Page 243 of Remiss
“Letters. I’ll overnight you copies if you’ll just answer my questions. Reading that bullshit makes my fucking head spin,” she said crossly. “None of those motherfuckers kept their dicks in their pants. All the goddamn branches on the family tree are as intertwined as the fucking vines at Sleeping Beauty’s castle.”
He roared with laughter and she chuckled.
“You should laugh more,” she said when the moment passed. “It softens you.”
His smile turned sad, bittersweet.
“No room for softness, Kendall. Daddy taught me that.”
“Look where that got him. You could’ve tried something different.”
“No greater man than Cee Cee.”
Kendall cocked her head to the side. “Motherfucker though he was, he had something Sharper Banks, Logan Donovan, and Wallace Bart never did—loyalty. He tried to protect Big Joe Foy.”
“Can’t protect a dumb motherfucker.”
“He was blindly loyal to Logan.”
“He was stupid,” Bash said flatly. “Damn good president. Put broads on a pedestal. Had a fucking head for numbers and business. Adored my aunt, Meggie, and Christopher, but he was stupid because he couldn’t see Logan for the motherfucker he was. If Logan had only fucking died, they all might still be alive. Sharper went off the fucking rails trying to one-up Logan.”
“Logan set-up Big Joe.”
“You know why.”
“I do.”
Bash sighed. Scrubbed a hand over his face. “Logan set up Christopher, Kendall.”
“To kill Big Joe.”
“To killChristopher.”
“Excuse me?” That hadn’t been in any of her documents.
“Do you honestly think that motherfucker would give up trying to get rid of Christopher?”
“But—”
“With Christopher gone, Logan figured Big Joe wouldn’t want to get clean so fucking bad. Meggie was almost ready to be sold. If Christopher was dead and Meggie missing, Logan would’ve offered fatherly comfort. It just didn’t work out that way.”
Kendall drew in deep breaths to right her equilibrium. She couldn’t believe…fuck, who was she kidding? She believed anything with those violent fuckheads. Her mind spun. Words from the letters she’d read turned over in her head. “They didn’t expect Christopher to get the drop on Big Joe.”
Bash nodded. “Joe was a crack shot. Quick on the draw. The student surpassed the teacher.”
“Snake—Joey—was in on the plan, I take it.”
“As much as he hated Christopher, he wouldn’t have risked his father.”
“Either way, one of them would’ve died that day.”
“Unfortunately for them, the wrong one died. K-P wouldn’t sit the fuck down. He was always snooping. Stupid fuckhead. I don’t know what he was waiting for. Instead of telling Christopher as soon as Big Joe was killed, or when Meggie arrived, he kept that shit to himself. Logan disemboweled him then skinned him. Sharper told Cleaner, who told me.”
Covering her face, Kendall took a moment to herself to process the new information. The stories kept changing. She still didn’t know who or what to believe. Bash accounts were mostlysecond and third hand. The letters could be used asfirsthandaccounts, but who the fuck knew?
“Patricia’s murder—”
“Pissed Cee Cee the fuck off. He didn’t sanction it. Whether he hated her or loved her, she was stillhiswife. Rack and Snake were lucky they were already fucked up. The fact that they also tried to kill Christopher? Yeah, those motherfuckers would’ve suffered.”
