His phone chimed. He saw it was a text from Tank Potter asking to come over.
“Not again.” Carlos picked up the phone, unsure whether to respond. He’d already done Tank enough favors. The problem with reporters was that they always wanted more. Then he remembered how Edward Mason had screamed at him to hurry up and load the bodies into the van when they weren’t even ready. The man had a serious attitude problem. Carlos decided he’d be happy to help his buddy, if only to screw the officious little turd.
He texted Tank to come over when he wanted and added that he should enter through the back door.
“See you soon,” Tank texted back.
Carlos put away the phone and returned his attention to the auction. There was a new bidder.
Twenty-five thousand or nothing.
It was his final price.
53
“Do you believe him?”
Mary stood inside her walk-in closet, eyeing the racks of clothing.
Blue blazer.
Navy slacks.
White shirt.
She selected the garments with care, setting them on the bedspread like she used to lay out her Sunday best for church. At the moment, however, she did not entertain any angelic thoughts. The Lord’s Prayer, “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and the Twenty-third Psalm were the furthest things from her mind.
Mary Grant was angry. She was sick of being pushed around, and sick of being lied to and manipulated. Mostly, though, she was sick of not knowing the truth.
Joe had not called her to say goodbye. He’d called to tell her that something was profoundly wrong with his current situation. He’d called to give a shout for help, even if he knew she could not render the assistance he needed.
He did not call Randy Bell.
He did not call Don Bennett or Edward Mason.
He didn’t call anyone from the FBI.
He called his wife, a civilian twenty-five miles away driving on a crowded freeway with her two daughters, doing nothing more hazardous than navigating the ordinary, mundane vicissitudes of everyday life.
Joe had called his wife because she was the only person he could trust.
Mary put on her slacks and shirt, tucking in the tails so the fabric pressed across her chest. She slipped on a pair of sensible brown loafers she’d worn exactly twice. Finally she put on her blazer. In the bathroom she brushed her hair and drew it into a ponytail. With a warm washcloth she wiped away a bit of her mascara, scrubbed the foundation off her cheeks, and removed her lipstick.
She appraised herself in the mirror.
Stand straight.
Shoulders back.
Don’t smile.
Still, something was missing.
She opened Joe’s drawer and rummaged through his things. She raised her chin as she pinned the American flag to her lapel. She looked the part but didn’t feel it. She lacked a certain gravitas, an air of authority. She was a mother heading out to address the PTA or the secretary of the neighborhood homeowners’ association. She was not a seasoned law enforcement officer.
Mary returned to the closet. Kneeling, she slid aside Joe’s trousers to reveal a squat black safe a little bigger than a minifridge and ten times as heavy. Joe’s gun locker. She knew the combination, and within seconds she’d opened the door and removed a Glock 17, a box of shells, and a holster.
Mary took the gun into the bedroom. Like any good military brat, she knew her way around weapons. She knew you always chambered a round and kept the safety on, and that when you drew, you fired. She hadn’t taken a shot in years, but that didn’t matter. She had no intention of using the pistol. Joe’s gun gave her the swagger she needed to pull off her masquerade.
She returned to the bathroom and took up her position in front of the mirror.
She looked the same but felt entirely different.
Forty-eight hours ago she was a grieving widow a breath away from becoming a basket case. As of this moment she was an FBI agent investigating the murder of Joseph Grant.
“Do you believe him?”
No, Mary admitted to herself. She did not believe Edward Mason.
Not for one second.
54
Tank made the turn off the highway, grumbling as the Jeep bucked and groaned down the dirt road. He’d bent the axle ramming the Ford, and the steering was pulling to the left. There was a hatchet-sized dent in the front fender, too, but it blended in with several others. It was the axle that needed fixing.
A gray clapboard house appeared around a curve, half hidden beneath a perilously sagging willow tree. Two dingy windows bracketed a door with paint so chipped and flaking that the door looked like a hedgehog. Weeds had overtaken the lawn years ago. The house looked all but abandoned. The only sign of an occupant was Carlos Cantu’s ancient Honda parked out front.
Tank honked and pulled to a halt. Grimacing, he climbed out of the car, his back aching from the kidney punch he’d taken. “Anybody home?” he called. “Carlos-it’s me.”
He made a trail through the waist-high weeds toward the door. The drive to Buda was a crapshoot. As of two hours earlier, he had officially adopted radio silence. That’s what you did when someone hacked into your phone. In fact, more than hacked into it, took over the entire device. Bodysnatched it.
No more efficient spying device had ever been invented by mankind than a smartphone. It allowed you to speak with one friend or a dozen, and to see their faces. It could access any piece of information in any public database in the world within seconds. It took pictures and movies so clearly they appeared lifelike. It informed you of your location within ten feet anywhere on God’s green earth and then told you every kind of store and business that was around you. The problem, Tank had learned firsthand that afternoon, was that it could be used to spy on you, too.
Tank rapped on the door. “Surprise visit. It’s me, Tank. Open up.”
He listened for the floorboards to creak as Carlos came to the door. The place had been built in 1920, and he was sure it still had every last original plank and nail. He knocked again, and when no one answered, he took a step to his right and yelled through the open window. “Carlos, you in there?”
No sound at all came from the house. The silence made him nervous.
As a reporter, Tank had done plenty of things to piss people off. It was practically a requirement of the job. Either the cops, the DA, or the perp objected to something you wrote. Over the years he’d received his share of threats, bodily and otherwise. This was the first time, however, that someone had actively interfered with his investigation by destroying evidence.
“Carlos?”
Tank scooted closer to the window. It was then that he saw it and his stomach turned.
He retreated to his car. A search beneath the front seat turned up no liquid courage. Breathing hard, he leaned against the Jeep, looking at Carlos’s house, seeing the overturned chair, the unmoving feet, wondering what to do.
It was on him. There was no way around it.
Steadying himself, he began a slow walk back to the house. The front door was locked, so he walked past the horseshoe pit and around to the back. He stepped onto the porch, the planks groaning beneath his weight. The kitchen door was ajar. He saw something dark in the passage leading to the dining room, something dark and viscous and alive. Against his better instincts, he stepped inside. The smell of cordite stopped him in his tracks. He stared at the pooled blood and the flies busily gorging themselves.
A coward runs, but who stays? An idiot? Certainly not a hero. A hero didn’t get his friend in trouble in the first place.
A journalist stays.