Lethal (Lee Coburn)

He shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t look too deep. They didn’t want to. All they knew was that the business continued to do extremely well in a weak economy.”

“So they’ll be okay? Mrs. Marset?”

“In terms of prosecution, yes. Won’t be easy for her when the truth about her husband is exposed.”

Honor pulled her feet up to the edge of the seat, looped her arms around her legs, and propped her chin on her knees. Quietly she said, “They’ll kill you.”

He bit into another cookie, saying nothing.

“Doral or one of the Hawkins clan. Even the honest policemen, who only see you as Sam Marset’s killer, would rather bring you in dead than alive.”

“Hamilton’s told everybody I’m already dead. Wonder how he’ll wiggle out of that one.”

“How can you joke about it? It doesn’t bother you that you could be killed?”

“Not particularly.”

“You don’t think about dying?”

“I’m only surprised that it hasn’t happened yet.”

Honor picked at a cuticle that had been torn loose while they were working on the boat. “You know how to do things.” She glanced at him. He was looking up at her curiously. “Survival things. Lots of things.”

“I don’t know how to bake cupcakes.”

For the first time since she’d found him lying facedown in her yard, he was teasing her, but she wouldn’t let it divert her. “Did you learn all those skills in the Marine Corps?”

“Most of them.”

She waited, but he didn’t elaborate. “You were a different kind of Marine than my father-in-law.”

“He’s a recruiting poster?”

“Exactly.”

“Then, yeah, I was different. No marching in formation for the kind of Marine I was. I had a uniform, but didn’t wear it but a few times. I didn’t salute officers, and nobody saluted me.”

“What did you do?”

“Killed people.”

She had suspected that. She’d even deluded herself into thinking she could hear him admit it without flinching. But the words felt like tiny blows to her chest, and she feared she would only feel them stronger if she heard more, so she carried the subject no further.

He finished his last cookie and dusted crumbs off his hands. “We need to get to work.”

“Work?” She was so exhausted her whole body ached. She thought that if she closed her eyes she would fall asleep where she sat. Stained mattress or not, she looked forward to lying down on it beside Emily and sleeping. “What work?”

“We’re going through it again.”

“Through what again?”

“Eddie’s life.”

Chapter 26

Diego approached the property under cover of darkness, rain, and dense, sculpted shrubbery. Bonnell Wallace’s home was one of the stately mansions on St. Charles Avenue.

From an intruder’s standpoint, it was a fucking fortress.