Brutal Kiss

“Fuck you, psycho. You came to our house asking questions about that girl you murdered. I knew you were going to do something crazy. Daley, fuck, how can you let this piece of trash do this?”

Rian punches him again. “Don’t talk to her. Look at me, you wad of rotten donkey semen. You’re a lowlife failed wannabe gangster with ten seconds to live if you don’t start talking.”

“You wouldn’t kill me.”

Rian hits him again and Quinn groans. “I fucking will. You think you’d be missed? We’ll have a nice wake for you, and I’ll say how fucking sorry I am to your poor grieving dad, and then we’ll bury you and forget you just as fast. You know it’s true, assholes like you die all the damn time out here, and you think you’re any different? You’re not, you stupid prick. Now, what are you hiding about Megan?”

“Nothing,” Quinn says, glaring.

Rian hits him once, twice, three times. I wince with each blow. Blood’s getting all over the back seat, and I’m driving as slow and steady as I can, but my hands are straight up shaking, and each time I pause at a stop sign or at a light, I keep thinking someone’s going to look in and see Rian killing Quinn.

Except this is Delco, and even if they do, nobody will say shit.

“Tell me what you know,” Rian says, getting in Quinn’s face. “Q and S. Quinn and Sean. Why’d you buy her a new phone? What’d she give you for it? Or what did she fucking hold over your heads? Is that why you and your brother killed her?”

Quinn groans. “Goddamn it, Rian. I didn’t kill her.”

“Liar.” Rian hits him hard and I hear something crunch. It’s sickening, wet and alive and horrible. “Tell me. Why’d you kill her?”

“I didn’t,” Quinn says, and now there’s a sob is his voice. He’s starting to cry, the bastard. “I loved her, okay?”

That makes Rian pause. I slow to a stop outside of an abandoned gas station with nobody else around and look over the seat. Quinn’s covered in blood, snot, and tears, and Rian’s staring at him thoughtfully.

“You loved her,” Rian says, head cocked. “Why should I believe that?”

“Fuck you,” Quinn says. “That’s why. I loved that girl more than anything, and when she died, it nearly killed me.”

“Do you still think I killed her?”

“I know you did, motherfucker. You drunk-driving piece of—”

Rian punches him in the mouth to shut him up. “Q and S,” he says quietly, angrily. “Did you buy her a phone because you loved her? Is that it?”

“I didn’t get her a phone.” Quinn spits a wad of something onto the floor. I realize it’s a little white tooth. “But I remember when she got it. We asked her what scam she pulled to get her hands on a new iPhone, and she said she was pulling something on a girl named Queenie. Blackmailing the bitch or some shit like that. I don’t know what she had on the girl, but that’s all I know, okay? She was blackmailing a girl named Queenie. There’s your fucking Q, you piece of shit. I loved Megan, and she broke my heart again and again, but I kept trying because she was special. And you think I hurt her. So fuck you, that’s the truth. She broke my heart.” He sobs now, hands to his face, and Rian leans back thoughtfully.

Queenie. Queenie. I rack my brain, trying to figure out who the hell is Queenie. It’s a weird name, and I’d remember someone with it, but I can’t put a face to it at all.

“All right then,” Rian says and opens the door. He steps out and drags Quinn after him. Quinn lands on the sidewalk, an absolute wreck. Rian straightens the poor guy’s shirt and pats him on the head. “There you go. It’s all over. You did good.”

“Fuck you,” he says, crying into his hands.

Rian looks at him for a long time before shaking his head and getting back into the truck.

“Let’s go,” he says quietly.

I put the truck back into drive and roll forward.

We wander without any destination, leaving Quinn behind.

“Does that name mean anything to you?” I ask.

“Not a damn thing,” he says, sounding as mystified as I feel.

Chapter 22

Daley

We go through everyone we know. All the cousins, all the aunts and uncles, all the related clan people, every single one of them. There’s not a single Queenie. There’s not even someone that might be nicknamed Queenie.

We even ask around. Mostly low-level guys, since the upper echelon might not talk. Nobody heard of that name before. “Sounds fucking fake,” one low-level thug named Jasper says with a laugh.

By the end of the night, we’re back where we began, with absolutely nothing.

Just a new name. Queenie.

Rian drops me off around eleven that night. “You’d better get some sleep. You have work in the morning.”