“Do you think he told us everything?” I ask.
“As far as I could tell,” Antony replies. “If he did know anything else, it’s kind of a moot point now.”
“True. Still, how do we know he was telling the truth?”
“Honestly, boss, this guy ain’t no pro. He squawked before I’d even broken a finger. He’s just some asshole who thought he’d get one over on us by working with the other side. I think he regretted it in the end.”
Threes walks up, confirming the end had arrived.
“What should I do with him?” Threes asks.
“Call Reid. He can help clean up the mess and get rid of the body.”
“With or without evidence?”
“With. I want everyone to know how I deal with those who cross me.”
Threes nods and starts tapping on his phone. He has a quick conversation with Reid and then comes back. Within a couple of hours, Aaron’s body has been tossed on a walking path in a west side park, and we’re all back in my office.
“What do we know now that we didn’t know before?” I ask my cousin.
“We know that Aaron only recently started working for the Ramsays,” Antony says, “which means him going out with Cherry is pure coincidence. He said he didn’t know her before he ran across her online.”
“Do we believe that?”
“I don’t think he was lying, boss,” Threes says. “I’m pretty good at spotting lies, and he’s not bright enough to lie to me. Well, he wasn’t, anyway.”
“So he didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him. He just turned on us because he got pissed about being thrown out of Big O.” I shake my head. “What an idiot.”
“Considering how he acted at the club, I think that falls in line with his character. Classic douchebag.”
“Definitely.” I laugh, trying to find some humor in all of this, but it’s short lived. “And all they told him was to report on where she went and with whom?”
“That’s what he said. Really, boss, he’s not the undercover type. I mean, he did a shit job of it all. Hardly subtle.”
“But Cherry didn’t notice him,” I say. “If she had, she would have said something to me, right?”
“Would she?” Antony shrugs. “I don’t know how she could have missed him.”
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“Well, he didn’t know her before, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t know he was there and why.”
“You think she knew Aaron was watching her?” Once again, my stomach tightens into a knot as some of what Antony and Threes have been saying starts to make sense. Even if Aaron was truthful, that didn’t mean Cherry didn’t know he was there.
“Can’t be sure,” Antony says. “But it fits.”
“And what about Micha? He said he knew nothing.”
“He wasn’t in the picture back then,” Threes says. “Boss, this guy was a stooge. The Ramsays are bastards, but they aren’t so stupid that they’d trust information like that to some fucking dickhead they just hired.”
“If he is to believed, we still have no idea what Cherry knows about Micha or why he was checking into her.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Antony?” I look over at him. “Give me your best theory.”
“I think she has to know more than she’s letting on,” he says. “Maybe she doesn’t know everything, but this is all just too coincidental for my taste.”