Page 46 of The Moment They Can Never Forgive
“Those papers were found in Old Man Lupton’s barn. He died five years ago, and his niece cleaned it out two years ago but only now decided to go through the papers. She handed me these because she’s a lawyer and what she saw alarmed her enough that she thought I should see them.”
“What are they, exactly?” Dan asked, continuing to study the papers.
“To me they look like consignments that have been coming and going from the Lupton place for about three years. It says ‘caine’ there. But look at the signature next to the money and date there.” He pointed with his pen. “What do you see?”
Dan bent to get a closer look. “Is that a G?”
“What else?” his uncle asked.
“It looks like a set of teeth but…. Well, fuck me.”
“Exactly. It’s a grill.”
Dan whistled. “I have never seen that man’s signature, but it has to be his, don’t you think? He’s the sort of arrogant asshole who would have a symbol for a signature.”
“It’s speculation, but I think it could be.”
“Three years ago…. So whatever this is, it started back then?”
“That’s my take,” Uncle Asher said. “But it could have been longer if whoever is behind this had another property to use.”
“So you think that bastard has been using Old Man Lupton’s barn to transit drugs?”
“If it’s drugs, which the word ‘caine’ suggests it is, then yes, I do. Smart, really, seeing as Mr. Lupton passed and his propertywas empty,” Uncle Asher said. “We’ll head out there again and take a look. But his niece said this was all she found.”
“I hate that shithead Grill,” Dan said.
His uncle raised his eyes from the papers to look at Dan. “We keep this to ourselves for now.”
Dan nodded. “But we’ve been saying there seems to be more people getting high in Lyntacky over the past few years.”
“We have, and this could be why.” His uncle kept his eyes on Dan. “You all good, there, nephew? You look a little tight around the eyes.”
There was no one who saw you better than someone who’d raised you.
“Been a day of it out at the Reynolds place. We’ve been tidying up. Birdie told us we had to head out there today.”
His uncle studied him in that way he did when he was interviewing someone. The meanest sons of bitches had been known to crack under that look. Dan, however, had been on the receiving end of it many times, and he and his siblings had learned that by staring at the end of his uncle’s nose, they didn’t crack.
“How’s Leah?”
“Good. She and Hudson are settling in, from what I can tell.”Play it cool.His uncle could sniff out a lie in seconds.
“Nice. You and she made your peace yet?”
“I’m not sure that’s happening anytime soon. But maybe we can be friends.”
His uncle sat back in his seat with another big sigh, which suggested he was settling in for a nice long talk. “Always thought that girl was a lost soul.”
“I’m sure her life was tough with Chuck as a father,” Dan said, hating the thought of Leah being lost in any way.
“Maybe you could help her with that, nephew?”
“The family is trying, and maybe a financial intervention will help.”
“I’m not talking about the family. I’m talking about you.”
Dan’s sigh matched his uncle’s. He’d thought he’d shelved everything to do with Leah Reynolds. Then she came back, and now he’d made love to her, and everything was complicated again… or always had been, but it was now even more so because of what had just happened between them.
