“I know.”
“He lies one more time…”
I nodded at the unspoken threat and shut the door behind him. The knife was no longer stuck in it. Crossing my arms over my chest, I leaned against the wood just inches from where Peter’d stabbed the blade through the mahogany. My brows raised expectantly.
“I went over there to kill him,” Peter said with an amount of stoicism that would make Zeno proud.
Maybe I’m Dating the Sociopath?
“Pardon?” My eyes blinked so many times it could have been considered a tick.
“Darryl and I got back from our gig, to find Cai hysterical in the bedroom. He’s crying like I’ve only heard him do when the depressive cycle hits. One time when he got like that—I went out to make macaroni and cheese. It took like ten minutes. Fucking microwave,” he set his jaw. “Ten minutes because he has to have the cheese sticking and burnt to the macaroni. I came back in the room, and he’d used a bottle of turpentine and had my lighter—Cai tried to set himself on fire.”
My brows shot past my hairline and probably landed somewhere in the back of my neck. But I didn’t say anything, so Peter continued. “So okay, Friday we get home late. Darryl and I hear this sobbing, and we’re frantic.” Peter rubbed the tattoo on his hand. “Cai was holding his hands in his lap, rocking back and forth.” He begged me to understand with his glance into my eyes. “Iss had branded him. Tried to rape him, then fucking branded him as a message to me.”
Jesus, this case was complicated. This whole fucking boy’s life was complicated. I rubbed my temples. “But Cai wasn’t raped?”
Peter shook his head. “He wasn’t even upset about that,” he laughed tiredly, rubbing the meaty part of his palm between his eyes. “His fucking hand. He’s hysterical because Iss destroyed his canvas.”
“Huh?” That was becoming a recurring response of mine.
“Cai’s skin. When he was younger, he got into a manic phase and carved it up—we covered the damage with tattoos, and since then he’s had this thing about his skin being a canvas for artwork.”
“And you think Cai didn’t kill him?” And Peter thought I was the naïve one.
“I know he didn’t, because two other people were there when Iss tattooed him. Cai’s best friend Rachel, and some kid that held him down. Cai said Rachel got him out of there.”
“How do you know he didn’t go back and kill him? You were willing to do it,” I pointed out.
“Because he didn’t try and stop me. We all wanted him dead for it. And they both were creating alibis to cover for me.”
As a cop that admission was a twist to the gut, but as a human being? Maybe part of me wanted the man dead, too.
“They told the cops this?”
He nodded. “I think Cai did, not about me going there—but about Rachel taking him home. Rachel is MIA, though. She disappears for long periods. Usually after she scores.”
Oh, good. An addict for an alibi.
I flopped down on the couch. The middle cushion was the only thing separating me from Peter while I attempted to pull all this information in. It was too tiring. My eyes were trying to close. “You should have told me all of this from the beginning.”
“I didn’t know you. You didn’t know me. I just wanted Iss out of our lives. I’d have even given up the restaurant, but the day I was supposed to meet you…that Saturday you came to the diner and saw me that first time—”
“You were the no-show informant I waited two hours for?”
“Yeah. I planned on giving you everything. The passports, the money, the accounts. Then Cai’s tuition came up, and just like that we were broke. The mortgage was next and the restaurant was the only income we had.”
“Not the only income,” I pointed out without mentioning the money from his and Darryl’s “gig”.
“So I called Darryl, and we used this snitch everyone knows to pass you the info about Iss. Then I went to his house, hid the stash, and that was supposed to be that. Iss in jail, restaurant safe and those people being looked for. But then you were always hanging around, pushing your way into my life. No matter what I did to send you away.” He bit his lip around a half-smile and fisted one of my pillows to his chest. I let my eyes fall shut.
“You still should have told me,” I scolded, before settling my head onto the armrest, bare feet propping my knees up in the middle of the sofa. “Have you been baking?”
“Cai’s other favorite, cinnamon rolls,” he whispered. My eyes flew open. He hovered over me, bracing himself on either side of my head.