Page 21 of The Woman Left Behind

“Did you know them?”

“Know their girl Lillian was the hot number in school,” Jesse said. “She graduated before we got there, but her legend remained.”

Harry could see that.

“And Dad dug Sonny,” Jace shared. “Dad’s a do-it-yourself kind of guy, but he’d call Sonny every once in a while, if he needed an extra man on a job he was doing around the house. It was a long time ago, you’d have to ask him, but think they’d share a drink on occasion.”

“I do know Dad thought shit was off when they ghosted,” Jesse added.

Harry scratched a conversation with Cade on his to-do list, but that already said a lot. Cade Bohannan was known as one of the best criminal profilers in history. If he had Sonny anywhere near his land, that meant Sonny Rainier was solid as a granite.

“Do you know Lillian?” Harry asked.

Jesse smirked.

Jason watched him closely.

Harry wasn’t surprised at these reactions.

She was an attractive woman. He had a dick.

And these two shared one brain, but they both used far more of that organ than the vast majority of people. They were sharp, shrewd, and between their ex-cop, ex-FBI profiler father’s tutelage and their natural God-given ability, they read practically any situation like it was typed in a book.

“Know her, know her, no,” Jesse eventually answered. “Seen her around, absolutely.”

“She got hooked up with Willie Z. Shocked the shit out of everyone. Then she took a half a breath and got shot of Willie Z, which no one found surprising,” Jason put in.

He didn’t need it, but that corroborated Lillian’s story.

“If you’re free, I need you in LA,” Harry stated. “Lillian says they lived there before they moved up here. She said the move was sudden, they upped stakes and left and bought their house with cash in Misted Pines. Real estate was a damn sight cheaper back then, but not that cheap. I want to know why they took off from LA and how they had the resources to set up here in MP.”

Jason looked surprised. “You think they did it?”

“As much as this guts me, for them, for Lillian, for anyone who cared about them, I think it’s their remains that were found in that hole, and I want every fucking i dotted and every t crossed when we find the fucks who took a loving couple away from their beloved daughter, their lives ending with multiple bullets in their bodies, before that happened they knew their love affair was at its tragic end and their daughter was going to be alone in this world. I want them exonerated even before anyone thinks to throw shit at them. Which means, once you’re done in LA, I want you in Idaho. Tell me when you’re heading there. I’ll let the locals know you’re on my team.”

“This deputized shit?” Jason asked.

“This is coming out of my pocket,” Harry answered.

Jason’s brows winged up. Jesse’s shot down.

“Harry, we ain’t cheap,” Jesse said quietly. “We’ll give you a discount, because you’re a brother, but you’re talking time, gas, maybe flights, maybe money to loosen tongues?—”

Harry interrupted him. “At one thirty in the morning, Sonny would go to the gas station where Lillian worked just to keep her company and be sure she was safe.”

Jesse shut his mouth, and this time, Jason’s eyes got hard.

“If anyone has the barest fucking doubt that those two were involved in the Dietrich mess, I want it washed away,” Harry announced. “And I want answers for Lillian. She’s waited sixteen years to find out what happened to her parents. That’s long enough.”

The twins exchanged a look, and Harry would give his left ball to know what that kind of thing meant between them, considering at the same time they looked back to Harry, and it seemed in the interim, silently, they’d agreed Jason was the one who would be tasked with asking the next question.

It came quiet, curious…and hopeful.

“You got something going on with her, man?”

“No,” Harry answered.

“Dude,” Jesse said. “Seen her around. She’s smokin’.”

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