Total pages in book: 260
Estimated words: 245483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1227(@200wpm)___ 982(@250wpm)___ 818(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 245483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1227(@200wpm)___ 982(@250wpm)___ 818(@300wpm)
Now, staring across the table, I know everything happens for a reason.
It was one thing for him to lose his freedom for four years. It would have been another thing to have the one girl he loved most shut the door in his face.
Cill’s plate is gone in minutes. I’ve barely touched mine and Kat’s made a small dent in hers. But he inhales his dinner.
A faint smile tugs at my face when I remember the time we were here last and Cill was going off about something. She said he needed to eat and then he wouldn’t care about whatever it was he was complaining about. I remember laughing but not paying attention to whether or not it was true back then. It’s only a joke but I wish it were true. I wish a good meal and a conversation were all it would take to fix this.
Kat pushes the basket of bread in front of him. It’s the best bread in the city. The inside is soft and the outside is crusty. It tastes like home. This restaurant is almost as familiar as the rec room at the garage. I know this bread like I know the recliners in that room. We must’ve spent hours there watching football and poker games.
Cill’s eaten enough food for the three of us but it’s done him some good. He might be different than he was before, but he’s still my best friend. The hurt look in his eyes has faded a bit. Enough that we can talk.
The waitress brings dainty mugs of coffee once the waiter has cleared our plates. It’s all done silently. Kat has tea instead. She stirs in sugar, the spoon clinking against the ceramic. I can feel her discomfort as well, though she’s trying to hide it. For Cill’s sake, I think. She glances over at me.
I take that as a signal to start talking.
“I think …” I start, then trail off and lick my lower lip, knowing what I’m about to say is a bombshell that could destroy Cill. But he has to know. “It wasn’t just Kat’s father who ratted four years ago.”
Cill narrows his eyes, his brow pinching. His tone is level and low when he says, “The hell do you mean? Everybody knows it was him. He’s the one who called Kat to warn her what was happening.”
“And that didn’t seem off to you?”
“No,” answers Cill.
“It seemed off to me. The more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make any sense.” I look at Kat. “If your dad knew ahead of time, he wouldn’t have let you go to Cavanaugh Crest that night. He didn’t want you mixed up in all of that. He has his sins to pay for, but he loved you. It just doesn’t fit.”
Kat looks down at her empty plate. Cill’s still looking at me, his eyes questioning.
“I don’t think your dad died of a heart attack either,” I tell him. I’ve held this knowledge for so damn long, and it’s a relief to get it out into the open. “I think your uncle wants it all and he’s working for both sides. The Ruin and the feds.”
My mind races with a million things.
The fact that Missy went missing and his uncle claimed she was a rat and that she took off. Yet her house was cleaned out months later and she hadn’t taken anything.
“I think he set her father up. I think Missy caught on and your uncle killed her. I think we have the cops come every other fucking month because he’s slowly taking out anyone who stands in his way. I think it was supposed to be me that left when the cops came last.”
“Slow the fuck down,” Cill demands, his eyes locked on mine, his voice so low it’s barely heard. Barely moving at all, he commands, “Start from the beginning.”
With a racing heart, I swallow and tell him everything.
“When you left and her father disappeared, the charges they brought against you … her father didn’t know it all, you know? He didn’t know about the frequency of drops … it had to be someone else and Missy brought that up.” I can barely breathe remembering how it all went down, but how Eamon played it like it happened differently.
“When she disappeared, he said it made sense because she was asking questions and poking around. He said she had to be a rat.
“But the questions she was asking weren’t something a rat would want to know. She was trying to figure out who else was in on it—”
“Missy was like a second mom to me,” Cill says, his hand firmly wrapped around Kat’s.
“I know. So did your father.” His eyes whip back up to mine at the mention of his dad.
“He wasn’t with it like he was before you went away. But he never believed Missy could do that to him. I think he caught on. I think he figured it out. ’Cause they said he died of a heart attack, but I heard them fighting before that, Cill. He and your uncle were going at it. Everyone who’s questioned your uncle Eamon left shortly after. Either they died or they were a supposed rat who disappeared.”