Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(92)

“Wait,” Peter said, and nudged June’s elbow.

June saw the car. “Fucking Leo,” she said, and stalked forward. Boyle was curled up in the back seat with his jacket as a pillow and his hands tucked between his thighs like an oversized five-year-old. Across the floor lay a scattered mess of translucent lollipop wrappers.

June yanked open the door. “Leo.” She thumped him in the chest with the butt of her fist. “Leo. Wake the fuck up.”

Boyle blinked myopically up at her. “June? What are you doing here?” His lips moved in a tentative smile.

“Who are you working for? Why did you pick me?”

The smile fell away and he looked like a rat in a trap. “What? June, what are you talking about?”

“Let me help.” Peter stepped past her and grabbed Leo by the front of his shirt and dragged him mewling out of his car and onto the wet grass behind a row of evergreen shrubs, out of sight of the police. He was heavy and soft like an animal bred for slaughter. Peter’s ribs gave a twang with the effort.

“Who do you work for, Leo?”

Boyle was scared and breathing hard. “Dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Peter put a knee on the kid’s chest and backhanded him across the face. It was like kicking a puppy. He didn’t like it, but he needed the information.

“Why is June’s picture on your computer? Why do you have a Stanford ID in your office? Who set you up in that house?”

Boyle’s face was bright red now. “Ow, dude, that hurts.”

Peter backhanded him again. “It can get a lot worse, Leo. Who set you up in that house?”

“What are you talking about, it’s my house.”

But his eyes slid to one side as he said it and if Peter had any uncertainty, it was gone now. He pinched the kid’s nose between the knuckles of his first and second fingers and squeezed. Boyle’s eyes filled with tears. Peter worked the nose back and forth. It would hurt like hell but wouldn’t do any real damage. “Tell me the truth, Leo. Who set this up?”

Boyle began to cry and the words tumbled out. “This dude, man, I took some money from his bank account. I bought his password online, I thought it was just this random thing. But somehow he tracked me back to my home computer and threatened me with the cops. I didn’t want to go to jail, man. Dude bought this house, told me to pretend it was mine.”

Pretend it was mine came out sounding like Preted it was mide. Boyle’s chest heaved under Peter’s weight.

“She’s his daughter, okay? I made him prove it, he sent me a picture of her when she was like fifteen.” He looked at June. “You were on snowshoes and you wore a long red-and-white-striped stocking cap.”

June flinched visibly. She knew the picture. And where it had come from.

Boyle kept talking, eyes flicking from June to Peter and back. “He said he couldn’t visit you, he was disabled and couldn’t leave the house, he was worried about you, okay? He said I was doing a good thing.”

“What about the picture on your desktop?”

“He sent me that one, too, so I’d know what she looks like now. I never even met the guy. I don’t even know his fucking name.”

Peter let go of Boyle’s nose and looked at June. Tears were running down her face, too.

“I trusted you,” she said fiercely. “I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend,” Boyle sobbed. “I was looking out for you. He’s your dad.”

“Some fucking friend,” said June. “You were like my little brother.”

“Do you think that was what I wanted? To be your little brother?” Leo Boyle looked at her then with a terrible longing, his face red, eyes streaming. “Don’t you get it? I’m in love with you, June. Ever since I saw your picture.”

“Jesus Christ,” she said, turning away. “All you fucking men. What do you think, I’m your fucking property?”

Peter hoped he wasn’t included in that group.

He put his head up and looked around to see how much attention they’d attracted. A pair of cops with their backs to the BMW talked idly to each other as they watched the smoldering ruins, but a few of the people standing on their lawns outside the perimeter were staring openly at Peter now. When he stared back, they hurriedly averted their eyes and stepped away like they’d forgotten an appointment. Maybe they saw something in his face.

He was running out of time. One of the neighbors might make a call, and there were two police cars on the block. Not to mention whoever Chip Dawes had sent, still out there.

He gave Boyle’s nose another yank. “Tell me about the Stanford ID.”

“Ow, okay, shit. Her dad set me up with a job at this grad lab down there.” He talked even faster now. “At least he said it was him, it was the same email account, but he sounded different, you know? Maybe someone else using your dad’s email?”

Leo looked at June, snot seeping now from his swollen nose.

“Your dad or whoever it was sent me a flash drive to plug into their system. I didn’t want to do it, I told him I wouldn’t. But he said he’d sell the house, empty my bank account, infect all my computers. Anyway I got caught and they fired me. I only worked there a couple weeks.”

“How long ago?” asked Peter.