Chapter Eighteen
By the time Brock turned off the crappy, unpaved main road and onto the crappier, rougher, mud-and-gravel drive leading to the Coulters’ farmhouse, the storm had fully arrived.
Sheets of rain lashed the windshield in relentless waves, the wipers doing little more than smearing the water from side to side.
Thunder rolled low and deep, like distant artillery.
A jagged fork of lightning tore the sky open just as the house came into view—a homey silhouette hunched against the horizon.
He pulled up close to the porch, tires crunching over wet gravel, and killed the engine. The rain drummed fiercely on the roof of his truck. Brock sat for a moment, watching the house. No lights. No movement. The place looked deserted.
But after what happened with Baldwin, he didn’t know if he trusted the word of Tom Garza anymore.
Still, it didn’t look like anyone was home. No truck in the carport. The chickens were locked tight in their hutch. He couldn’t hear them over the wind and rain, but he imagined they were as annoyed as he was.
He didn’t want to be here. But he wanted the money more than he worried about the consequences.
He stepped out into the storm, boots splashing in the rising puddles, the bottom of his jeans immediately soaked.
The slicker he put on to run up the steps to the covered porch did little to protect him from the rain.
He slid it off onto a sturdy wood chair by the door.
All plants and lighter furniture were gone; the charming farmhouse now looked stark and abandoned.
The screen door screeched as he pulled it open, the wooden door behind it locked.
But he was hired because he was good with locks. Sam was good with security systems. He didn’t have Sam today, and it wouldn’t matter if he were here. The old Coulters didn’t have an alarm.
Fifteen seconds later he was inside. He didn’t worry about anyone seeing him, no neighbors were in line of sight. He shut the door firmly behind him, let his eyes grow accustomed to the dimmer light indoors.
It smelled like old wood and something faintly medicinal—liniment, maybe.
Something his grandma used to put on her arthritic joints.
He paused in the doorway, dripping, heart ticking a little faster than usual.
Not fear. Just alertness. Awareness. The kind that comes from doing things you aren’t supposed to be doing, in places you’re not supposed to be.
He moved through the front room, boots creaking against the worn hardwood floor.
A floral-print couch. Two modern reclining chairs in front of a television a quarter of the size of his.
A TV too small to watch a football game, for sure.
A china cabinet filled with fading family photos and a porcelain Jesus.
An entire wall of portraits through the years, of weddings and births, of school milestones and family gatherings.
A folded flag centered on the mantel, framed by two photos: one of a handsome young man at his high school graduation with his mom and dad—the Coulters—on each side, and two young girls standing in front.
The other of the same young man in uniform, the standard military portrait with the American flag in the background.
Above the memorial was a framed cross-stitch that read: As for Me and My House, We Will Serve the Lord.
A lot of clutter, but clean and neat. A house in order, of quiet routine. A family that had come and gone and left two old people with just each other and a few farm animals.
This job should be easy.
Brock walked toward the study, the one room he’d been told to search.
He was to leave no trace—no drawers left open; no items disturbed.
The Coulters were old. If they ever noticed the contract was gone, they’d just assume they’d misplaced it.
That was the idea. No alarms. No questions.
They’d ask for a copy and be given the right copy—the one they were supposed to have been given in the first place.
Brock didn’t know how the contracts had been screwed up; he’d simply been hired to retrieve them. He only worked for Mitchell Robinson on occasion, whenever Mitchell needed a light hand and no trace back to him.
He should never have brought Rena and Sam along this time.
They’d joined him only infrequently, when the job wasn’t dangerous.
And he thought this job would be a piece of cake.
Four houses, four days, two hundred thousand bucks.
And, sure, he had needed Sam’s electronics skill in two of the homes.
But he could have done it differently, without putting the two people he loved in this world at risk.
It had been anything but easy, anything but safe. And now his brother-in-law had buckshot in his gut and if he died, Brock might just kill Mitchell Robinson. Not because it was his fault, but because Brock loved his brother-in-law, he loved his wife, and life wouldn’t be the same without Sam.
He pushed his growing grief aside. Sam wasn’t dead; he would make it. They had a doctor back home in Louisiana who, for the right price, would fix Sam and look the other way, no gunshot reported to the authorities.
Brock carefully, discreetly searched the small den.
This was all business. A rolltop desk, a three-drawer filing cabinet, a bookshelf filled with farm manuals and old copies of the Farmers’ Almanac.
The Coulters were orderly people: he opened the filing cabinet as the best bet for the contract.
In the top drawer were records for their two bulls: breeding contracts, folders on every cow sired, health records, and more.
He glanced at the bottom line—he had no idea studs could make this much money.
It might be something to think about, because he wasn’t going to work for Mitchell Robinson anymore.
The second drawer had insurance papers, bills, and right there in the front, a folder labeled Verdacorp.
Brock took it out, laid it on the desk, and opened it, careful not to let the paper crinkle too loudly. He knew no one was home, but … habit.
Because sometimes he robbed people quietly while they slept.
He studied the contract and frowned.
This wasn’t the original.
Text, letterhead, that was right. But it was a cheap copy with an odd faint gray line running down the middle. The paper felt different, too. Too smooth. Like it came out of a home copier.
He glanced at a low table to the left of the desk, where a copier sat, the steady orange light telling him the device was asleep.
Well, shit.
Brock pulled out his phone and hit the last number who’d called him.
“Robinson.”
“It’s me,” Brock said. “We’ve got a problem. The original isn’t here.”
A pause on the other end. Rain pelted against the windows.
“Are you sure?” Mitchell’s voice was sharp, almost accusatory. “They only signed it last week. They have the original.”
“I’m looking at it. Signatures are a copy. Paper doesn’t even feel right.”
Another pause. Then: “Tear the place apart.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Mitchell said. “There’s a safe.
Has to be. They probably put it away after signing.
Find it. If that paper ends up in the wrong hands, my business is done.
I’ll lose everything. Do you understand?
I don’t care if you rip out the goddamn floorboards.
Because remember: if I don’t have all four original contracts in my hands before five PM tomorrow, you get paid nothing. ”
The call ended.
Brock stared at the phone for a moment. That fucking asshole.
Fueled partly by anger, Brock methodically took apart the house.
Fast but careful, so he didn’t miss any possible hiding place.
Pulled books from shelves, overturned drawers, peeled back rugs.
He searched closets, cabinets, the pantry.
Looked behind picture frames, under mattresses, inside the crocheted piano bench.
In the master bedroom he pulled every drawer and checked the backs for false panels.
Nothing.
The house began to feel tighter around him. The storm outside screamed louder. He realized how much noise he was making. How, despite the thunder, each clatter of a drawer echoed like a gunshot.
No safe. No hiding place. No contract.
Back in the study, Brock ran a hand through his damp hair, breathing hard. The storm hadn’t let up. The windows rattled in their frames now. A tree branch scraped along the siding like fingernails inside a coffin.
He pulled out his phone again and redialed.
Mitchell answered on the first ring. “Tell me you found it.”
“There’s no safe,” Brock said, voice low. “No sign of the original. I don’t think they kept it here.”
Silence. Just the crackle of static.
Then Mitchell spoke, his voice harder now. “A contract doesn’t disappear, Brock. If it’s not there, then someone took it. And if someone took it, we’re exposed.”
Lightning lit up the room in stark, electric white.
“Maybe they gave it to someone. Like their lawyer or one of their kids.”
“Maybe,” Mitchell said, voice cold. “Maybe they did just that. I’ll find out who. Be ready when I call.”
Brock felt something cold crawl up his spine as the line went dead.