Page 99 of Hard Hitter
“That nightclub murder?”
Jay nodded. “It doesn’t seem like Vince was involved, but he may have witnessed it.”
“Okay.” Ari didn’t know how to feel about that. So she hadn’t been living with a murderer. Yay. But it was still weird to realize how deeply he’d fallen in with bad people. How had she missed that?
“Maybe the Pryzyks asked him to dispose of the gun, or maybe he stole it as insurance. But he’d kept it at your home for safekeeping.”
“I wonder...” Ari tapped her fingertips on the desk. “Why was he in and out of my storage room so much?”
Jay shrugged. “I didn’t start tailing him until after that, but I can make a few guesses. Maybe the Pryzyks knew you’d kicked him out, so he thought they wouldn’t look for him there.”
“Or for the gun,” Ari guessed.
“Right. At the very end they caught up to him, though. They tailed him to your house yesterday.”
Ari shivered.
“There’s something else you should know, though. When I was digging into Vince’s motives for harassing you, I discovered there’s a transfer of property happening regarding your Hudson Street home.”
“A transfer of... What does that mean?”
She opened the folder and peeked at a page inside. “Mr. Angelo Bettini is executing a transfer of ownership of the house.”
“To who?”
“Toyou,” Jay said. “Unless there’s another Ariana Bettini.”
“Really?” she breathed. “I thought he wanted to cash in.”
Jay tilted her head to the side. “He’s eighty-four years old. Maybe he’s realizing that you can’t take it with you. Does he have children of his own?”
Ari nodded. “Two sons. They should inherit.”
“Maybe they’re inheriting something else. I’m sorry to drop this little mystery in your lap, but I dug it up by accident.”
“Did Vince know?” Ari asked, then braced herself for the answer. Was he just hanging around the last year because he thought she was about to become rich?
“I really couldn’t guess,” Jay said softly. “Your uncle would have had the quitclaim deed notarized. Then he filed it with the state, where it became a public part of the tax rolls. But he’d have to have looked to find it.”
Well. Ari would have to find a way to ask Uncle Angelo about this strange development. “Thank you for telling me.”
Jay closed the file folder. “You’re going to be okay. You know that, right?”
“Yes,” Ari admitted. “I’m going to be fine.”
“I investigate a lot of people, and some of them are pretty awful. To me, Vince just seemed really lost and scared. He made a lot of shitty choices during the last three months ofhis life. It happens. Good and evil are for movies, Ari. Nobody is ever that tidy.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Thank you. I think I understand.” Ari had to stop beating herself up over her own stupid choices, because all the self-flagellation wasn’t helping.
Everyone was flawed. Everyone was complicated. Some people were lucky enough to hold themselves together, and others ended up dead from their misdeeds.
Now there was something to think about.
She shook Jay’s hand and then checked her phone, finding a text from her mother:We’ll land on time at three and take a cab into Brooklyn. See you soon, baby!
“You okay?” Becca asked from the doorway.
“I’m good,” she answered truthfully. “And I’m looking forward to the day when nobody asks me that anymore.”
