his chest, and I noticed some strands getting ripped out as I pulled the tape off. I was sure it wasn’t comfortable, but he didn’t show any emotion. He just watched me. Just…stared as I went, all stoic-like.
The gold bars were thin with no stamp on the front.
“These were melted, weren’t they?” I murmured in thought as I gently settled them in a line on the island.
He nodded slowly. “They were.”
I eyed him carefully. “You said a deal went wrong.”
He took a sudden step back and turned around so his back was facing me. I didn’t know what he was doing until I saw his back and my heart dropped. His upper back was covered in giant red marks.
“They did that to you?” I asked in alarm.
“They jumped me,” he answered returning his front to me. He looked a little irritated as he reflected. “I should have seen it coming. I got to have the last laugh.”
“How?”
His eyes appeared bright. “They took the duffle bag and ran.”
I pondered that for a moment, putting the pieces together as I watched him. “But you didn’t have anything in the duffle bag.”
His lips flinched. “A bunch of rocks.”
Now my mouth quirked up. “Not sure if having this stuff taped to you is brilliant or stupid, Locke.”
He chuckled. “I’m still new to this, Charlotte.”
“New to the crime world, you mean?”
“No,” he replied swiftly, his voice soft. “Crime is easy, but some things I want to do alone.”
“You have others helping you?”
He didn’t respond, but I could tell the answer was yes.
“Blackwater’s a dirty place,” he reflected, eyes deep in thought. “Building capital, brushing against the underbelly of this beast of a place, is unpredictable. This town has so many secrets…”
“I’m not sure we want to go digging around for those secrets.”
“I have to,” he said, resolutely. “I have to know. I have to.”
“And building capital – having the money – will do that?”
“I’m building capital to buy out this shithole of a place. So much power comes from owning the walls of every money-making business. It draws people in. It’ll draw the right ones to me.”
I stared hard at the bars, trying to understand what he was saying.
What sort of people was he searching for?
“I’m going to be coming back to you, Charlotte, and it’ll be messier than this,” he said now, staring hard at me.
I paused to look up at him. “Messier how?”
“Messier…because I’m going to be doing things on the side. Dirty things…” He swallowed hard, a strange look in his eye. “I spent my entire life searching for answers…and I’m close. I’m so close. I just need someone I can trust. Someone that’ll be there when I turn on myself because…I need to be strong. I need to do it so I can finally be at peace.”
Focusing his gaze back to mine, he added, “I’ll need you. Do you understand?”
I was frightened.
I recognized a man with demons – Conor had so many of them.
Locke was ready to reveal his to me.
“I understand,” I finally said.
A week later, he showed up, weak, bruised, and bleeding on my front porch.
I idled the car in my parking spot in front of the firm. I’d dropped Penny off and was due to be back at home, but…my head was warring with thoughts.
I sipped my coffee too soon, burning my tongue in the process. It didn’t matter. That burn was everywhere, anyway. Conor’s face this morning haunted me. He looked like a stranger. Like he was capable of very bad things.
“He lied.”
Those two words broke me. I gripped the steering wheel and cried for him. I trusted Locke all this time. It seemed unfathomable that he would lie to me. For what purpose? He gave me his word Conor would be okay. If it was a lie, he would have known the truth would come to light, and it wasn’t Locke’s style to just lie without reason, without logic.
But he lied.
He lied.
I’d always defended Locke. I couldn’t bear to hear a bad word uttered about him. The pangs in my chest worsened. I felt so confused, so conflicted. I rubbed at my heart, looking out the windshield.
After everything Locke did for me, it felt like a huge insult to think badly about him. And if he lied to me about keeping Conor safe in prison, I wanted to hear it from him.
At the same time, Locke frightened me, too. He was capable of abhorrent things, and while I understood his motive some of the time, other