“Not from Bullard. Not at all. He would never do such a thing,” Quinn reassured her. “However, we heard a little bit of it from an old neighbor of yours.”
She stared at him. “And who’s that?”
“Ozzie?”
She gave a startled laugh. “You can’t listen to anything that comes out of his mouth. He’s a junkie. He’ll steal the two bucks under your pillow and smile at you while he does it.”
“Well, he was there at your old boyfriend’s apartment, when we were talking to him.”
Her eyes widened at that. She asked, “That was why you were here?”
“It’s the only address we had to track you down,” he said smoothly.
She winced. “Right back to how I didn’t make peace with Bullard. Wow.” She crossed her arms over her chest, hating her defensive posture, but she’d taken a blow like she had not expected, and the grief was already forming in the back of her heart. They might have been positive about Bullard still being alive, but she was not so optimistic. She didn’t have too many good things that had happened in her life. And, as far as she understood, this would just be one more of those shitty things that she had to deal with. “I hope he’s alive and well,” she said. “It would be hard to see him otherwise.”
“I don’t know about that,” Quinn said. “In the meantime, we’ll try our best to be positive.”
She nodded and didn’t say anything.
“Ozzie also said that your boyfriend beat you.”
She stiffened and turned her gaze on Quinn. She understood he was only asking questions, but she hated any prying. She hated trying to explain anything. “Again, it doesn’t matter what he said,” she repeated. “Remember? You can’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth.”
“Right,” he said. “And you haven’t been there in that apartment for a long time, have you?”
“No,” she said, “it’s been over a year.”
“When was the fight with Bullard?”
“Not quite two years ago,” she murmured. “Which is a long time. Don’t remind me,” she said. “I already feel like shit right now. Matter of fact, I don’t want to be here. I want to go home and think about this.”
“We were actually wondering if you have any information,” Quinn said.
“About what?”
He thought for a moment. “You need to hear more of the story,” he said, with a look at Ryland.
Ryland nodded.
“After following other leads that brought us here, the trail of who sabotaged the plane has come back around to you.”
She sank into her seat in shock. “What?”
Quinn nodded. “Which is why we also need to talk to you.” And he gave her a few details that had led them to her.
“I haven’t had anything to do with Bullard in over two years, as I already told you both,” she said, “and I have no reason to want him dead.”
At that, both men watched her and waited for her to calm down.
“Just because we had our differences,” she said, “is a long way away from making me a killer.” She was just so damn outraged at the whole thing that she didn’t even know what to say. She was running through so many emotions right now.
“We’re not looking at you as a killer,” Quinn said firmly. “But we won’t leave any stone unturned, until we find out what the hell happened and who did this to us.”
She believed his motivation, but his words were still a hard blow to bear. “So then it had to be me or the boyfriend?”
“It was the address.”
“Right,” she said. “And even now I can’t let go of that part of my life, can I?” She tried so hard to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but it was hard; damn it, it was beyond hard. She took a slow deep breath. “What is it you need to know?”
“What does your boyfriend do?”
“My ex-boyfriend didn’t do anything,” she said, “except use me as a punching bag for fun.” When the men didn’t say anything, she glared at them. “I know it’s easy for you to say, How the hell would I have let it happen?” she snapped. “But believe me. It happens more than you think. And, once you’re caught up in a situation like that, it’s damn hard to get out of it.”
Both men looked at the table.
She sighed, sat back, and said, “Sorry. Rant over. What was your other question?”
“Do you know if Dracon had any friends or contacts who might have used him as a patsy?”
“If he did have any friends or contacts, they would have used him as a patsy because he was the kind of person you did use. That’s one of the things that he hated about his life and what made him so vicious because he felt like he was always being used and that nobody ever cut him any slack.”
“You have a list of names that we could follow up on?”
She snorted. “You’re dealing with a druggie here. So he obviously had a dealer, where he got his stuff. He called him Chong, but who the hell knows what his real name was. Plus, this is old information from at least a year ago. And you obviously saw the apartment.”
Both men nodded, silent.
“We didn’t exactly have friends over because I was too embarrassed and hiding from mine, and he truly had none. Or, if he did, he was meeting them elsewhere.” She stopped for a moment, tilted her head. “He liked to brag how he was in deep with two guys who ‘ran the neighborhood’ or some such nonsense. I don’t know their names, but Dracon always felt like he was playing in the big leagues when he was supposedly with them.”
“Did he do any jobs for them?”
“I don’t know what you mean by jobs,” she said, “but possibly, yes. Yet I never saw Dracon with any money. That wasn’t what he was there for apparently. It was all about his ego, I guess. And his drugs.”
She didn’t explain any of that.
When the men asked a few more questions, she gave them what she could. “Honestly your best bet is to go talk to him. And that is something I don’t want anything to do with.”
“Do you still love him?” Quinn asked.
“I never loved him,” she said. “I was angry at Bullard for telling me that Dracon was a deadbeat and for ordering me to get the hell away from him.”
“Ouch,” Ryland said. “Bullard’s never been known for being very subtle.”
“Bullard is a battering ram,” she said. “And, at the time, I was still struggling and trying to find somebody to love me. I made a mistake, and it cost me dearly.”
“I’m sorry,” Quinn said gently. “It might do you some good to see Dracon again.”
“No,” she said immediately, without a thought before speaking. She sat taller, more on the edge of her seat, as if perched for immediate escape. “He’s one of those boogeymen I don’t want to see ever again.” The two men regarded her quietly. She shrugged and said, “I don’t give a shit what you say about this. I will not. I cannot. No way you can convince me otherwise.”
“Even if we know best?” Ryland said, with a knowing look.