Chapter 27 #3
“I should never have come to this goddamn thing,” Grifo moaned. “I was trying to act like everything’s normal, but it’s not. It’ll never be normal again.”
“Yeah, all of you should’ve been on the other side of the world by now,” Jed said. “But then, I wouldn’t have been able to help. Look on the bright side.”
Grifo’s face was wretched. “I don’t deserve to be punished like this. All I did was my job, damn it. I just worked on his face, that’s all. Four different surgeries, the last one just four weeks ago. And I did good work. No one could have done it better.”
“Yes, we know,” Jed said. “You still have Mickey’s flash drive, right?”
Grifo looked shocked. “What? How did you know…?”
“Mickey told me,” Jed said. “You kept the flash drive because you knew you might need some leverage with that guy, right? You just didn’t know how much.”
Grifo’s eyes were haunted. “Too much,” he said, his voice hollow. “He’s…he’s a monster. The things he threatened us with…”
“I know,” Jed said. “And if I’d been sent by Boer, I’d already be getting the location of that flash drive out of you with a long, sharp knife. But that’s not me.”
“Joe? Joe, who are you talking to?”
I jerked around at the sharp female voice from the door behind us.
It was Grifo’s wife, Rachelle. At closer range, I saw she was in her forties, but very well preserved.
Having a cosmetic surgeon for a husband clearly had its perks.
She’d squeezed into a sequined black sheath, and she would’ve been very pretty if her collagen-plumped, cherry-red mouth hadn’t been puckered with anxiety.
She knew damn well her man was neck-deep in shit.
“Rachelle, I’m having a private conversation. Please leave. We’ll talk later,” Grifo said, but from his weary tone, it was clear she would ignore him.
“Who are these people?” she demanded. “What are you telling them, Joe? What do they want?”
I waded right in. “We want to give you a way out of this mess.”
Rachelle’s eyes widened. “Just exactly what mess are you referring to?”
“We know your family is in danger,” Jed told her. “We’ve been fighting off the same man who’s threatening you, and we’re still alive. That’s our calling card.”
She turned to her husband. “I told you we should’ve run!” she hissed. “Weeks ago!”
“These things take time!” Grifo retorted. “Finding a safe place, getting ID, moving money around so it can’t be traced—”
“Who cares about money? We’d all still be alive, right?”
Grifo let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, right. I’d love to see how little you care about money once you’re in some strange foreign city and you don’t have any!”
“Don’t talk down to me, Joe—”
“I’m just trying to keep you all alive, and to achieve that, we have to act like everything is perfectly normal!
So we attend the fucking gala! You keep on shopping, having lunch at the club, working out at the gym.
The girls stay in school. If we start acting erratically, he’ll notice, and we’re dead! Think of the girls.”
“I’m the only one who is!” Rachelle Grifo’s voice was dangerously loud. “How did you get us into this mess! You got greedy? Is that what happened?”
“Me, greedy? Just chasing the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed, Shell.” Grifo’s voice had an ugly edge.
“Oh, so it’s my fault, now? And now these strangers know our private business? This…this cheap blonde and this tattooed thug? He threatened Ramona and Clark!”
Cheap blonde? I choked back a peal of absolutely inappropriate laughter. This was so, so not the time to be a snotty bitch. Those two were teetering on a tightrope.
I barely caught Jed’s swift eye-roll. “I didn’t threaten anyone,” he said.
“They were very nervous, and they misinterpreted what I said. I swear, Mrs. Grifo. If I were working for Boer, and I had been sent to deal with you, we would not be having this conversation. The job would be done, and I would be miles down the road by now.”
A terrified pause followed that statement.
“Ah…that is not reassuring,” Rachelle said faintly.
“It wasn’t meant to be,” I told her. “We’re here to help solve your problem, not to make you feel better about them.
” I gestured at Jed. “He is one of the good guys. And we are absolutely for real. Not some trick or some test sent from Boer. Boer has no reason to jerk you around, or play complicated mind games. The man’s on a schedule. ”
“To do what? And who the hell are you?” Rachelle spun around to face me, her eyes wild and white-rimmed. “What the hell do you care what happens to us?”
It wouldn’t be wise to give her the answer she richly deserved, so I jerked my chin at Jed. He had to field this one, or I’d get the woman’s back up even more.
“We need the info your husband has on Boer,” Jed said. “That’s how we win.”
Rachelle clapped her hands over her mouth like an opera diva. “Oh God,” she moaned. “Joe, you idiot. You have evidence…? Oh, God. We are so dead.”
The woman’s whining was getting on my every last nerve. “Not necessarily,” I said. “We’re your ticket back to your real life. Your own life, here, with your house, your friends, your girls. They’re, what, in college now?”
“Are you threatening my girls?” Her eyes were ringed with mascara smears.
“We’re not threatening anybody, particularly not your girls,” Jed said, with admirable patience. “On the contrary. If you give us the info that Mickey gave you—”
“Who’s Mickey?” Rachelle shrilled. “What did he give to you, Joe? Why didn’t you tell me? How can I trust you? Why have you been keeping secrets from me?”
Whoa, as if it needed to be said. The look on Joe Grifo’s face made me feel almost sorry for the man, but we had no time for melodrama.
“Shut up, Shell,” Grifo said miserably.
“I will not shut up! Goddamnit, I am so sick of your—”
“Stop.” Jed’s voice was not loud, but Rachelle cut off her rant, like a switch had been flipped. She stared at him, owl-eyed and gulping.
“There’s no time for this,” Jed said sternly. “Save it for when you’re safe.”
“We’ll never be safe,” Rachelle whispered.
“We can help with that.” Jed turned back to Grifo. “Give me the data on Boer, and I will use it to neutralize him. In the meantime, I will provide a team of the most badass motherfuckers in the business, and they will guard your family night and day until the job is done.”
Grifo’s eyes look bleak, shadowed with exhaustion. He weighed his options for a few fraught seconds, and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “We have a deal.”
“Joe!” Rachelle exclaimed, in a screaming whisper. “No! You can’t make that decision unilaterally! We have to talk. The two of us, in private!”
“I made the call, Shell,” Grifo said heavily. “It’s a done deal.”
Rachelle overflowed again. I turned away, trying not to be a cat-bitch from hell.
It was dirt mean to judge another woman for having feelings.
She was suffering from chronic stress, and she was scared shitless.
I knew how that felt, and I should cut her some slack.
But for God’s sake. Her husband was in deep shit, and she was not helping.
“I need the info asap,” Jed told him. “Tonight.”
Grifo nodded. “I can do that.”
“You don’t have it here?”
The man let out a mirthless laugh. “I don’t carry it around with me, if that’s what you’re asking.
I have to find a safe place for Shell and the girls first, and I want those badasses you talked about to meet them there and stay on them day and night until it’s over.
Preferably before I give you the flash drive. How long before they get here?”
“They should be in the city by six AM. They’re en route now. I’ll have them arrange to meet up with you as soon as they arrive at the airport.”
“Joe, he’ll kill us!” Rachelle sobbed. “You know nothing about these people!”
My eyes met with Jed’s. In a flash, I knew we were both thinking the same thing. This gig would go down in the annals of Unredeemables history. Jed would be paying back favors to those guys for years to compensate for the epic ball-breaking they were about to experience from Rachelle Grifo.
Grifo glanced at his watch. “I’ll meet you at three thirty AM. I’ll text you the location later.”
Jed pulled one of his burners from his pocket. “Take this phone. My number is the only one in it. Text me on that.”
Grifo nodded, and slid it into his pocket. “We should get back to the party before people notice. Shell, fix your face. And stop blubbering.”
Rachelle dabbed at her mascara-streaked cheekbones with her fingers. “I can’t,” she said, voice quivering. “I left my purse at the table.”
I dug out a pack of make-up wipes from my evening bag. One of my mall purchases this morning. I would never be without make-up wipes for the rest of my life.
“I got you,” I said. “Hold still.” Rachelle flinched from my touch, but I persisted, wiping off the damage in a few swift strokes. At least she was trying to stop blubbering. Not successfully, but she got points for the effort.
Grifo steered her out, and Jed and I stood there looking at each other in the sudden quiet after the door fell shut again.
“I wish his wife hadn’t barged in,” Jed said quietly. “I don’t like the way this feels.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” I said. “But we don’t have time to second-guess ourselves now. Let’s beat hell out of this place. These shoes are killing me.”
Jed grabbed my hand, hauling me along as fast as I could totter. We made for the back entrance once again, and I was grateful for his arm as we hustled back to the car.
I pulled out the phone he’d gotten for me to check the time. “We should have time to get back and change into regular clothes,” I said. “Of course, it all depends on where he sets the meeting, but the venue can’t be too far. I want my comfy boots.”
Jed took a long time to answer. “Frey,” he said, in a careful tone. “About that.”
My whole body contracted. I held up my hand. “Don’t even start. Just don’t. We’ve been through this. I thought we’d left it behind us. We act together now.”