But they were mine. And they were Bransons.
Bob Ackerman wasn’t going to put them in the ground because somebody else had stolen his fucking money.
I shifted my weight against the rock. Warm blood slid down between my fingers where the stitches had let go.
Gotta protect those boys.
“Bob, listen to me.” I forced my voice steady. “Let me help you get your money back, and you can kill me when it’s done. I’ll even load the shotgun for ya. I’m dyin’ anyway.”
A beat of silence.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The cancer. I’m nearly done.”
“What fucking cancer, you dickhead?”
I went still.
He didn’t know?
What the hell?
Fuck me. He hasn’t read the notes I put in the Chivas box on Willy’s sideboard. Nearly every fuckin’ secret Bob and I have buried together since we were teenagers is detailed in that box, including some of the bodies.
I’d written about the cancer in those pages. Detailed my damn pain and bullshit.
If he didn’t know, then he didn’t find them, which meant the notes were still there. Right near the two dead Henderson brothers that would be stinking up Willy’s kitchen by now.
The cops will find the box. The cops will read every page.
Bob was fucked.
He just didn’t know it yet.
The realization went through me like a long, slow swallow of rum on a cold morning, and, for a second, I forgot about my kidneys, my hand, and the bullet hole I was about to wear. I had him. He could kill me in this cave and walk out with the cash in that duffel, and he’d still be finished.
The only thing that mattered now was my boys.
And the only way to save them was to make damn sure Bob was looking over his shoulder for the rest of his miserable fucking life.
Because if Bob knew the cops were coming for him, he’d run. He wouldn’t waste another day of freedom hunting Bransons for a stack of cash he was never gonna get to spend, and my boys would never have to know how close they’d come to being hunted.
That was the play.
I sucked in a breath, and it tore me up inside.
“I’m dyin’, Bob, and I don’t give a shit if you kill me before the cancer does,” I called across the cave. My voice sounded as thin as smoke. “But you’re fucked, too.”
“What are you talking about, you old prick?”
I let him stew, let his cop brain start running through every scenario I could be talking about. “I’ve been writin’ stuff down. All sorts a shit. About you. And me. All that money. And Kat, the girl who’s buried under the barrel you’re hiding behind.”
The silence that came back at me was a different silence than before. It felt fucking heavy. I could hear Bob breathing behind that damn drum.
“Every fuckin’ thing.” I pictured him fuming, and I smiled. “Every job you ever gave me. Every body we put in the ground. Kat was the first. Then there was that other girl, the one you and Donny dealt with. What was her name again? You probably don’t even remember. I talked ‘bout the money you laundered, the politicians you bought, the cover-ups. I talked about the way you helped me with dodgy police reports when Kayden needed sortin’. It’s taken me weeks to write it all down. Man, we got up to some stuff, didn’t we?”
“You’re bluffing.” His voice came through clenched teeth.