Roddy looked up, confused.
Zig was just as lost. It was their one immutable fact: Zion was the one who pulled the trigger. But if the Reds didn’t hire him . . . and Elijah didn’t hire him . . .
“Who the hell killed Mint?” Roddy asked.
98
Nola held her gun with both hands, low ready like a golf club, as she elbowed open the door.
Inside, the entryway was dark. Her eyes were still adjusting as the smell hit her. Fresh flowers. No surprise—though people would probably be less inclined to send them if they knew that flowers first became popular at funerals because they helped mask the stench of decomposition.
On her left, Nola eyed a DIY umbrella stand made from cinder blocks stacked sideways, three tall umbrellas tucked into the holes. She rolled her eyes, blaming HGTV. Same for the cherry floors.
By now, Zig and Roddy would be at Grandma’s Pantry. In truth, Nola was planning to head there, too. As Vess had told her when she was leaving his office, that’s where the evidence pointed—or at least the evidence for the missing twenty-two million. But from the moment this started, Nola never cared about the money. She cared about who killed Mint.
For days now, she’d been winding her way through the maze, checking for new paths, trying to figure out why someone sitting on twenty-two million dollars would hire a small-time scrub like Zion Lopez. But it was time to admit, she’d been looking at it wrong. Maybe the reason you hire Zion is because you don’t have millions. So who’d that leave?
In her mind’s eye, it went back to that photo from Zion’s phone—of Mint and Rashida, wide smiles on their faces as they leaned close at the fancy restaurant. That wasn’t an old photo; it was a recent one—one that Vess, the Reds, and Zion . . . everyone had a copy. Clearly, it was an important photo—yet no one had stopped to ask: Who would want it taken in the first place?
As she approached the living room, Nola glanced at the built-in bookcases stocked with kids’ DVDs and far too many Tom Hanks movies. But what she noticed most of all was the silhouette of the thin woman sitting there, ankles crossed and with perfect military posture, on the chocolate-brown leather sectional.
Mint’s wife, Tessa, raised her gun.
“Just so we’re clear, Nola—when you break into my house, you realize I can shoot you.”
99
“I’m not saying word one until you take the cuffs off.”
Reagan didn’t bother to reply. Heading down the middle aisle, she was still scanning the freezer. “Middle clear,” she called to Seabass.
Left clear, Seabass motioned to her, joining her from the left aisle, looking worse than before, though the hostile cold reddened his nose and cheeks, pushing color back to his face.
“You hear what I said?” Elijah called out, his hands still cuffed behind his back.
They heard him.
“Elijah, they will kill you. They’ll kill us all,” Zig warned, blowing into his hands to stay warm.
“Elijah? That’s your name?” Reagan asked, heading toward Elijah, in the corner with Zig and Roddy. “I’m trying to save you from an awful day, Elijah. So I’m asking this once. Where’s the twenty-two million?”
Elijah didn’t answer.
Reagan rolled her eyes, throwing a look at Seabass.
Picking up speed as he left the aisle, Seabass aimed his gun at the side of Elijah’s head.
“He’s going to shoot your ear off,” Reagan explained, like she was offering coffee. “Then I’ll ask you the same question again, and if I don’t get the answer I want—”
Reagan never got to finish the thought.