The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,110

you’re focusing on?”

“The problem with your sister …” Samuel T. tapped his temple. “Is that as flawed as she is, no one ever compares to her.”

That’s how I feel about my Lizzie, Lane thought.

Well, except his Lizzie had no flaws.

“Samuel,” he whispered sadly.

“Oh, I can hear the pity in your voice.”

“Gin is a tough case.”

“As am I, my dear friend. As am I.” The attorney sat forward. “Annnnnd we’re going to chalk this little interchange”—Samuel T. motioned between the pair of them—“to my being seriously drunk off my ass. If you ever bring it up again, I will deny it. I also may well not remember us talking about this at all. And that would be a blessing.”

“Wow, hardcore for a six on the drunk scale.”

“I may be underestimating things.” On that note, Samuel T. reached over to a side table and poured more bourbon into a rocks glass. “Back to your security camera issue. They’re going to get in and see what’s there, and moreover, they will notice if anything is missing or altered with. I advise you not to try to tamper with any of the footage.”

“And yet you suggested I keep quiet about what was in that ivy bed?”

“But the difference is that if you hadn’t called them in at that time, they would never have known. If you try to splice anything on those recordings, however, or shadow the footage, change or delete it, they will be able to tell. It’s one thing to pretend something was never found. It’s an entirely different prospect altogether to try to fool their IT department when you’re a layman and they have a geek squad full of people who are members of Anonymous in their spare time.”

Lane got up and went to the windows. The glass in the panes was the same as Easterly’s, the beautiful farmland beyond wavy and spotted thanks to the bubbles in the antique squares.

“You know,” he said, “when Edward was down in South America, in the hands of those bastards? I didn’t sleep for a week. It was from the time between when the ransom demand came in and when he was finally rescued and brought back to the States.” Memories from the past became like the panes of the old glass, obscuring what was in front of him. “When we were growing up in that house, Edward protected us from Father. Edward was always in charge. He always knew what to do. If I had been kidnapped down there? He would have come and saved me if the roles had been reversed. He would have flown down to that jungle and machete’ed his own way in if he’d had to.”

“Your brother was—is, excuse me—your brother is a quality man.”

“I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t do the same for him. And it ate me alive.”

It was a while before Samuel T. spoke.

“You can’t save him now, Lane. If he did what you think he did … and there’s video evidence of it? You’re not going to be able to save him.”

Lane turned around and cursed. “My father deserved it, okay? My father fucking deserved what came to him. He should have been thrown off a fucking bridge years ago.”

Samuel T. put his palms up. “Don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me as well. And yes, your brother had all the justification in the world—in a Game of Thrones scenario. Kentucky homicide law begs to differ, however, and it is going to win in this situation. Self-defense only counts if you currently have a knife to your throat or a gun to your head.”

“I wish I’d found that fucking finger. I would have just piled the earth right back on top of the goddamn thing.”

But he couldn’t have put Lizzie and Greta in the position of lying to the authorities. Especially not with Richard Pford having come out of the house with Gin as he had. That bastard would use his own mother if it got him somewhere.

“You know …” Samuel T.’s face assumed a philosophical expression. “What your brother should have done was invite your father out to the Red & Black. And then shoot him just as he stepped over the threshold.”

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s the way to kill someone in Kentucky. We’ve got a homesteader law that says if someone is trespassing, whether or not they are threatening you with a weapon, you have the right to defend your property against them provided they have entered the premises without your permission. Only two caveats.