“I don’t care,” she insists. “I don’t freaking care, Kane.”
“That’s bullshite,” Kane replies, his voice raised in frustration and his Irish accent stronger. “You have an opportunity to find out what’s in that damn box.”
“And the account is worth half a million dollars,” Bill adds.
“I’m probably not the beneficiary,” Maggie says. “He had a dozen accounts, and I wasn’t the beneficiary on any of them. Not to mention, it’s likely money he stole, so it doesn’t belong to me anyway.”
“That’s why he stashed it down there,” Bill says, echoing my thoughts. “It can’t be traced. And, you are, in fact, the beneficiary.”
Her mouth opens and then closes again.
“Bullshit.”
“Not bullshitting you,” Bill says patiently. “All you have to do is go down there with your identification and claim it.”
Maggie sits on the couch, and Murphy lays his head in her lap. She absently pets his head.
“Half a million,” she whispers. So many emotions cross her face all at once—going from confused to sad to angry once more.
“I don’t want it.”
“Mary Margaret,” Kane begins, but she cuts him off.
“I don’t want it,” she repeats and digs into her purse, coming up with the key before throwing it at her brother. “If you’re dying to know what’s in the box, you go look.”
“Only the beneficiary can claim it,” Bill informs her.
“Please,” Maggie says with a roll of her eyes. “He has more money than God and can talk his way into just about anything. He’ll figure it out.”
And with that, she kisses Murphy and stomps out of the room.
Murphy whines.
Kane curses.
Bill sighs.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” I inform my best friend. “I told you to drop this a year ago. She doesn’t want to know. She made it clear, but you wouldn’t let it go.”
He drags his hands down his face. He’s pissed. But so am I.
“Look, I know that you want to protect her, but goddamn it, Kane, she’s not a child. She doesn’t want this.”
And anything else that he finds can only hurt her further.
Joseph Lemon was a grade-A son of a bitch.
“She’s pissed,” Kane mutters.
“Yeah, at me, as well. And if you fuck this up for me, I’ll never forgive you. I suggest you fix it.”
I turn and stomp out of the house and out to my truck. Everything in me wants to run after Maggie. I’m pretty sure she went straight to the pub, and by now, is telling Keegan and her parents and anyone else who’ll listen what just happened.
They’ve got her for now.
I need to figure out a way to diffuse her anger with me. Because, yes, I knew about the investigator. And, frankly, I know a hell of a lot more than that. But I can’t tell her—or anyone else—what I know.
And some days, that knowledge feels like it’s strangling me.
I spoke with my former boss and asked if I could tell Maggie, just Maggie, what I know, and he adamantly said no. This matter falls under the jurisdiction of the US government, and I’m legally bound to keep quiet. If I don’t, I could go to jail for up to ten years.
I’m not willing to do that.
Not today or any day.
Besides, Maggie insists that she doesn’t want to know, so it’s been no harm, no foul.
Until today.
I don’t think I can mend this with a bouquet of posies and some chocolates. She’s too angry.
Instead, I swing through the dollar store and buy a dozen drinking glasses, then I pull up to my house and haul an extra tin trash can from my garage and put it in the bed of my truck before driving over to Maggie’s.
I don’t have a key to her house, but that’s okay. For what I have in mind, I don’t need to go inside.
Chapter 8
~Maggie~
Goddamn it.
Goddamn it!
I should go straight home so I can stomp around and scream in frustration, then go to the pub once I’ve calmed down a bit.
That’s what I should do.
But that’s not what I’m going to do because I need to vent, and I need someone to validate my feelings.
I’m just so pissed off. I want to punch someone. I want to break things. How dare Kane and Cameron go behind my back and hire an investigator after I specifically told them not to?
It’s not their decision to make!
I come to a screeching stop at the pub and march inside, seeing red.
But I come up short when I see my parents sitting at the bar.
I blink, rubbing my eyes.
“Am I hallucinating?”
“There’s my wee lass,” Da says, and just like that, all of the anger leaves me, and I start to cry.
I didn’t realize how badly I needed to see my parents until just this second.
“Well, what’s the matter?” Ma croons as she hurries over to me and pulls me in for a hug. “There there, darlin’. It can’t be that bad now.”