m just glad he didn’t ask me the question the other way: who is Cory’s father?

Cory’s father was Kenny Pratchett, my age, a good boy. His parents hated me. When I found out I was pregnant, I told Claire, of course. I never told Kenny, I didn’t see the point. I didn’t want his money or his parents' wrath. I was a failure. I didn’t want his help or his attention.

It was only later when he joined the service and died that I realized how much I had wronged him.

His parents still don’t know they have a grandchild and I can’t bring myself to tell them.

Chapter Twelve

Mateus

Laurel and I never got a chance to strategize. I actually didn’t want to strategize at all. I wanted to kill that guy. I dropped her off in front of the narrow blue door that led to her apartment and I ended up going back up the coast to interview Chris Proctor.

The kid was weak, impossibly thin, lying in bed like a long strip of chewing gum. He was embarrassed, heartbroken he’d let his parents down. Mr. and Mrs. Proctor were well dressed but casual, warm but aloof, grateful but demanding. I caught all this in the ten minutes I spoke with them before my interview with their son.

I took notes on my phone, listening to his story, trying hard not to stare at the blue veins that laced his temples. Addicts who shoot up destroy their veins to the point that you can’t get an IV in them and doctors have to go in through the neck, deep, until they hit an artery. I told him all this for good measure. He wasn’t that far gone yet, his IV snaked through a needle in his arm.

His story was in pieces and he seemed surprised I didn’t want to know his whereabouts the last twenty-four hours. Finn’s instructions were explicit: let the police do their work and ask their questions. I was to find out what was in that square brown package he received from Colleen, how often she delivered, did he know where or from whom she got it and, finally, did Laurel ever pass one to him. If so, dates and times were to be recorded. I could feel myself bristling when he laid out the questioning protocol, and he cut me off immediately when I tried to protest. If Laurel had passed a package, Finn was pretty certain she had no idea what was in it. But we had to ask.

Then he had me speak with Nic Silvano, who also made clear that both he and Finn were concerned Laurel might be in danger. Colleen’s killer might think Laurel saw something at the crime site or might be trying to frame her—or both.

None of this made questioning the kid any easier. Though he looked nothing like my sister, they were the same age, were addicted to heroin and other opiates, and the worst, the thing that made me sit down and rub my eyes, is that they smelled the same, like rusted steel wool pads and vinegar.

The difference was he was alive, and she was not. The reasons for that difference lay in chemical percentages that tipped in his favor, that’s all, and the fact we happened to find him earlier. Math doesn’t care what color your skin is or how much money you make or why you took herion in the first place.

Chris’s answers were perfunctory, short and truthful. There was always high-grade heroin already cooked, in a clean syringe. No, he never received one from Laurel. He seemed genuinely confused by the question. “But Colleen, yes. And she knew what it was. She used to use too.”

Which means she still did, I wanted to tell him.

The questions took about a minute and I spent the other eight offering bromides and words of wisdom. All certainly lost on him. Addicts don’t want to be addicts.

As I turned to go, he stopped me and that’s when I finally broke from investigative mode and really looked at him: pale, a shock of sandy hair over his forehead, his eyes haunted and red rimmed, his fingered clubbed and blue. “Is it true? Is Colleen really dead?”