Free One Secret Night by Jennifer Morey Page A

only a matter of time before the law caught up to him.” She eyed them both as she took another drag. “Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t help you much.”
    “Why didn’t you talk about what he did for a living?” Autumn asked.
    “It disturbed me. I worried about him. I didn’t need to worry more with more details. He was a criminal. I guess I expected to lose him eventually. Having some distance from him helped his death be a little more bearable.” She looked across the parking lot again. “I often wonder if he hadn’t been bullied as a kid if he’d have ended up where he did. If he hadn’t been bullied, I doubt he’d have gone into the military. He was always into science and math. Maybe he’d have gone to college to be an engineer or something. Something different.”
    “We’re very sorry for your loss,” Autumn said.
    Turning to her, Kamira continued with her ruminating. “Leaman was a good person. Few people had the privilege of seeing that. He just had bad parents and a hard time in school socially. Some people can’t overcome. He was one of them. His way of coping was rebelling.”
    Kamira knew him the way no one else had. She knew the boy. But perhaps she only thought she knew the man. A killer.
    “What happened to your parents?” Raith asked.
    Waving her hand, Kamira fanned out the trail of smoke from her cigarette. “Who the hell knows. My dad was a drunk and left when I was five and my mom was a crackhead. She’s probably dead by now. They both probably are. Who cares?”
    “Do you have any kids?”
    She shook her head. “I’m not married.”
    “Were you ever married?”
    “No. Are you investigating me, too?” She sucked on her cigarette.
    Raith smiled and Autumn wondered if that was strategic to make her relax. “No.”
    He was only trying to find out if there was anyone else he could talk to.
    “You said Leaman got into guns because of Garvin,” Raith said.
    She raised her eyes in annoyance. “Yeah. He and Garvin got into trouble together when they were kids. Then Garvin started making a living selling guns.”
    “Illegally?”
    She nodded. “Not one hundred percent. More on the side and through his gun shop. Garvin’s not a guy to piss off.”
    “He’s got some impressive clientele?” Raith continued with his line of questioning.
    “I never ask. Like I said before, Leaman and I didn’t discuss his business. But he did once say he got a lot of his business through Garvin.” Kamira didn’t seem happy about that. “At least in the beginning.”
    “And then Leaman earned a reputation,” Raith said.
    She nodded again. “He started to make a lot of money. I mean, a lot. As in hundreds of thousands per job. He sent me money every month. Things are going to get harder for me now. He never came out and said he killed people. But once he did say that rich people hired him to take care of their problems.”
    And she’d translated that correctly by guessing that meant he was hired to kill.
    “Do you know who killed him?” Kamira asked.
    “No,” Raith said. “He was good at hiding. He knew someone was after him. He said something went wrong during his last job.” She got that faraway look again. “Whoever killed him must be somebody as dangerous as him.”
    Autumn glanced over at Raith. That someone was him. Assassin. Killer. Was that really what Raith was all about? She sensed not and that didn’t settle well with her.
    “I would imagine.” Raith put his hand on Autumn’s arm, indicating it was time for them to go. “Thanks for talking to us.”
    “Just as dangerous, huh?” Autumn said when they reached the parking lot.
    He said nothing, only seemed to try to determine the source of her disgruntlement. Or maybe he already knew and couldn’t reassure her.
    * * *
    Raith drove with Autumn to Garvin Reeves’s gun shop and shooting range. Inside the flat-roofed, single-story warehouse, the front was partitioned off and filled with glass gun cases that ran along three