Chapter 37
Elenie
“Guess whose truck is still smokin’ out at Pedlar’s End!”
Ty bounced on the balls of his feet in the doorway, scrubbing stubby nails over his buzz cut.
Frank looked up from the television. Elenie closed her book around a finger, grateful beyond measure for the interruption. She’d forced herself to join him in the living room, but twenty minutes of sharing the same space had her climbing out of her skin.
“I’ll give you a clue. It’s a black F-150. And it’s fuckin’ gutted.”
“Martinez?”
Tyson’s grin showed all his teeth.
“Got it in one.”
“Devastated to hear that.”
The corners of Frank’s eyes crinkled. He stretched out his legs, ankles crossed, and folded his arms behind his head, satisfaction in the ripple of his biceps.
“Good job, Ty.”
“Wasn’t me.”
Tyson slumped onto the couch.
“Dean?”
Frank cocked an eyebrow.
“Nope. He was with me.”
Elenie uncurled her legs and headed for the door.
“I thought it’d be harder to get it started but the seats went up really quickly.”
Their faces were comical.
Ty snapped his slack jaw shut.
“You’re shittin’ us. You torched it?”
“He had it coming.”
She pulled the lighter from her jeans pocket and rolled her thumb over the spark wheel a few times. Frank’s eyes followed the movement.
“Fucking A, Elephant!”
Tyson held up his palm and Elenie high-fived him as she passed the couch. It was a strange moment.
Roman had nailed it.
And soon, she had the first indication that his plan was having the desired effect when Frank caught her in the entryway on Tuesday evening.
“I need you to do a job with Dean.”
“Tonight?”
Elenie frowned. She’d been thinking of heading to bed early.
“Yes, tonight! Got something better on?”
Frank crossed to the bottom of the stairs and bellowed Dean’s name.
Answering rhetorical questions would definitely not be in her best interests.
“What is it?”
“There’s a package to pick up in Saginaw. I don’t want Dean to go on his own.”
“You’re kidding.”
That was nearly a two-hour drive away; it would be well after midnight before they’d get back. But it was a great opportunity to gather information.
Frank ignored her. Rummaging through the messy drawers of an old cabinet, he pulled out a padlock with a key in it and stuffed it into one of his pockets.
Dean’s footsteps thumped down the stairs.
“You ready?”
Frank asked.
“Just need something to eat,”
Dean grunted, heading for the kitchen.
“Why can’t Ty go with him? Or Athena?”
Elenie hesitated to poke the bear but knew Frank would expect some kind of protest.
“I have work tomorrow.”
Her stepdad took two slow strides toward her. With a wall behind her, Elenie had no option but to hold her ground. Lifting his hand to bunch the hair at the nape of her neck, Frank tugged her head back to stare down into her face.
“Either you’re in or you’re out, Ellie.”
His hot breath fell on her cheek; her heart jumped in her chest.
“Are you fuckin’ in? Or are you fuckin’ out?”
Elenie nodded as best she could. “I’m in.”
Her voice cracked.
Dean loped out of the kitchen, a folded piece of bread held in one hand, nothing inside it. His mouth was full of something else and he chewed messily, noisily, wiping crumbs from his lips on the arm of his sleeve.
“I’ll just grab a hoodie.”
She ran up the stairs without waiting for a reply.
Five minutes later, they were pulling off the drive in Frank’s truck. Elenie’s small backpack was by her feet, Roman’s phone tucked into an inside zipped pocket. She didn’t dare carry the DEA cell, too. That was hidden, with the other gadgets Dorsey had given her, inside a box of tampons on a shelf in her closet.
“Let’s go, Road Trip Ho!”
Dean snickered at his own wit.
It was going to be a long night.
“Where’s Ty?”
she asked.
“Him and Dad have gotten another job.”
“And Athena?”
“Pissed.”
Dean leaned forward to fiddle with the radio.
“Why aren’t we taking your car?”
“Gearbox is fucked.”
He found a station that suited him, cranked up the volume, and drummed along to the music with a rhythmless tattoo on the steering wheel.
Frank’s Dodge was pretty luxurious, with plush seats and multi-speaker surround sound. Elenie propped her feet on the dash and leaned her head against the window. Dean fidgeted, smoked, chewed gum, and grumbled, but his eyes looked focused and he stuck somewhere around the speed limit.
“What are we picking up?”
she asked. The air conditioning raised the hairs on her arms and legs. She turned it down. Dean turned it back up.
“Couple of packages.”
“What’s in them?”
“Don’t know.”
He shot her a quizzical glance.
“What?”
“How’d you get the chief’s truck to Pedlar’s End?”
“I lifted his keys in the diner.”
Dean’s head bobbed. His mouth twisted in an impressed smirk.
It wasn’t true. Roman and Dougie had handled the arson themselves and his truck currently idled unharmed in Milo’s locked garage. The torched ringer, a write-off with duplicate plates to Roman’s F-150, had come from a junkyard.
They lapsed into silence and, for the next ninety minutes or so, Elenie let the long, straight roads with their tree-lined woodland edges lull her into a soporific daze. She passed the time lost in dirty thoughts of one very sexy lawman.
The GPS took them to the outskirts of Saginaw. It was late when they pulled up curbside in front of an ordinary-looking house with a host of cars on the drive. Dean killed the engine. Memorizing the address, Elenie watched her stepbrother type out a message on his phone.
“Now what?”
He ignored her.
A couple of minutes went by and the front door opened. Dean’s fingers drummed on his leg. Two muscular thugs strolled toward the truck and he lowered his window. One had pulled the fabric hood of his sweatshirt up, the other wore a baseball cap over a mainly shaven head.
Thug One peered in through the window. He eyed them both.
“Got something for me?”
His voice was surprisingly high. Elenie suppressed a nervous giggle and bit her lip. This was beginning to feel like a scene from a bad movie.
Dean leaned over to pull a fat envelope from the glovebox. He passed it through the window. Thug One broke the seal, glanced inside, and gave a brief nod. Thug Two slouched behind him, staring at the screen of his phone.
“Give us a minute.”
They walked back up the path. Dean blew out a breath and gave her a cocky wink. Elenie watched the front door. Five minutes went by before the men re-emerged. This time, Thug One passed Dean something bulky, wrapped neatly inside a plastic bag.
“Tell Frank I’ll be in touch.”
He leaned on the car window sill and squinted at Elenie.
“Who’s the Fuck Bunny?”
Dean snorted.
“This is my sister. She’s more of a Fucking Pain In My Side.”
Elenie dredged up a fake grin and a finger wiggle. Dealing with Frank had taught her it was all about the attitude.
His eyes lost interest. With a jerk of his chin, he tapped on the side of the truck. The two men melted back into the night.
Dean dropped the package in her lap; it was heavy and very solid.
“Shove that under your seat.”
“What is it?”
Worth another try.
He started the truck and didn’t answer. Elenie bent down to push the bag between her feet, wedging it under the passenger seat just behind her ankles.
Twenty minutes later, Dean pulled onto the forecourt of a gas station.
“Dad wants the truck back full,”
he grunted and climbed out.
Elenie watched him through the window, her heart beginning to jump. He reached for one of the pumps and she heard the thrum of the gas when it started to flow. It seemed to take an age to fill the tank, but finally Dean pushed the filler cap closed and sloped off toward the kiosk to pay.
As soon as his back was turned, she grabbed the package from under her seat and dragged it out into the footwell. Her hands weren’t quite steady as she unwrapped it and reached inside. Three items slid onto the mat. Two clear plastic bags held a multitude of tightly packed pills—some white, some blue. There were thousands of them. Elenie began to sweat.
The third item was wrapped inside a folded piece of old cloth. She swallowed compulsively when she picked it up. Its shape and weight were unmistakable. A quick glance at the kiosk, where Dean stood in line to pay, revealed just one person in front of him. Scrambling through her backpack, Elenie pulled her phone out with one hand and unwrapped the cloth with the other.
The handgun lay between her feet—black, menacing, and dangerous. A breathy whimper escaped her lips. Her trembling fingers flicked the camera to selfie mode by accident. Righting it swiftly, she snapped four quick photographs of all three items, plus a close-up of the gun.
Glancing through the windshield, she saw Dean push away from the counter. Her stomach rolled. With the speed of a professional gift wrapper, Elenie closed the cloth around the handgun. She stacked it on top of the drugs and pushed all three items back inside the plastic bag, praying to God the gun had its safety on. With seconds to spare, she shoved them under her seat, texting the photographs she’d taken to Roman as Dean sauntered across the forecourt. When he pulled open the door of the truck, she’d just dumped her phone into the backpack on her lap.
“I could have sworn I had some cookies in here somewhere,”
Elenie muttered, keeping her hair across her face in a curtain while she tried to stop her lips from trembling. She put her bag back down by her ankles and shrugged.
“Must have eaten them, I guess.”
Dean grunted and smirked. He pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket, tore open one end, and bit into it.
“Asshole.”
She smiled sweetly at him.
“Any chance we can go home now?”
“One more stop first.”
Half an hour later, Dean signaled and took a turn down a long, sandy track that led to a rustic campground in the woods. He pulled over in a deserted passing place and asked Elenie to hand him the package from under her seat. She tensed. Would he notice it was wrapped differently than before? But Dean barely glanced at it before casually pulling out the drugs and handing her back the plastic bag with the gun inside.
He gestured through the windshield.
“If you follow that path for a bit, you’ll get to the lake. Chuck this as far out as you can.”
Elenie blinked at him.
“I’m sorry?”
He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“Throw this,”
he pointed at the bag.
“into the lake.”
“Why?”
“Because it needs getting rid of.”
“But it’s dark.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“I’m no good at throwing.”
“Just lob it good and hard.”
“What if it doesn’t sink?”
He looked exasperated. Even under these circumstances, it was entertaining to see how far she could push Dean. Thinking on his feet wasn’t one of his greatest talents.
“Of course it’ll fucking sink! It’s made of metal.”
“You said you didn’t know what’s inside. Why don’t you do it?”
“Because I’ve done the goddamn driving and so far you’ve done zip.”
She took a gamble.
“And if I tell Frank you didn’t do it yourself?”
Dean’s mouth twisted into a sloppy grin.
“I don’t think you will. And I’m not gonna. Dad doesn’t need to know everything.”
Elenie considered that and shrugged.
“I might be a while.”
He put his feet up on the dashboard, tipping back his head.
“You’ve got fifteen minutes.”
She grabbed her backpack as she climbed out of the truck. Oh God, she hoped she’d done the right thing in sending the photos to Roman. Without the second cell phone, she had no idea of the contact details for Special Agent Dorsey. What to do now was the question.
Five minutes along the trail, out of sight of the truck, Elenie tugged off her hoodie with just enough light from the waxing moon to see what she was doing. Clouds loomed ominously above, threatening to take even that away if she didn’t hurry. She wrapped the bulky material around the package containing the gun and pushed the whole bundle into the bottom of her bag, burying it beneath two library books. The cool air tugged at her shirtsleeves but adrenalin had her blood pumping like a diesel engine. She fumbled with her cell, saw that Roman had received and viewed the photos, prayed he’d saved or forwarded them immediately, and pressed Delete. Then she erased them from her camera roll and from the trash folder too. He’d also sent her a message asking if she was OK. With the allotted time ticking by too fast, Elenie deleted that without answering.
When she returned to the truck, she was out of breath, her sneakers were muddy, and her phone was stashed safely back in her bag. Dean was asleep.
She slammed the door with a little extra force.
“All done.”
He pushed himself upright, and started the engine. She felt as if the backpack was glowing red as she tucked it between the door and her legs.
When they reached home, the lights were still on in the living room, the flickering of the television visible from the driveway. A wave of sickness churned in Elenie’s midriff. Dean crossed the hallway, lounged against the doorframe and gave his dad a chin lift.
“All OK?”
Frank paused with a glass of whiskey halfway to his mouth. Her mother was asleep—passed out?—on the couch, one hand trailing on the carpet.
Dean gave a huge yawn, showing all his teeth. “Fine.”
He threw the two packages across the room, one after the other. Frank caught them neatly, turning each bundle over in his hands with a grunt.
“And the other?”
Elenie stood silently beside Dean, her limbs heavy, head pounding.
“Gone. Like you said.”
Her stepbrother sniffed and shifted his feet.
Frank pulled himself upright. As he crossed the room, Elenie dropped her eyes and prayed her legs weren’t shaking enough to be obvious. Instinctively, she tucked her backpack behind her body. The movement drew Frank’s eyes and she realized she’d made a dangerous mistake.
“What are you hiding, Ellie?”
Frank’s voice was deceptively soft. Her stomach threatened to heave its way out of her throat.
“Nothing. It’s just my bag.”
Dean, sensing trouble, ducked out of the way and headed for the stairs. Frank prowled relentlessly closer, like an oncoming natural disaster. Elenie’s throat bobbled. She could swear her lip throbbed where he’d backhanded her weeks before. He reached out, made a beckoning gesture with meaty fingers.
She turned hot and then instantly cold.
Shit.
Fuck.
The gun.
She was a dead woman.
Mouth, hands, gut, all encased in ice, Elenie passed him her backpack. Frank undid the clasp and flipped open the top. He peered inside, then stuck a careless hand into the depths. She closed her eyes and forced a ragged swallow to take away the saliva pooling in her mouth.
“What do we have here then?”
Despair and resignation clouded the fear. Elenie opened her mouth with no idea of what to say, no voice to say it with. Her eyelids, each weighted heavy from the backwash of adrenalin, lifted slowly and she focused on the object in Frank’s hand.
It wasn’t the gun. It was her phone.
“Been holding out on me, Ellie? I didn’t know you had a cell.”
He pressed a few buttons, the lock screen lighting up his double chin. Elenie’s tongue felt too big for her mouth. “Open it.”
Frank pushed the phone toward her, dropping her backpack next to his feet. She took it with trembling fingers, typed the passcode in wrong the first time, right the second, and handed it back. He scrolled for a couple of minutes, opening her messages and the photo gallery, both of which had minimal content. Innocent pictures, innocuous chats. Reading through the short list of names in her contacts, he pressed on one number and connected the call, his eyes boring into her own as it rang. Elenie’s stomach swooped again.
Please don’t let it be Thea’s. Don’t let Roman answer.
“Hey, Elenie—it’s a bit late for you. Everything OK?”
Frank was close enough that Summer’s voice, light and sleepy, was crystal clear. Without saying a word, he ended the call. A snarky smile lifting his lips, Frank pushed her phone into the back pocket of his jeans. He sauntered to his armchair, reaching for his whiskey, and took a long, leisurely swallow. On the couch, Athena sighed in her sleep. Frank dug around for the TV remote and changed the channel.
Elenie was dismissed.
Scooping her bag up off the floor, precious cargo still inside against all the odds, she headed for the stairs on jelly legs, praying that Summer or Roman wouldn’t leave a message. One cell phone down but internal organs in place for now.
She had to get rid of this gun.