Peter held up his hands. “Listen, I don’t think you need to be discussing this with anyone. You could incriminate yourselves. I’m advising you to speak to no one, only to me.”
Shannon’s fist banged against the table.
Peter jumped.
All her brothers’ heads jerked up in unison.
“My daughter is missing. Some psycho has her and it’s connected to this Stealth Torcher thing. Now if Dad was the arsonist, who’s the copy cat? One of you?”
“What?” Robert asked, blinking rapidly. “You think I could have killed Mary Beth? Oliver?” He jumped to his feet and walked to the table, pushing his face within inches of Shannon’s. “No, Shan. It’s not me!” He slapped his chest. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life I’m not proud of, but I didn’t take your kid.”
“What about Ryan?” she asked and Robert shrank away from her. “Who killed him? Dad? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Robert, don’t,” Peter warned.
“I—I don’t know.” Robert’s eyes were round.
“Did you know that he was Blanche Johnson’s son? That she gave him up for adoption?”
“Jesus, no. I mean, I knew he was adopted, we all did, but…What does that mean?”
“You tell me.”
“I can’t!”
He looked frantically at Shea, and Shannon felt a shift in the atmosphere. Her three brothers exchanged glances.
“I’ll get us all a beer,” Aaron said.
Shannon held Shea’s gaze. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
Peter, on her other side, was slowly wagging his head side to side, trying to discourage his client, but it was too late. Shea appeared to be a man at a confessional.
“The five of us brothers talked it over and decided we could do the same thing Dad had done, but not for self-aggrandizement but to…make changes for the better.”
“You mean like Robin Hood…? Take the law into your own hands and square things up in the world? Jesus, listen to yourselves! Talk about self-aggrandizement!”
Shea’s lips flattened. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Okay, okay,” she said, holding up her hands, still stunned at the news. “What kind of changes?”
Aaron returned, deposited cans of beer in front of everyone. But the cans remained closed, except for his, which opened with a hiss. “We formed a group. And if someone had something he needed fixed, we met…in kind of a committee and someone executed the plans. Usually the one who brought it up.”
“Things that were illegal,” she guessed, her heart pumping crazily.
“Shea,” Pete cut in one more time. “I’m warning you, as your attorney, that you shouldn’t say anything else.”
“Shannon needs to know,” Shea said fervently. “There’s a kid’s life at stake.” He gazed steadily at her. “The first suggestion was to get rid of Ryan Carlyle.”
“What!” she cried.
“He killed your baby,” Aaron defended. “Then beat you up. Was fighting the divorce.”
“You murdered him?”
“Actually,” Shea said, “it was Neville’s idea.”
“Neville?” She thought back to her brother, the stronger one of the twins. Yet she couldn’t imagine him being involved in killing someone. “Are you saying that you five, including Neville and Oliver, formed what, a murder club?” She was quivering all over. There was a roar in her ears. She scooted her chair back.