“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Jake shouted.

I knew that was our cue to leave. I placed my hand on Jake’s arm, forcing his attention to me. “Let’s go back to your place. It’ll be quieter and you can drink whatever you want.”

Jake glanced from me to the bartender, a soft-spoken older gentleman who was definitely not looking for a fight. “Sure,” he said, “Let’s get out of here.”

I paid our tab and left the bartender a generous tip. “For your discretion,” I said.

The bartender nodded at Jake. “Do you need help?”

“No, I’m good, thanks.”

When the valet pulled up in Jonah’s Audi—I still thought of it as Jonah’s even after all this time—Jake tried to get in behind the wheel. The valet helped me steer Jake around to the passenger side and buckle him into the seat.

“How come you can drive?” Jake asked as I pulled out onto the street.

“I paced myself.” He was drunk enough to accept my explanation.

Jake’s apartment looked exactly as I remembered it—leather furniture, giant flat-screen television, and paper everywhere. Jake obviously still preferred to read in print form. Old newspapers and magazines were piled up on every available surface, along with stacks of manila folders.

“You want a drink?” Jake asked.

I didn’t think he’d let me make the cocktails, so I said, “Just water for me.”

“C’mon, have a beer with me.”

“I don’t want to mix.”

“Liquor then beer, never fear!”

I laughed. It had been years since anyone had used that line on me. “Okay, but just one. I still need to drive back to Santa Veneta tonight.” I was supervising Maria’s visit with MJ and Sofia the next morning. I didn’t need to pick up the kids until eleven, so I could’ve spent the night at Jake’s and driven home early the next morning if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to get the answers to my questions as quickly as possible then leave.

Jake handed me a beer, and I followed him into the living room. He was still upright but swaying.

“Sorry about the mess,” he said, collapsing onto the couch. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

“I’m not company,” I said. “I’m family.”

“Are we still family?”

Technically, no, but I said, “I think so. Don’t you?”

He nodded, and I knew his thoughts had turned to Jonah because his smile disappeared. “Drink,” he said and clinked his beer bottle against mine.

I took a small sip and set my beer down on the coffee table. Jake drained a few inches from his beer and held onto the bottle. “Do you still miss him?” he asked.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss both of them. I don’t think that ever goes away.”

Jake nodded. “Same.”

I knew this was my opening. Jake had avoided talking about Jonah all evening. Every time I’d tried to bring him up, Jake would change the subject or focus his attention on the baseball game. “Do you ever wish there had been a trial?” I asked.

Jake turned to me. “For who?”

“The guy who shot them. We don’t know anything about him. The police never investigated.”

“What is there to investigate? The guy was crazy, probably hopped up on something. I’m glad the cops shot him.”

I knew I didn’t have long. Jake’s eyelids were drooping. “But don’t you think they should’ve arrested him? I mean, that’s how the system’s supposed to work. The police aren’t supposed to just execute people.”

Jake’s head lolled backwards but his voice was still angry. “Don’t you dare give me the innocent until proven guilty speech. That fucker murdered my brother. I would’ve shot him myself if I could.” Jake drained the rest of his beer. He attempted to place the empty bottle on the coffee table, but he missed and it landed on the rug.

I grabbed his bottle off the floor and set it down on the coffee table next to mine. “I just wish I knew what drove him to do what he did.”

Jake let out a harsh laugh. “What drove him? He’s a fucking criminal, Grace. That’s what criminals do.”

“But was he always a criminal? I mean, he wasn’t born a murderer. What made him that way?”

“Are you fucking kidding me? The guy gunned down your family and you want to know if his mother hugged him enough when he was a kid?”

“Yes! Why would someone do that, Jake? He didn’t know Jonah. He had no beef with him.”

“The guy was a sociopath. He had a rap sheet a mile long. Armed robbery, assault, possession.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Murdered plenty of people too, just never got caught.”

“How do you know all that? Did the police tell you? Because they never told me.”

Jake grinned. “I told them.”

And there it was. Finally. A nugget of truth. “But how did you know? Did you have one of your FBI friends look him up in some database or something?”

“Or something.” Jake leaned his head back and placed his forearm over his eyes, shielding them from the overhead light. “I told the local cops where to find him.”

“They told me they got an anonymous tip.”

“They did. From me.”

Neither of us spoke after that. Jake because he fell asleep, and me because even though I’d orchestrated this whole evening because I’d wanted information, now that I had answers, I was stunned. I continued to believe Amelia’s death was an accident mainly because I didn’t want to believe that anyone, even a sociopath, would intentionally murder an innocent child. But Jonah’s death wasn’t an accident. I felt sure of that now, even though I still didn’t know why anyone would want to kill him.

I would’ve asked Jake more questions, but he was passed out. I couldn’t even rouse him long enough to get him into his bed, so I just rolled him over onto his side in case he got sick during the night and left him on the couch.

I considered driving back to Santa Veneta then. In hindsight, I should have. But I had no way of knowing my luck was about to run out.

Chapter 33

I knew I’d never be able to leave everything in Jake’s apartment exactly where I’d found it, so I decided to clean it instead. That way everything would be out of place and Jake wouldn’t be suspicious. I tossed our beer bottles into the bin then returned to the living room to tackle the mountains of paper. I was afraid to throw anything in the trash in case Jake was saving it for some reason, so I sorted all the newspapers and magazines into neat piles and stacked them on the coffee table.

In the process I uncovered several printed articles explaining how to grade diamonds along with a jeweler’s loop, which surprised me. Was Jake planning on buying someone an engagement ring? When I’d asked him if he was dating anyone, he’d told me no one special.

After I’d sorted the papers near the couch and TV, I moved to Jake’s desk, which was in the corner of the living room. It was cheap particleboard, probably from Ikea, and matched the rest of the all-black furniture in the room. In the bottom drawer I found what I could only describe as dossiers. Each file contained information about an individual, always a man, usually but not always with a printed photo attached. The file also contained a bullet-pointed list that included the person’s background, education, and family members. There was no company name or logo on the file folders, and none contained rap sheets, although a few of the dossiers noted time served for various crimes. If the men described in these files were white with eastern European sounding names, I would’ve concluded they were the Russian mobsters Alex had alluded to. But every one of them was Asian.