27. Finn
FINN
F inn added something else to the list of reasons why he wanted to kill Shotgun, and being interrupted in the middle of enjoying snacking on Lauren flew to the very top. The fucker had the absolute worst timing. He’d said it before and been wrong, but that time Finn absolutely meant it: he was never working for Shotgun again. It didn’t matter how bored Finn might have felt or how much money Shotgun promised, that was fucking it . He was done.
“I sent you all the information you need,” Finn snapped. He kept his voice low, though, because he didn’t want to worry or distract Lauren too much. Ideally she’d still be primed and ready when he went back. Not that he would have minded starting from zero again; he’d set up camp between her thighs all fucking day if she’d let him.
“Fuck you, you did not.” A lot of noise and wind almost hid Shotgun’s words, but the bastard was too accustomed to just bellowing everything and managed to get his point across despite the chaos. “Why did you tell me there are twenty-five of these fuckers and I’ve only got eighteen here? Can’t you count, motherfucker?”
Finn frowned at he stared at the partially snow-covered window in the back room. Eighteen? Finn had sent the coordinates and location of twenty-five smugglers, minus the two he’d killed and shoved behind a rock, and expected that to be the end of it, particularly with the blizzard. “I counted twenty-five. Not my fucking problem if you lost them.”
“It might be your problem, asshole,” Shotgun said. “Since you’re the idiot still out there fucking around in the trees. Don’t blame me if they knock on your door.”
Finn’s hair stood on end. Did Shotgun know about the cabin? Why else would he think that Finn had a door? He didn’t entirely trust the bastard to have kept Finn’s involvement to himself, so maybe it wasn’t Shotgun but the man’s team who decided to fuck him over? Some of the other freelancers that Shotgun dealt with were probably selling information to the highest bidder, and if the drug dealers had the best money… Finn was fucked.
“Sounds like the price just went up again,” Finn said. He fought for calm even though the bear wanted to charge into the snow to find whoever might have threatened his peaceful morning with Lauren. He didn’t know whether Shotgun’s guys fucked up and missed the other men. Maybe they even knew about Lauren. She’d been at the cabin for a while, and if she’d been out and about doing whatever it was she did looking for Bigfoot, then maybe they saw her. Maybe they knew where she stayed.
“Fuck off,” Shotgun said. He cursed more in the background, angry enough that for the first time Finn wondered if the fucker would cut him off before Finn had the chance to get the details out. The cop finally spoke into the phone again. “I don’t control where these assholes went, dick, you can’t expect me to?—”
“I expect you to cover for cleanup,” Finn said. He needed to get control of the conversation again, if he’d ever had it in the first place. But the seed of an idea had planted itself in his brain. Maybe there was a way to kill two birds with one stone. “Especially since I’ll need to bring in some help.”
“I paid you to?—”
“You paid me to find these guys,” Finn said. He breathed as calmly as possible even though his heart thumped against his ribs. He didn’t have much time, if there were some of the smugglers on his trail already. Sure, the blizzard that blew through did him a favor and covered up the physical evidence, but he hadn’t bothered to search the corpses for any trackers or other locators that the smugglers might have planted on their guys. Maybe they weren’t looking for Finn but thought their own guys had absconded with the merchandise. He wasn’t that lucky, but it was nice to think about. “Not to track them down twice because your guys were too slow to apprehend them the first time.”
“What are you going to charge this time, an extra million?”
Finn’s jaw clenched as he stared at the rotting log in the wall. “No, something a little simpler. The person I need to help clean this up has a few charges I want to go away. That’s it.”
“Charges,” Shotgun repeated. An engine gunned in the background, followed by yelling. “What kind of charges? Give me the name.”
“I’ll give you the name when everything is taken care of here,” Finn said. He didn’t trust the bastard with Lauren’s name for a second. Only once he knew for sure they were physically safe from the danger of the smugglers and the rest of the bears were on their way as backup would he give Shotgun the first hints of who Lauren was. And then he’d probably be better off calling the Lodge’s lawyer first, just to make sure. The deal wasn’t exactly the kind of thing a lawyer wanted to know about, but fuck it. Shotgun had a better chance of making the trouble disappear than anyone else.
Shotgun shouted at someone, then moved somewhere with a lot less wind. He even lowered his voice. “Look, shithead. I can’t just magic charges away anymore. Some things I can get written off or whatever, maybe commuted to time served, but it’s not as easy as it used to be. All these justice projects and bullshit are really fucking up our ability to grease the skids.”
“Yeah, justice is a real pain in the ass,” Finn said under his breath. God, how the fuck had he ever agreed to work for Shotgun? “You want this issue taken care of, you’ll make these charges go away by whatever means necessary. That’s the deal.”
“Fuck off.” But his heart wasn’t in it. “I’ll do my best, but your fee takes a hit the harder this bullshit gets, you hear? Couple of misdemeanors, fuck it. Drug charges, that’s a little more. Felonies, you cut that shit in half for each one.”
“You’re not negotiating this.” Finn glanced at the door over his shoulder and wondered if Lauren was still naked and ready in the sleeping bag. Maybe they had time for a quickie before he tromped through the snow to find those lost smugglers. “You want to end up on the news for leaving violent criminals in a fucking national park? I have zero problem driving away right now.”
Except he didn’t have a truck and probably couldn’t have navigated the two or three feet of snow outside without a plow on the front, given what he’d seen of the roads. But Shotgun didn’t need to know that.
The cop cursed for so long Finn checked his watch. Maybe he could eat breakfast with Lauren first and then get back to business. He’d burn all the rest of the wood he’d chopped up if it meant keeping the cabin warm enough she didn’t put on her clothes. Another couple of hours chopping logs would be worth every muscle ache.
“I can’t make any promises,” Shotgun finally shouted in the phone, loud enough that Finn pulled the handset away from his ear. “You fucking prick. But I’ll do what I can.”
“If you don’t…” Finn let his voice trail off, hoping the threat made its way through the ether to wherever Shotgun stood.
“We’ll talk about it when I have those sons of bitches in handcuffs or body bags,” the other man said. “And you’re pushing your luck.”
Finn didn’t have time to fuck around. He leaned to glance through the partially snow covered windows in the backroom and grunted. “We’ll see. I’ll call when I’ve got the missing ones. You pick them up and then I go on my merry way after you make the bank transfer and I’ve got the signed affidavit that my pal’s charges are resolved.”
Shotgun said something else under his breath but the phone call ended before Finn could ask what he meant. It was just as well, chances were he didn’t actually want to know what the crusty bastard muttered. He turned the sat phone off so he wouldn’t get interrupted again and headed back into the front room. Breakfast, then getting sweaty with Lauren, then a quick bucket bath by the fire, some wood splitting, and hunting down the last four or five smugglers. He grinned and took a deep, refreshing breath. Not a bad way to spend the day.