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.
On top of the desk was a modem, a router, and a mouse, but no computer. I checked Jake’s bedroom for his laptop, but all I found was an unmade bed and a pile of dirty laundry, along with photos of him, Jonah, and their mother. I recalled in the pre-Amelia days, whenever I used to meet someone for dinner or drinks after work, I always left my briefcase locked in the trunk of my car. I wondered if Jake did the same, then realized I didn’t have to wonder because I still had access to his keys.
I snatched Jake’s key ring from the kitchen counter where I’d set it atop a stack of unopened mail and headed downstairs to the parking garage. I found his laptop inside a messenger bag in his trunk along with more dossiers. I assumed the laptop was password-protected but checked to be sure. After a few failed attempts, I shut the computer. It had taken me months to guess Jonah’s password. I would never be able to guess Jake’s. But I wanted to read the dossiers and it was cold in the garage, so I stuffed everything into the messenger bag and headed back up to Jake’s apartment.
I unlocked the front door and headed straight to the kitchen. I was afraid if I didn’t return Jake’s keys now while I was thinking about it, I would accidentally drive home with them. I placed the key ring on top of the unopened mail and turned to leave. That’s when Jake appeared in front of me.
I screamed and jumped back, banging my head against a kitchen cabinet. “What are you doing?”
“I could ask you the same,” he replied, eyeing his messenger bag, which was still slung over my shoulder, the top unzipped and the files sticking out the top.
“You were sleeping,” I said as if that somehow explained my behavior.
“What are you doing with my bag?”
I said the first thing that popped into my throbbing head. “Well, I didn’t think you’d want to leave it lying around in your car all night.”
“It wasn’t lying around in my car. It was locked in my trunk.”
I had no defense. My only option was offense. “Yes, but I didn’t know that until I got downstairs.”
“And you thought since you were there anyway, you’d search my bag?”
I assumed that was a rhetorical question and didn’t answer.
He yanked the messenger bag off my shoulder and rifled through it.
“I didn’t steal anything if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He finished searching then zipped the bag shut with the files tucked inside. “Why were you snooping through my things?”
I stayed with offense. “Why were you snooping through my house a few months ago?”
Jake’s eyebrows raised. “Is that what this is about? Payback?”
“No. I just want answers. What were you and Jonah up to?”
“We weren’t up to anything.”
I gingerly touched the back of my head and felt the knot that was already forming. I was suddenly very tired. “Please, Jake. Just tell me why Jonah was killed.”
