“I thought you just said it wasn’t a big deal.”
“—all so you can be clandestine and closed off?” Kel continued without pausing. “Uh-uh. No way. Spill it, Andrew Michael Drake.”
I spilled it.
“I fucking knew it!” Kel said, leaping to her feet and pointing at me. “You were too happy the last six months. I mean, you’re always happy, but you were really happy, and I totally knew it.” She went from triumphant to indignant in a half second. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. This is such a mess.”
“Dad said the same thing, but he took it so much better.”
Kel spit wine onto my floor. “Dad knows?”
“He knew before I told him,” I said, grabbing a napkin to wipe the floor.
She looked out the window at the house we grew up in. “Huh,” she said. Like father, like daughter.
“I don’t need a lecture. I know what we were doing was wrong.” What I didn’t know was what to say next. Kel’s marriage had imploded because her husband cheated on her with a much older woman, no doubt adding insult to injury. My particular situation was different, but I wasn’t sure how she would react. I didn’t expect a hug.
“I’m glad you’re okay. And I’m glad you two got together,” she said after releasing me. “David was always an asshole. Not that he deserves to be dead. But wow, now I know why you were so edgy the last few weeks.”
“So now that you’re all filled in on the carnival ride that’s my life, what did you find out about Crane?”
“First off, that’s not his real name.”
It was his legal name but not the one he was born with. All this became apparent in the few-minutes search Kel had conducted at the DMV. Mr. Allen Crane had filed for a change of name with the state of New York two years ago, shortly before moving to the Loop. He had no outstanding warrants or speeding tickets, was not a registered sex offender, and his given name was Jimmy DeMarco Jr., but that’s where Kel’s research stopped.
“My supervisor came back from break, and I chickened out,” she said, refilling her wineglass. “Otherwise I could’ve gotten more.”
“No, this is great,” I said, retrieving my laptop. “This gives us something to go on.”
His original name was more than enough for Google. A half dozen hits came up, the first one sporting a photo of a slightly younger but unmistakable version of my neighbor.
Jimmy DeMarco Jr. had been indicted a little over three years ago regarding several faulty insurance claims on properties he owned in New Jersey. When it appeared he’d be spending a considerable amount of time behind bars, DeMarco flipped on a few other “business partners” who he testified were the investors and orchestrators behind the schemes. The business partners were fined, and two were sentenced to three years in prison, sentences suspended. DeMarco earned himself a plea deal and moved out of the state and into our neighborhood as Mr. Allen Crane.
“Holy shit,” Kel said. “He’s connected.”
I let out a long breath. “We don’t know that, but it’s suspicious. Obviously he was worried enough to move and change his name.”
“Something else I just remembered—at the Barrens’ party last year, I overheard him talking to David. Just polite conversation, but I gathered Crane had his mortgage through David’s company.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Interesting. I took a swallow of wine.
Had it been Crane/DeMarco who saw us in Rachel’s kitchen that day? I thought so. Had he sent us notes about our affair? I couldn’t be sure. Had he chased me from the Barrens’ into the woods the night before? Maybe. If the guy was connected, could he have been some sort of liaison between Ryan and HerringBone? Maybe given David the business card with the number on it at some point?
It was a stretch, and I wondered, not for the first time, if we were dealing with one thing or perhaps with two or three all happening in tandem. There was no way to tell. Not yet.
Something struck me then—the fact I could say we now instead of I. Family—maddening, strange, tumultuous, and a blessing when you were hurting or in trouble. The people with their arms out when you jumped from the burning building you were in. No guarantee you wouldn’t still hit the ground, but they’d try to catch you.
“Can you check with Seth to see if Crane’s been questioned?” I said.
“Sure. I can ask.”