Anthony laughed. “That was the beautiful part. Protection from us. All they had to do was pay us each week, and we wouldn’t show up to wreck their stores or rough up their customers. Let that happen a few times, and you’re out of business.”
Callie glared at him. “So you preyed on small-business owners, people who made little money to start with, and you got rich.”
“Something like that. The money began to add up, and we branched out. One guy who owned a small convenience store right off the interstate decided he didn’t want to pay anymore. When Carlos and I showed up one night at his stop-and-shop, he had his nephew, who was a cop, waiting for us. When he stepped out of the back room with his gun aimed at us, I had to defend myself. So I shot and killed him.”
Callie’s eyes grew wide. “You killed a fellow officer?”
“Yeah, he left me no choice. But that wasn’t the trickiest part. A woman traveling through to California had stopped to get some coffee to keep her awake and walked in just as I fired the gun. She tried to run, but Carlos caught her and put her in the back of my police car. We knew we couldn’t leave two witnesses, so we killed the store owner and set the place on fire. Then we brought the woman here, killed her and dumped her in the river.”
“That was Hope! You killed her, too!”
He shrugged. “I did what I had to do at the time. Carlos drove her car out here, and I used my bulldozer to bury her car by the barn. I thought we’d erased all traces of her, but I was wrong. I never dreamed her body would wash up on shore.”
Callie’s stomach roiled. This was what she had wanted—to find out the truth behind Hope’s murder. But she hadn’t suspected the answer had been staring her uncle in the face for years. “And then you pretended to investigate the case of a woman you’d killed.”
Anthony chuckled. “That was the funniest thing of all. Dan and I were assigned the case completely by chance. I kept telling him we’d never find out who she was, but he was obsessed with that case. It got worse through the years. In a way, I guess I was obsessed, too. I was afraid if he ever found out who she was, something might come to light that would point the finger of suspicion at me. I always had to stay one step ahead of him.”
“I suppose that was easy to do because he trusted you. You were his partner, his best friend.” Callie spat the words at him.
“I just tried to keep close to what he was doing, like when he got the idea to put her DNA in the database, I offered to do it for him. Then I destroyed it. And when he stumbled onto the information about Carlos at the shelter, he began checking court records and saw how many defendants were being sent there to do community service. He was asking too many questions, and I knew he had to die. When Carlos failed with that assignment and was about to be taken into custody, I had to take him out, too.”
“You?” She could hardly believe what he’d just said. “You killed Carlos?”
“Yeah. I was across the street.” He cleared his throat and moved closer. “But enough of this talk. I’m going to go out and get everything ready, and then I’ll be back for you.”
The tone of his voice told her he was planning something sinister. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to dig your grave with that bulldozer. It’s an old one, but I’ve kept it in good working order. It came in real handy when I buried Hope’s car out by the old barn. I won’t need a hole that big this time, but I’ll make it big enough for two so Abby can join you.”