A Rush to Violence by Christopher Smith

come clean is why she was angry with him now. When they threatened his family, he hired protection for her, thinking she would be safe until he could meet Carr face-to-face. Even so, he had made a mistake. He knew she had every right to be furious with him, especially after what she’d just been through.
    “In the living room,” she said.
    There were two sofas facing each other in the center of the room. Each chose their own, sat and looked at one another. Jennifer took a drink of water and put the bottle down on the coffee table between them. He looked at the blood on the collar of her beige suit and the swelling on her lower lip. He wanted to go to her, but by the look on her face, they obviously were going to talk first.
    “This morning you told me you were meeting Lia Costa.”
    She was referring to the woman whose husband was strangled to death in their home the week before. It was major news. Costa’s husband was the former head of Citibank. “That’s right.”
    “And that was a lie.”
    “It was.”
    “I thought we had an agreement.”
    “We do.”
    “So, when did that end?”
    “It hasn’t. I thought I could protect you. I hired people to protect you.”
    “They did a great job, Marty. About ninety minutes ago, the guy you just kicked the shit out of, came up behind me, told me he had a gun and for me to get into the limousine. When I stepped inside, I grabbed a fistful of his hair and he slapped me. The old guy yanked me close to him and we took off. Next thing I know they’re telling me we’re picking you up on Prince.”
    “How did they know I was on Prince?”
    “How would I know?”
    “Because you were in the car with them.” He unbuttoned his shirt and showed her the bandage on his shoulder. “This morning, they implanted a chip beneath my skin. It’s a tracking device, but I think I can manipulate it with a magnet, which throws off the transmission.”
    “They did what to you?”
    “Think back. Did they say anything about not being able to track me?”
    “The driver said something. He said you went off grid. The geezer asked why, but before long, you were back again. They didn’t make a big deal of it.”
    So, it worked. He felt at once relieved and elated. “Do you remember Kenneth Miller’s death?”
    “Of course, I remember it. I covered it. He tripped over his dog.”
    “No, he didn’t. He was murdered, likely by one of his children. Or all of his children. I’m not sure how deep it goes.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “The geezer in the limo? He goes by Carr. I doubt if that’s his real name, but we’ll call him Carr for now. He gave me information on Camille.”
    “Did she do it? Is that why he’s after her?”
    “Camille had nothing to do with it. In fact, out of Miller’s seven children, she’s the last one who would do it.”
    “Why?”
    “Because she loved her father. Carr gave me letters written between them. He thought they might offer clues as to where she is now, but what they really revealed is how close she was to her father. Near the end, not long before Kenneth died, each had a feeling that something might happen to him.”
    He described Kenneth Miller’s tense relationship with his six other children, how Kenneth’s wife had financed them when she was alive and how that financing ended with her death.
    “He left everything in his will to Camille and her daughter, Emma, but nothing for his six other children, at least not directly. Should Camille die, Emma receives the money.”
    “I don’t want to hear the rest.”
    “And if Emma dies, they get the money.”
    “But it’s so blatant,” Jennifer said. “The police will question it. They’ll know Camille and her daughter were set up. They’ll know that Miller’s other children were next in line to receive his fortune if anything happened to them. If they’re behind this, they’re just hanging themselves.”
    “Not necessarily. What you don’t know is that when Camille was young, she