Chapter 4
Red Watson fidgeted in the hard, plain chair. He had an uncomfortable sense he was about to be punished for something, but he didn’t understand what, or why.
He’d done exactly as he was told to do. But the guy in the blank, freaky white mask on the other side of the desk made him so gut-twitchingly nervous, he wanted to dash for the crapper.
Red clenched his ass and mastered the urge.
This should be over soon, and he could blast out of there onto the black-ice covering the roads to Kalaharee Springs.
Fishtail home to his family, hopefully without ending up in a ditch and freezing to death.
This was for them, he repeated to himself. For Maryellen, Kylie, and Krista.
He just had to wait for this strange guy to disappear back under whatever rock he’d crawled out from, and hope he never came back. This guy paid well, and Red prided himself on hustling for his family, but some jobs actually weren’t worth the money.
His stomach growled. He’d been unable to eat at the prison, knowing he had to drive all the way out to Wheedon for this damned meeting once his shift was over. He wiped his face, sticky with a cold, clammy sweat, which not even the crackling fire in the fancy marble hearth could warm.
The man he’d been instructed to call “Mr. Jones” stared at him fixedly through the eyeholes of the mask. The effect made Red shudder, clenching harder.
“James Craig,” Mr. Jones murmured. “So this woman who went by the name of Sandee McGillis came to see a man named James Craig? You’re sure that was the name? It wasn’t Mickey Savalletri?”
“Uh, yes, sir, I’m sure. It was James Craig, not Mickey. That’s what the paperwork said,” Red said. “I checked before I came. I wasn’t in the visiting area today when they talked, but I have security footage of Craig in the yard with Mickey.”
“Hmmph. Show me that footage.”
The masked guy stared intently at the security footage Red had copied and brought with him, which made it a little easier for him to breathe, finally.
Jones’s blank, chilly gaze creeped Red out.
So did the weird, puffy greenish color of the skin around his eyes.
Like the guy was dead under there. Christ, he was psyching himself out.
Jones’s female associate, who’d introduced herself as Ms. Smith, bent over the laptop keyboard. She was a beautiful woman, part Asian, high cheekbones, with a glossy, swinging black bob.
Ms. Smith tapped at the keys. Red was so wound up, he couldn’t even enjoy the amazing shape of her rounded ass, sheathed in the tailored black wool pants.
“There he is,” she murmured, glancing at Mr. Jones, and pointing at the screen. “The tall one, right next to Mickey. Black cap. Turning around now.”
The sound that came out of Mr. Jones made Red jump in his chair. Jones leaned closer to the screen, eyes white-rimmed. “Shit!” he bellowed. “That’s Jed Clearwater!”
Red looked around frantically. “Uh…uh…who…”
“Fuck!” Mr. Jones’s gaze swept the room for something to blame, and inevitably, fell on Red.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was at Kalaharee?
” He turned to Ms. Smith. “Jed Clearwater is yard buddies in the joint with Mickey Savelletri, and nobody fucking notices? Jed Clearwater chats up fucking Freya Masters on visiting day, and nobody says a word? What the fuck do I pay you people for?”
Red threw his hands up in a spasm of panic. “I didn’t know about anyone named Jed Clearwater! James Craig is the name on his paperwork, and I had no idea—”
“How long has he been in there?” Mr. Jones bellowed.
“Ah, uh, five months, I think. Late spring, early summer maybe, more or less,” Red babbled. “He was transferred from—”
“Son of a bitch,” Mr. Jones snarled. “What the fuck is going on in there? How often has he seen Freya Masters?””
“Uh, who’s Freya Masters? Today, he saw this Sandee McGillis woman. Look, I didn’t know that he—”
“Shut up, you fucking idiot! Sandee McGillis is Freya Masters!”
Red cringed in his chair, making himself as small as a guy with a beer gut like his own possibly could. He always felt tense with these people, but now, this wasn’t tension. This was bowel-loosening fear. He was way out of his depth.
“What did she talk about with him?” Mr. Jones demanded.
“Well, um, like I said, I wasn’t in the visiting area today, so I—”
“So no one was listening in?” Mr. Jones’s voice rose. “No one knows if she’s carrying information out for him?”
“Um, let me explain, okay? It’s a passive listening system, and it picks up keywords and slang that activate red flags, for drugs, gun, that kind of—”
“Can you access the archives? Pull today’s recording?”
“Uh, maybe,” Red faltered. “Theoretically. I’d have to ask for help.”
“Then ask for fucking help, right now! Figure it out! I want to hear that recording today. Every fucking word of it. Is that clear?”
Red’s mind raced. It was literally impossible.
The people in admin who might have a chance in hell of knowing how to access those archives worked regular office hours, which were winding up right about now, and he was forty-five minutes away from Kalaharee Springs, way the hell out here in Wheedon.
Or more like an hour, in these weather conditions. “I’ll try,” he offered, weakly.
“Try? That’s not enough, asshole. Get it done.” Mr. Jones spat the words out. He turned to Ms. Smith. “We take the Masters woman tonight. I need to question her. No more delays. Things are getting out of hand. We have to find out what he said.”
Ms. Smith shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “Better to nab her now when she’s all alone than try when she’s got her brother’s corporate security hovering all over her.”
Mr. Jones made an irritated sound. “Where is she now?”
Ms. Smith consulted her phone, tapping in a text.
She looked up. “The team I assigned to her tell me that she’s at the Red Rock Diner on Colum Creek Highway,” she said.
“And she’s staying at the Dew Drop. We wouldn’t have known she was in town at all if she hadn’t turned on her phone for a few minutes last night after she checked in. That was lucky.”
“I don’t pay you big bucks to rely on fucking luck,” Mr. Jones ground out.
Ms. Smith gave him a dazzling smile. “No, I have extreme competence and luck, combined. It’s a winning combination. Don’t worry. She’s not going anywhere. No one’s traveling on these roads tonight. You’ll have her. Within hours. Don’t stress yourself.”
Mr. Jones turned those eerie, headlights-of-a-car eyes on Red through the freaky mask. “You have contacts in the inmate population, right? Can you organize a hit?”
Red’s heart thudded. He hemmed and hawed, and gulped. “Ah…I, um, don’t want trouble. Violence, I mean. I just handle info. That’s all I do. I don’t want to get involved in—”
“I could care less what you want, dickhead. Shut up and listen carefully. Jed Clearwater and Mickey Savalletri have to die tonight.”
Red’s guts cramped horribly. “I can’t be involved in something like that!”
“Red, we’re talking about convicted criminals,” Mr. Jones snapped. “No one gives a shit if they die. You’re doing the American taxpayers a favor.”
“But I…I can’t…” Red’s jaw flapped helpessly. “I can’t possibly.”
“What do you think, Ms. Smith, about Red’s compensation?” Mr. Jones said. “It is a considerable risk, after all. A sixfold increase in our usual token of esteem?”
The serene face of Ms. Smith suddenly blazed into a sweet, terrifying smile. “Oh, tenfold, I think,” she said. “Don’t be stingy, Mr. Jones. It’s unbecoming.”
“Women,” Mr. Jones murmured. “They do love an extravagant gesture. Well then, Ms. Smith? Do the honors.”
Red watched, stunned, as Ms. Smith pulled open a canvas bag and began to take out wrapped blocks of bank notes. She set them down. Two. Four. Six. Eight.
“I can’t,” Red said, helplessly.
“You have to,” Mr. Jones said heartily. “No choice, my friend.”
“But something like that takes time to—”
“Do it for Maryellen,” Ms. Smith said. “Although with what’s on your plate tonight, you won’t be able to pick her up at the end of her shift at the library.
So sweet of her to volunteer. And in this weather, too.
Brrr.” She shivered, theatrically. “She’ll have to take the bus. Poor thing. It’s just raw out there.”
Red stared at her. His jaw began to spasm.
“Yes, we know Maryellen’s car is in the shop,” Mr. Jones said. “Just as well, with this nasty snow, in my book. But it makes things complicated. Kylie has to be picked up from band practice. Krista from her theater rehearsal, hmm? Busy busy.”
“D-d-d-don’t get my family mixed up in this—”
“I’m just thinking out loud.” Mr. Jones poked the canvas bag. “A little more, Ms. Smith, for his expenses. Subcontracting is expensive.”
Ms. Smith gave Red a flirtatious smile, and pulled out two more blocks.
“In just a couple of years, you’ll be looking at college costs for Krista.
” Ms. Smith’s voice was a taunting lilt.
“She’s a good student. So she’ll definitely apply to expensive schools, I’m sure.
It’s a disgrace, that a college education is no longer affordable for the middle class without taking on crippling debt.
But it is what it is, of course. And we do what we must. Isn’t that right, Red? ”
“But…but…”
“Make it happen.” Mr. Jones’s voice was stony. “And one more thing.”
Red braced himself. “What?”
“Tell your people to make those bastards sorry.”
“Um…what do you mean? How, exactly?”
Mr. Jones rolled his eyes. “Be creative. Use your brain, if you have one. Now take your money and get the fuck out of here. I’m sick of looking at you.”
Ms. Smith slid his money into a large manila envelope and passed it to Red with a bright, professional smile.
“Kylie would be my first choice, you know,” Mr. Jones said suddenly. “I love that age. Thirteen. Chubby, budding. Super-fresh. I like redheads, too.”
“Oh, Mr. Jones,” the woman chided him gently.
“Don’t scare him. It’s counterproductive.
” She took Red’s arm, and hustled him out, through the foyer, and out onto the porch, where snow was blowing sideways in the violent gusts of wind.
“He’s in one of his moods,” she murmured into his ear.
“Don’t provoke him, Red. Or disappoint him.
For Kylie’s sake. I’m sure you understand. ”
The door slammed shut. A gust of wind knocked the manila envelope from Red’s hands and into the slush by the walkway, where the envelope burst apart.
The paper tape around the bundled bills split, scattering the bills everywhere.
Red stepped ankle deep into filthy slush, and crouched down to salvage what he could.