“Well, they seem pretty hung up on you. Hunter in particular. He kept wanting to call you. We had to take his phone away. Is something going on between you two?”
His tone was elaborately casual, but there was a tension beneath the words.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
His doubtful expression didn’t change.
“Come on, Luke. They’re just kids.”
“They’re our age.” He set his bottle down. “They’re not children.”
“Well, they’re not habitual criminals either,” she said. “They didn’t understand what was happening. I just tried to explain how it works.”
A suspicious look crossed his face. “What exactly did you tell them? This is a criminal investigation. You shouldn’t be telling them anything.”
“I told them to call the cops,” she said, exasperated. “I told them to talk to you guys. I told them everything would be okay. That’s it. Give me some credit.”
He held her gaze for a long moment before relenting. “I’m sorry if I sounded accusing. I’m just tired.”
Harper watched as he took a drink, gazing out across the bar. She didn’t know what to make of this. Was he jealous of Hunter? That would be ridiculous. After all, he was the one who had a girlfriend, according to the police station rumor mill.
Either way, they needed to get to safer ground.
“What do you make of Cara?” she asked, after a beat.
“Man.” He blew out air from between pursed lips. “That girl is something else. If I choose to believe her, Xavier was a saint, she loved him, a monster snatched him from the beach, and her heart is broken.”
“Do you believe her?” she asked.
He hesitated, holding his beer halfway to his lips. “I’m not sure, yet.”
“You really didn’t find anything in the house?” she pressed. “They don’t strike me as criminal masterminds.”
“Nothing conclusive,” he said. “No kill zone. Traces of blood in the kitchen sink but Allegra had cut her finger cooking dinner the night before.” He stretched his shoulders as if they ached. “We’ll test and see if there’s DNA.”
“But you still like them for it?”
“They’re the closest to him,” he said.
He didn’t have to say more. Killers rarely come from far away. Except in her mother’s case.
The thought jarred her, distracting her instantly from Xavier Rayne.
Pushing her half-empty bottle aside, she leaned forward. “Can I tell you something that happened tonight? It’s got nothing to do with the case.” She kept her voice low, but he must have heard the change in her tone, because his brow creased.
“Shoot.”
“I got a text, from that guy.” She didn’t have to say which guy she meant.
Luke searched her face. “What did he say?”
Talking fast, she told him what she’d learned. When she mentioned Martin Dowell’s name, he held up one hand to stop the flow of words.
“You’re not talking about Martin Dowell, as in Southern Mafia Martin Dowell?”
She nodded. “You’ve heard of him?”
“Your father defended that piece of crap?” His face hardened.
She dug through her bag for the printout of the photo she’d found of her father standing next to Dowell in front of the Atlanta courthouse, and slid it across to him.
Luke studied it with obvious distaste. When he handed it back, his mouth was set in a grim line. “Harper, this is bad news.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No, I mean, the worst damn news.” He angled forward across the table until he was so close she could smell the soap on his skin. “When I worked undercover, I was in Dowell’s operation—or what’s left of it now.” He gave her a weighted look. “You remember the scar on my side?”
Harper thought of her and Luke in bed, her head on his chest, her fingers tracing the angry line of the scar. “I remember.”
“Well, it was Dowell’s guys who gave it to me. The organization’s run by a dirtbag named Rodney Jordan now. A little psychopath. He was Dowell’s hit man for years. After the boss went down, the group disbanded, but Jordan brought it back together, a little at a time.” His tone was bitter. “Every drug dealer in the state is scared to death of him and the gang of shitheads he’s pulled together. They kill ruthlessly, and they leave no evidence.” He held her gaze. “They erase people, Harper.”
Her stomach turned to ice.
“I think they must be the ones who killed my mother,” she told him, quietly. “After Dowell went to prison. I think Dowell had her killed to get back at my father for losing that case. I don’t know how he did