wanted to see me topless, all you had to do was ask.”
But he and Jake pull their shirts up, spinning to let Claire visually check for weapons.
“Pants legs too,” Claire says, all business. The guys slowly bend down, hiking up each leg to show they don’t have weapons stowed in their boots either.
“So do I get the same? Are you going to pull your shirt up and do a spin for me? I apologize for not bringing any cash,” Caleb jokes.
Claire flushes in anger, and for once, she looks like she’s going to shoot someone besides Nathan. “I’m already armed and dangerous. No need for me to hand out free tit shows to prove it.”
Caleb laughs loudly and talks sarcastically out of the side of his mouth, eyes on Claire. “Emma, I like your sister. Probably better than you, even. Not that I like you in the least.”
I roll my eyes at his antics, knowing it’s his schtick to make people underestimate him. I saw how smart and slick he was in Brazil.
Claire cuts her eyes to Nathan. “Spill it.”
Nathan looks at Caleb, who keeps his face relatively impassive for him, although I can tell he’s got plenty of questions.
“Kyle and I have been talking tonight,” Nathan starts with a sigh. “By the way . . . Caleb, Kyle. Kyle, Caleb. Jake, can you go take a look in the kitchen? No touching.”
Jake nods, turning to go, but Claire calls out again, “Don’t touch him.”
Jake looks from Claire to Nathan and then disappears down the hall.
Nathan starts, “Like I was saying, we’ve been talking. Anna was Kyle’s fiancé. He’s been investigating her murder, the same as we have Dad’s. Some pieces we were each missing, the other had. And now, we think whoever killed Dad also killed Anna. They were hits. And with a hitman dead in my kitchen—”
Caleb interrupts, “A what, where?”
Nathan gives him the short version of our kitchen calamity, Caleb’s eyes twitching as it sinks in what he could’ve lost tonight.
Nathan finishes, “I’m guessing it was Matt who made the hits on Dad and Anna.”
Claire makes a weird noise in her throat, shaking her head. “He didn’t kill Michael Stone or Anna Russo. You did.”
Nathan glances back at me, not asking for help but maybe permission to be harsh with my sister. I nod, knowing that Claire is hard-headed. It’s one of her best qualities, that stubbornness that got her through school, helped her become an agent, and makes her good at her job. But no matter how many times I’ve told her that Nathan didn’t have anything to do with the deaths, she doesn’t believe me.
It’s too much of a paradigm shift for her. And the only way Claire changes her mind is with a little directness and maybe a shove in the right direction.
A thought occurs to me, and I speak up. “Claire, who told you Nathan killed Anna? Who planted that whole scenario in your head, that he’d killed his dad for the company and she was asking too many questions so Nathan needed to shut her up?”
She doesn’t answer, but I see the shifty way her eyes flick to the kitchen.
“It was Matt,” I declare, pointing at the kitchen. “What if he’s been playing you, me, and the FBI all along?”
Claire purses her lips, thinking, and Nathan jumps at the opening. “Really, so if Michael was killed by a hitman and Anna was too, and if Matt had something to do with that, what better way to redirect suspicion? And he said, ‘He’ll send someone else. He wants it,’ so what if the ‘it’ is something only Michael and Anna knew about? The hits were about that.”
“That’s a lot of ifs,” Claire scoffs. “And what did they have that someone wanted so badly?”
I’m not sure if Nathan wants to go there, so I let him take the lead. “A gem. Or at least a map to one. Matt must be working for someone who wants the map.”
“You mean worked, past-tense, since you killed him.” Her tone is sharp, biting again, but I can see it’s because she’s listening to us. The twisty turns her mind must be making are painful, ones of betrayal by her own partner, and that has to be hard. “You do realize I have to call this in.”
“If you feel you need to, do it,” Nathan says nonchalantly, although I’m sure he’s shitting bricks inside. “An FBI agent hiding in my kitchen on what is obviously an assassination assignment