“If that was true, we’d be done with it all already, wouldn’t we?”
This pit was getting deeper and deeper. Cormac had the thought that maybe he should just walk away. It wasn’t too late.
If he knows what the first Milo Kuzniak knew, then he might know what killed Crane. We stay. Cormac guessed that Amelia wasn’t even thinking about passing the information along to Judi and Frida—she wanted to know, all for herself.
“What about it, Bennett? You in?”
“For a cut, I assume,” he answered.
“Sure. Even cut like the rest of us. Assuming
you can do the job I’ve got in mind for you.”
That meant all the rest of the gang’s cuts just shrank, and none of them looked happy about it. Likely, Layne was pitting them against each other. A little friendly competition among subordinates looking for promotion. This was exactly why Cormac preferred working alone.
This ought to be fun. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Layne’s two heavies went to play pool at a crappy, beat up pool table. The younger Kuzniak moved down the bar, glaring at Cormac like he was planning what curse to cast on him, and Cormac was thinking it was about time he got out of here. But Layne kept staring at him. Hero worship, just about.
“What?” he finally said to Layne.
“It’s fate, you know. Fate that I’d run into Douglas Bennett’s kid, right here and now.”
Second time in as many days someone evoked fate at him. He didn’t think much of fate’s judgment.
“I’ve heard my dad’s name more in the last hour than I have in the last ten years.”
“He’s a legend, you know that.”
Yes, he did. But only in circles like this. The man had died more than half Cormac’s lifetime ago. There’d been a time all he wanted in life was to make the man proud. He’d been desperate to make his dead father proud, and horrified to think Douglas Bennett would be disappointed instead. Every time Cormac missed a shot, he imagined his father was looking down on him, shaking his head.
At some point—maybe in prison—Cormac was able to look back and think maybe his father didn’t matter so much. He’d been a man, he’d made mistakes. He’d been single minded, obsessive. He’d died young, violently, like Cormac assumed would happen to him. Until he decided that maybe it didn’t have to go that way, and that maybe Douglas Bennett had been wrong about the monsters.
“That was a long time ago,” he said. He’d only gotten halfway through the beer and didn’t plan on finishing. The stuff tasted warm and musty. He pushed the bottle away.
Layne said, “We’re all getting together in a couple of days—I could really use your help. You want to know more, come out to my place. Give me your number, I’ll call you.”
It was ominous, but it was a lead. Cormac gave his number, and Layne entered it into his phone.
He didn’t feel the need to keep being chummy with the group, so he pushed off from the table. “I’d better get going. Leave you boys to it. Interesting running into you.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Cormac gave a sloppy wave in reply. He needed to keep track of Layne. Just to keep an eye on these guys.
He threw open the bar’s front door and marched into the parking lot, more distracted than he should have been because he almost ran into a woman who was coming the other way. They stopped, stared at each other for a moment, blinking. She was in her thirties, brown hair in a short ponytail, dressed in practical jeans and blue winter coat. Tired around the eyes, minimal makeup.
He didn’t even have to think about it to remember her name, it just popped out. “Mollie. Mollie Layne.”
She smiled and might even have looked pleased. “Cormac Bennett! Oh my God, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? And it’s Mollie Cramer now. And for the last fifteen years.” She shrugged as if apologizing.
It had been close to twenty years since he’d seen her. Had it been that long? He didn’t have a clue she’d gotten married—why should he? “Sure. Well, a late congratulations, I guess.”
“Yeah—and divorced now. Two kids, single mom, the works. Who’d have thunk?”
Christ, he was eighteen and awkward all over again. Fifteen years—more than enough time for a marriage, divorce, and two kids. She might have been about twenty pounds heavier, but he recognized the teenage girl he’d known in the woman she’d turned into. The big smile, the fall of brown hair. But he didn’t know what to say to her.
“What’ve you been up to?” she asked.