The Killing Game(32)

“Brian Carrera.” He harrumphed and settled himself deeper into his seat. “Bellows’s body floated up a day later. Whole thing ruled an accident. The truth is Brian Carrera’s an opportunist. My bet is he saw how to get rid of Bellows once and for all. The captain saw them in the inflatable together before his own fishing trawler broke apart. The ones who survived were lucky to be saved.”

“Carrera didn’t have an explanation of what happened to Bellows?”

“Oh, he said they’d tipped over and the boat was atop them. Brian managed to get the inflatable turned over and inside it, but by then Bellows was gone. Disappeared.”

Luke knew Bolchoy had never believed Bellows’s death was anything short of homicide, but there had never been any proof. “You told Peg your suspicions.”

“She wouldn’t believe me . . . at first. But then those documents turned up. The sale of their property with her signature, and she didn’t sign it. She had to go to court, you know. Actually prove it was a forgery. The Carreras insisted they knew nothing about it. Must’ve been Ted who put her name on the doc, was their defense. Maybe it was . . . hard to say because he was dead. Carrera brothers skated again, but after that, Peg wasn’t quite so fond of them.” He slid Luke a glimmering look. “Corkland said that’s where I got the idea to forge their confessions.”

Luke wanted to ask him if Corkland was right, like he’d always wanted to but had been reluctant to ask. Now Bolchoy was staring him down, almost daring him to, but once the truth was out, there would be no putting it back. Cautiously, Luke said, “Rule number eight: Don’t ask questions if you don’t want to know the answers.”

Bolchoy’s mouth settled into a hard smile. “That’s rule number six. Don’t forget it.”

“I haven’t.”

Bolchoy picked up his drink, though it was empty, then turned the glass in his hands. “At first Peg didn’t want to talk to me after Ted’s death. She’d had some medical issues. Cancer scare, I think. And anyway, she didn’t want to hear my theories about what happened on that inflatable.”

“You told her you thought it was a homicide.”

“She didn’t believe it. She defended those bastards until the document showed up. Even then, though, she shut the door in my face. I tried to contact her, but truthfully, she likes a prettier face.”

“What do you mean?”

He laughed shortly. “She liked the Carrera boys. Maybe even better than she liked her husband. I thought about using you back then, but well—” He shrugged. “Things went the way they went, and anyway, the lady wasn’t taking my calls. You want to know where she landed? Go see her in person. Knock on her door. She’ll take one look at you and you’ll be in.”

*

September walked through the door of the house she shared with her fiancé, a modified 1950s rambler, and dropped her messenger bag atop her grandmother’s quilt, which was tossed on the couch. She could smell the barbecue before she entered the kitchen. Jake was on the back patio outside the sliding glass door, which was cracked open a couple of inches. He was tending to a couple of rib eyes he’d flung on the grill as soon as September had texted him that she was on her way home from work.

She lingered a moment in the kitchen while he still didn’t know she was there, her gaze skating over his lean form, the strong line of his jaw. She and Jake had been through a lot in the past year; both of them had spent time in a hospital recuperating from various injuries. When he’d asked her to marry him, September had said yes, then had suffered huge doubts about the possibility of wedded bliss . . . or wedded anything, for that matter. Her own family had its share of weirdnesses, and she’d suffered a low-grade panic attack, if there was such a thing, for months on end. But she’d come through that with a kind of what-the-hell’s-wrong-with-you moment. Jake Westerly was the only man she wanted and she was damn lucky he felt the same way about her.

So, now they were making plans for a wedding. He didn’t care when, where, or how, he just wanted it to happen.

“Hey, Nine,” he said when he saw her, a grin catching his lips. Most of the time he still called her by her nickname, the one her twin, August “Auggie” Rafferty had dubbed her with because she’d been born in the ninth month of the year . . . barely. Auggie’s birthday was August 31, while September had arrived a few minutes later, just after midnight, hence she was christened September. This was a strange quirk of their father’s, started before their births with their brother, March, and sisters July and May. September always wondered what her father would have done if they’d arrived in the same month, but Auggie always figured they’d be August and Augusta. . . . The sad part was, he was probably right.

Jake put down his barbeque tools and bounded back inside, sweeping her into a bear hug that caused September to laugh in surprise.

“You’re squeezing me to death!”

“Ah, no. We can’t have that.” He slowly released her, then laid a big smacker on her. “Got a big account today.”

Jake owned an investment business he’d toyed with selling, his desire to make people—rich people—money having waned over the years. He had a half-interest in his father’s winery—his brother, Colin, was his partner—and he’d thought about moving into the business more fully. But as soon as he decided to quit the investment world, suddenly everyone wanted him to be their financial adviser. So, he was keeping with it in the meantime, and he’d admitted to September that he had a new attitude since they’d become engaged. “I want to be married to you. Everything else is secondary.”