Uncharted Territory Ryan #3
Alone at last with Stanley Holiday, Ryan propped himself against one of the supply room’s shelves and pulled his menthols from the pocket of his jacket.
He clicked his Zippo, caught the paper, took a drag.
He studied the big man in front of him, the man who’d cost Ryan three years of his life to the worst prison in Texas.
He watched the way Stanley’s face twitched in the light.
Ryan thought of Jessica, pressed against his chest. Promise you’ll take care of the girls if anything goes wrong.
Are you afraid something will go wrong?
Just promise you’ll get Polly and Adeline out of here.
For three long years, Ryan had thought about that conversation. Thought about all that it could mean.
Stanley, at last, opened his eyes. He sniffed the air, made a show of coughing. “Christ—you’re still smoking those things?”
“You knew she was going to the feds, didn’t you?”
Stanley hesitated, just for a moment. He pulled against his ropes, made a face, but he didn’t seem terribly surprised by the question. “Of course she was. According to her, she’s been taking photographs for weeks.”
Ryan smoked casually, but he was very curious at the tense Stanley had used. “Who was?”
“Fernanda. Who else? She told me all about it when she came to my room.”
Now that was interesting. “Fernanda came to your room tonight?”
“What do you care?”
“I’m trying to help you, Stanley. The sooner I clear you of suspicion for killing Sarah, the sooner we can get you out of that chair.”
“You seriously expect me to believe you’ll let me go? It sounded like you and Hunter were going to beat a confession out of me a minute ago, back in the office.”
Something about this felt off, sent alarm bells ringing. “You knew Hunter?”
A dark grin crossed Stanley’s face. “I knew his type.”
Ryan tapped ash onto a stack of dinner plates. He didn’t like the implications of this. “So let’s go back to Fernanda. You said she came to your room this evening?”
Stanley sighed, like he really couldn’t believe they were going to bother with all this. “Yes. At seven thirty. Maybe a hair after. I was sound asleep, and that girl came flying through the door. Had a gun. Looked insane.”
“And why would Fernanda do that?”
Stanley tried to stay quiet, but with a little patience Ryan was able to get a consistent story out of the man. He walked Stan through it once, twice, checking to see if the big guy would trip himself up, but eventually Ryan felt satisfied.
Finally, Ryan said, “And you went along with Fernanda’s plan? Why not just kill her? Take the film yourself?”
“Because I’m not a bad man, Phan. I’m not a murderer.”
“You shot Hunter in the office. Shot him dead.”
Stanley’s mouth twisted down. It looked like genuine disgust. “That wasn’t intentional, what happened to Hunter. If that girl from the steakhouse hadn’t tackled me, none of this would have happened.”
“It almost looked like you wanted to shoot me.”
“A warning shot. I just wanted to get you out of my way.”
“What were you going to do? Drive back to Stockton and cry to Frank?”
Stanley said nothing.
Ryan was tempted to bring up the things Penelope had told him about Stanley on the ride down to Mexico—He takes women to some place called the Terra Vista.
He hurts them—but what was the point? If even someone as out of the loop as Ethan knew those stories, it wasn’t like they’d give Ryan much leverage.
Instead, Ryan burned down his cigarette and started up another. “What kind of work was Sarah Powers doing for the outfit?”
“You seriously expect me to tell you that?”
Ryan leaned down, blew smoke into Stanley’s face. “Back in the office, the Black chick said you’d spent the last six weeks having dinner at the steakhouse with Sarah. That sounds like pretty serious work.”
Stanley rolled his eyes. Ryan smoked, said nothing, curious if Stanley would fill in the gap.
Instead, one of those hair-raising SHRIEKS came from the desert, very close by.
Stanley flinched. “What the hell is that?”
“Let’s not get distracted. How long was Fernanda in your room this evening?”
“Let me go and I’ll tell you.”
“What was Sarah doing for the operation?”
“Go fuck yourself, Phan. Let me go.”
“We made a deal, Stanley. You help me clear your name from suspicion in Sarah’s murder, and I’ll set you free.”
“I never signed up for that deal.”
“And you also haven’t cleared your name, so I’m wondering why you’d bother asking to leave.”
Stanley closed his eyes, let out a long breath. “Fernanda was in my room for five minutes at the most.”
“Meaning she was out of there by, what, seven forty? Seven forty-five at the latest?”
“Sounds about right, Mister Holmes.”
“That’s the funny thing—I didn’t see you go into the motel’s cafe until seven fifty-five. That’s a ten-minute gap. What was happening in the meantime?”
“I saw you for one thing. Skulking around the side of the motel when I came out onto the front porch. Where did you even go?”
Ryan wasn’t about to answer that question. He said nothing.
“I know you cut my tires, Phan,” Stanley said.
This was a genuine surprise. “I did what?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Stanley said. “Go look at them yourself. They’ve all got a nice big hole in the side. Not that it’ll make much difference. That van’s part of the work fleet. Those tires are run-flats.”
Ryan took another hit of his cigarette. “I don’t think they’d get you very far if you tried to leave tonight. You’d be risking a run-in with the local wildlife.”
“You think I’d ever leave this place without Penelope?”
“I think you still haven’t answered my questions,” Ryan said.
“I’m not going to talk about Sarah. Go get that fire poker Fernanda used on my head. See how far that gets you.”
“Then what were you doing before dinner? Fernanda left your room at seven forty, maybe seven forty-five. You came to dinner at five minutes ’til eight. That gave you plenty of time to head over to Sarah’s room and have your way with her. It makes you, quite frankly, the prime suspect here.”
Ryan flicked the cap of his Zippo up and down, up, down: click-clack.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Stanley finally blinked, like he realized Ryan sincerely expected an answer. The big man scowled, then looked briefly puzzled, almost like he himself wasn’t entirely certain what he had been up to. He blinked again, squirmed in his chair, his brain clearly struggling to bring something back.
And then a look of absolute terror came over Stanley Holiday, a fear unlike anything Ryan had seen in a long, long time. The big man froze. He turned pale.
“You still with us?” Ryan said. “Stanley?”
“I… I don’t remember,” Stanley said, though it was clear from his voice this was a lie. He’d clearly recalled something in that moment, something he’d blissfully forgotten until now. He stared at Ryan. He stared through Ryan, through the walls of the room, through the desert. “I don’t remember.”
Ryan kept trying for a while, but it was no good. Stan Holiday was lost in his mind, deep in a memory, trembling at what he’d found there.