“No one is following us,” I said. “Now, you want to tell me what’s going on with you? You broke the fucking guy’s arm! I’d be surprised if you didn’t give him a concussion too.”
“Brody’s a dick.”
“That’s beside the point. There are laws. You can’t assault someone like that.”
“Really?” He snickered. “Because it sounded like you were getting ready to before I showed up.”
“Sure. I might’ve taken a swing. One punch. Chris, you sent a man to the ER.”
Which was why I felt all right leaving Jenny and Aiden alone back there: the only way Brody was getting off the ground was onto a gurney. The smartest thing for me to do right now was to get my brother out in the open, where this mess could be resolved, peacefully, with no one else getting hurt.
Chris brushed me off.
“And don’t be saying that shit to Jenny.”
“What? That you’re still nuts about her? Dude, that’s the least-kept secret in town.”
“Never mind my love life, Chris.” I dragged on my smoke, stealing glances in my rearview mirror. I was getting as bad as my brother. “You know about Pete?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know who did it?”
He wouldn’t answer.
“Chris?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Yeah.”
“Now isn’t the time to play games, Chris. I want you to get the story straight in your head, because in a few minutes, you’re going to have to explain yourself. Understand?”
I took Ragged Pass, my old Chevy trudging up the snow-covered mountain, jostling along shifted plates of unpaved road. I veered onto the southern rim of Echo Lake before the bridge and drove to the water’s edge. I punched the truck in park.
“Start talking.”
Chris slung the backpack onto his lap and unzipped the front pouch. He dug around inside, retrieving a CD in a white sleeve. “I need you to take this,” he said.
“What is it?”
“It’s why Pete died. I need you to promise that, if something happens, you’ll take care of this for me.”
“What’s on there?”
“Contents of a computer. Hard drive. Transferred to disc.” My brother stuffed the disc back in the pouch. “Here take the whole damn thing,” he said, thrusting the backpack at me. “I don’t need it anymore.”
“Slow down,” I said. “Tell me about this disc.”
“Pete kept the original hard drive. It’s why they killed him.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think? Those asshole bikers working for Lombardi.”
“And you know this, how? You saw them?”
“Didn’t have to.”
Hard winds whipped up snowy dust, conspiring little tornadoes to dance across the frozen water.
“Do they know you have this?” I asked him.
“They’re looking for me, aren’t they?” Chris flung the backpack between us, covering his head in his hands.
“They’re looking for you because you broke into people’s private residences and vandalized property. This, after you and your friend took possession of something that didn’t belong to you.”
“That’s not true. Someone dropped off the hard drive.”
“Yeah, to have its memory erased, not probed and exploited. It doesn’t matter. Adam wants it back.”
“No shit, he wants it back! Why do you think Pete is dead? And now they want me dead too, because I know what’s on there.”
“What is on there?” I asked. “What is this damning piece of evidence you’ve been running around Ashton with? Burglarizing houses, setting off alarms at construction sites, driving everyone crazy. You’ve got cops all the way up from Concord looking for you. I don’t know what you think is going on here, but it’s hard to trust your version of anything these days. So whatever it is, you’d better come clean. I’m about the only friend you have right now.”
Chris stared straight ahead, entranced by the swirling snow ballet.
“Is it information on the proposed ski resort? The construction bid? Campfire Properties, and Michael giving the contract to Adam?”
“Just take a look at the disc,” he said. “Look at it before Adam finds it.”
“Because if it is, I know all about it already. While you’ve been running around playing drugstore cowboy and Indians, I’ve had no choice but to dig into shit. And it might be creepy, and maybe even unethical, but greasing palms to land a construction job and proving someone broke the law takes a lot more-”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with Lombardi Construction.”
I stopped cold. “Wait. What?”
“It’s not about Adam’s company.”
“It’s not?”
Chris shook his head.
“Then what’s on the disc?”
“Pictures.”
“Pictures?”
“Of kids.”
“Pictures. Of kids. This is why you’re harassing Adam?”
“You’re not listening, Jay. They’re bad pictures. Little kids. Young boys. You following me yet? There’s a man in the pictures. Doing stuff to them. It’s fucked up.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell for sure. I mean, it’s hard to tell. That’s why I need you to look at them. The guy is obviously trying to keep his face obscured, but he’s old. And fat and disgusting and hunched over and-I wish you’d just look at the disc.”
“Not until you tell me who.”
“I think it’s Gerry Lombardi,” Chris said. “I mean, it is Gerry Lombardi, Jay. Open the files. It’s him. Go look at the disc, I’ll meet you somewhere later.”
“Mr. Lombardi?” I paused a second to let it all sink in. “Then this isn’t about the ski resort or condos? Adam? Michael?”
“No! I mean, yes, I guess. Just not directly. The guy who dropped off the computer worked for Adam. He told us they were getting a new computer system at Lombardi. Since he only dropped off the one, I thought there might be others with more photos. When I didn’t find anything at Gerry’s house, I broke into the construction site to search for more files, pics, to download them onto a flash drive, get more evidence, have a better look.”
“So you’re not even sure if-”
“I’m sure! But no one is going believe a fucking thing I say. You know that. You don’t even believe me, and you’re my fucking brother! You think the cops are listening to a lowlife junkie? All I have is a downloaded copy. There’s nothing linking anything to jack. I needed irrefutable, one hundred percent, ironclad proof.”
“Jesus, Chris.” I pulled my hands down my face, digging my fingers into my eyes, pressing so hard I made myself see spots. “Why do you care so much? I mean, it’s horrible that little kids-”
“Why do I care?! How can you ask me that? Those are little boys! Not much older than Aiden. Getting raped! And some sick fuck is taking pictures, keeping them in, like, a digital scrapbook to get off on later-and you’re asking me why I care?”
“Calm down. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“What did you mean it like, then? It’s not my problem? Then whose problem is it? Who the hell is going to do anything about it? Nobody in this town, that’s for sure. Nobody is going after the Lombardis. They are fucking legends around here! They named the goddamn high school gym after Gerry Lombardi. He runs that charity so he can pick those kids off, one by one, with impunity. He’s ruining lives! People will line up in Ashton to bend over backwards to cover this up, and you know it. And I’ll tell you something else-if the computer came from the construction site, you can be sure Adam knows about it too. Michael as well. Why do you think they’re pulling out all the stops to reel me in?”
“Hold on. You don’t even know for sure-”
“I do know for sure! It’s Gerry Lombardi! Fuck! Listen to me! Adam and Michael know about it! Pete and I got in that huge fight because Pete was trying to blackmail Adam. I told him it was a stupid idea, that we needed to get more evidence, but he thought we could make some easy money. He contacted Adam and told him he had the hard drive. And a couple days later, he’s dead. Figure it out! They know I have that disc-if Pete didn’t ’fess up before they broke his neck, our crew at the shop would’ve sold me out-and they won’t stop until I’m dead too. Why else would Adam care so much about a piece-of-shit old computer he threw away?”