He took out his phone and scrolled through the numbers. He should call Faith, but he didn’t have anything he could report and their conversation last night hadn’t ended well. Whatever happened with Evelyn wasn’t going to make things better. No matter what tricky verbal maneuvering Amanda was doing, there were still some hard facts she couldn’t talk around. If the Asians were really making a play for the Texicanos drug market, then Evelyn Mitchell had to be at the center of it. Hector might’ve called himself a car salesman, but he still had the tattoo that connected him to the gang. He still had a cousin in prison running that same gang. His nephew had been shot dead at Evelyn’s house, and Hector himself was dead in Evelyn’s trunk. There was no reason for a cop, especially a retired one, to be mixed up with these kind of bad guys unless there was something dirty going on.
Will looked down at his phone. Thirteen hundred hours. He should go into the setup menu and try to figure out how to switch it back to the normal time display, but Will didn’t have the patience right now. Instead, he scrolled to Sara’s cell phone number, which had three eights in it. He had stared at it so many times over the last few months that he was surprised the numbers weren’t burned into his retinas.
Unless you counted the unfortunate misunderstanding with the lesbian who lived across the street, Will had never been on a real date before. He’d been with Angie since he was eight years old. There had been passion at one time, and for a short while, something that felt close to love, but he could not ever recall a point in his life when he felt happy to be with her. He lived in dread of her showing up on his doorstep. He felt enormous relief when she was gone. Where she got him was the in-between, those rare moments of peace when he got a glimpse of what a settled life could be. They would have meals together and go to the grocery store and work in the yard—or Will would work and Angie would watch—and then at night they’d go to bed and he would find himself lying there with a smile on his face because this was what life was like for the rest of the world.
And then he would wake up in the morning and she’d be gone.
They were too close. That was the problem. They had lived through too much, seen too many horrors, shared too much fear and loathing and pity, to look at each other as something other than victims. Will’s body was like a monument to that misery: the burn marks, the scars, the various slings and arrows he had suffered. For years, he had wanted more from Angie, but Will had recently come to the hard realization that there was nothing more that she could give.
She wasn’t going to change. He knew that truth even when they finally got married, which had come about not through careful planning but because Will had bet Angie that she wouldn’t go through with it. Gambling aside, she was never going to see being with Will as anything other than a safe haven at best and a sacrifice at worst. There was a reason she never touched him unless she wanted something. There was a reason he didn’t try to call her when she disappeared.
He slid his thumb inside his sleeve and felt the beginnings of the long scar that traced up his arm. It was thicker than he remembered. The skin was still tender to the touch.
Will pulled away his hand. Angie had flinched the last time her fingers had accidentally brushed against his bare arm. Her reactions to him were always intense, never half measures. She liked to see how far she could push him. It was her favorite sport: how bad did she have to be before Will finally had enough and abandoned her just like everyone else had in her life?
They had teetered on that line many times, but somehow, she always managed to yank him back at the last second. Even now, Will felt the pull. He hadn’t seen Angie since her mother had died. Deidre Polaski was a junkie and a prostitute who’d overdosed herself into a vegetative coma when Angie was eleven. Her body had held on for twenty-seven years before finally giving up. Four months had passed since the funeral. Not much in the scheme of things—Angie had disappeared for a whole year once—but Will felt a warning in his spine that told him something was wrong. She was in trouble or she was hurt or she was upset. His body knew it just like it knew that it needed to breathe.
They had always been connected like this, even back when they were kids. Especially when they were kids. And if there was one thing Will knew about his wife, it was that she always came to him when things were bad. He didn’t know when she would show up, whether it would be tomorrow or next week, but he knew one day soon he’d come home from work and find Angie sitting on his couch, eating his pudding cups and making derogatory comments about his dog.
That was why Will had gone to Sara’s house last night. He was hiding from Angie. He was fighting the inevitable. And, if he was being honest, he had been aching to see Sara again. That she had bought his excuse about his house being upside down made him think that maybe she had wanted him there, too. As a kid, Will had trained himself to not want things he couldn’t have—the latest toys, shoes that actually fit, home-cooked meals that didn’t come out of a can. His power to deny himself disappeared where Sara Linton was concerned. He could not stop thinking about how her hand had felt on his shoulder when they’d stood in the street yesterday. Her thumb had stroked the side of his neck. She had lifted her heels off the ground so that they were the same height, and for just a second, he’d thought that she was going to kiss him.
“Christ,” Will groaned. He visualized the carnage at Evelyn Mitchell’s house, the blood and brain matter spattered across her kitchen and laundry room. And then he tried to blank his mind completely, because he was pretty sure thinking about sex and then picturing scenes of violence was how serial killers got their start.
The SUV jerked into reverse. Amanda rolled down the window. Will stood.
She told him, “That was a source at APD. Looks like our Type B-negative showed up by the Dumpster at Grady. Unconscious, barely breathing. They found his wallet in one of the trash bags. Marcellus Benedict Estevez. Unemployed. Lives with his grandmother.”
Will wondered why Sara hadn’t called him about this. Maybe she had already left work. Or maybe it wasn’t her job to keep him in the loop. “Did Estevez say anything?”
“He died half an hour ago. We’ll swing by the hospital after this.”
Will thought that was a pointless trip considering the guy was dead. “Did he have something on him?”
“No. Get in.”
“Why are we—”
“I don’t have all day, Will. Wipe the dirt out of your vagina and let’s get going.”
Will got into the SUV. “Did they confirm Estevez is blood type B-negative?”
She punched the gas. “Yes. And his fingerprints have been positively identified as one of the eight sets found in Evelyn’s house.”
He was missing something again. “That was a long conversation for just that little bit of information.”
For once, she was forthcoming. “We got a call-back on Chuck Finn. Why didn’t you tell me that you talked to his parole officer last night?”
“I suppose I was being petty.”
“Well, you certainly showed me. The parole officer did a spot check on Chuck this morning. He’s been gone for two days.”
“Wait a minute.” Will turned toward her. “Chuck’s PO told me last night that he was accounted for. He said that Chuck never missed a sign-in.”
“I’m sure the Tennessee parole office is as overburdened and understaffed as ours is. At least he had the balls to come clean this morning.” She gave him a meaningful look. “Chuck Finn signed himself out of treatment two days ago.”
“Treatment?”
“He was at Healing Winds. He’s on his third month of sobriety.”
Will felt a slight vindication.
“Healing Winds is also where Hironobu Kwon got treatment. They were there at the same time.”
Will had to be silent for a moment. “When did you find all of this out?”
“Just now, Will. Don’t pout. I know an old gal who works in records down at the drug court.” Apparently, Amanda knew an old gal everywhere. “Kwon
was sent to Hope Hall for his first offense.” The drug court’s inpatient treatment facility. “The judge wasn’t inclined to give him a second chance on the state’s dime, so the mother stepped in and said she’d secured him a place at Healing Winds.”
“Where he met Chuck Finn.”
“It’s a large facility, but you’re right. It would be quite a stretch to say that these two particular men just happened to be there at the same time.”
Will was shocked to hear her concede the point, but he kept going. “If Chuck told Hironobu Kwon that Evelyn had money sitting around …” He smiled. Finally, something was making sense. “What about the other guy? The Type B-negative who showed up at Grady? Does he have any connection to Chuck or Hironobu?”
“Marcellus Estevez has never been arrested. He was born and raised in Miami, Florida. Two years ago, he moved to Carrollton to attend West Georgia College. He dropped out last quarter. He hasn’t had contact with his family since.”
Another kid in his mid-twenties who had gotten mixed up with some very bad people. “You seem to know an awful lot about Estevez.”
“APD has already spoken with his parents. They filed a missing persons report as soon as the school informed them that their son wasn’t attending class.”
“Since when is Atlanta sharing information with us?”
“Let’s just say I reached out to some old friends.”
Will was beginning to form an image of a network of steely old ballbusters who either owed Amanda a favor or had worked with Evelyn at some point in their long careers.
She said, “The point is that we don’t know how Type B, Marcellus Estevez, ties into this. Except for Hironobu Kwon and Chuck Finn, there’s no hint of a connection between anyone else in the house. They all went to different high schools. Not all of them were in college, but the ones who were didn’t go together. They didn’t meet in prison. None of them share a gang affiliation or a social club. They all have different backgrounds, different ethnicities.”
Will felt like she was being honest at least about this. In any investigation involving multiple perpetrators, the key was always to find out how they knew each other. Human beings were largely predictable in their habits. If you found out where they met, how they knew each other, or what had brought them together, then you could generally find someone outside the group, just hovering around the periphery, who wanted to talk.
He told her what he’d been thinking since he first saw Evelyn’s upturned house. “This feels like a personal vendetta.”
“Most vendettas are.”
“No, I mean it feels like it’s about something more than money.”
“That will be one of the many questions we ask these imbeciles once we have the cuffs on them.” Amanda twisted the steering wheel, taking a sudden turn that jerked Will to the side. “I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t remember a time Amanda had ever apologized for anything. He stared at her profile. Her jaw was more prominent than usual. Her skin was sallow. She was looking downright beaten. And she had given him more information in the last ten minutes than she had in the last twenty-four hours. “Is something else going on?”
“No.” She stopped in front of a large commercial warehouse with six loading docks. There were no cargo trucks, but several vehicles were parked in front of the large bay doors. Any one of the vehicles would’ve cost more than Will’s pension—BMWs, Mercedes, even a Bentley.
Amanda circled the lot, making sure there would be no surprises. The space was large enough for an eighteen-wheeler to turn around, and sloped toward the docks to facilitate loading and unloading. She made a lazy U-turn, going back the way they had come. The tires squealed as she cut the wheel hard, taking a space as far from the building as she could get without parking on the grass. Amanda cut the engine. The SUV was directly across from what appeared to be the front office. About fifty yards of wide-open space separated them from the building. A set of crumbling concrete steps led to a glass door. The railing had rusted so badly it keeled to the side. The sign over the entrance had a set of kitchen cabinets bolted to the front. A Confederate flag waved in the breeze. Will read the first word on the sign, then guessed at the rest, “Southern Cabinets? That’s an unusual drug front.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s like watching a dog walk on its hind legs.”
Will got out of the car. He met Amanda behind the SUV. She used the key-fob remote to pop open the trunk. In Valdosta this morning, they had locked up their weapons before going into the prison. The black SUV was regulation GBI, which meant the entire back end was taken up by a large steel cabinet with six drawers. Amanda pressed the combination into the pushbutton lock and pulled open the middle drawer. Her Glock rested in a dark purple velvet bag that had the Crown Royal logo stitched into the hem. She dropped it into her purse while Will clipped his paddle holster onto his belt.
“Hold on.” She reached into the back of the drawer and pulled out a five-shot revolver. This particular type of Smith and Wesson was called an “old-timer,” because mostly old-timers carried them. The gun was lightweight, with an internal hammer that made it easy to conceal. Despite the “Lady Smith” logo etched above the trigger, the recoil could leave a nasty bruise the entire length of your hand. Evelyn Mitchell’s S&W was a similar model, with a cherry handle instead of Amanda’s custom walnut. Will wondered if the two women had bought their guns together on a shopping trip.
Amanda said, “Stand straight. Try not to react. We’re just in view of the camera.”
Will fought to follow her orders as she reached under the back of his jacket and shoved the revolver down his pants. He stared ahead at the warehouse. It was metal, wider than it was deep, about half the length of a football field. The whole building was on a concrete foundation that raised the height of the ground floor by at least four feet, the standard height of a loading dock. Except for the steep flight of concrete steps leading up to the front door, there was no way in and out. At least not unless you were willing to pull yourself up onto the loading dock and muscle open one of the large metal doors.
He asked, “Where are the guys you had sitting on this place?”
“Doraville needed an assist. We’re on our own.”
He watched the camera over the door track back and forth. “This doesn’t seem like a bad idea at all.”
“Stand up straight.” She slapped him on the back, making sure the gun was snug. “And for God’s sake, don’t hold in your stomach or it’ll fall straight through to the ground.” She had to go up on the tips of her toes to pull the trunk closed. “I don’t know why you wear your belt so loose. It’s pointless to even have one if you’re not going to use it right.”
Will walked behind her as she headed toward the entrance. The walk was a brisk one, fifty yards of exposed space. The camera had stopped its sweep to track their progress. They might as well have targets on their chests. He concentrated on the top of Amanda’s head, the way her hair swirled at the crown like a spiral ham.
The glass door opened when they reached the concrete steps to the entrance. Amanda shielded her eyes from the sun, staring up at an angry-looking Asian man. He was huge, his body seemingly comprising equal parts fat and muscle. The guy stood wordlessly, holding open the front door as he watched them make their way up the steps. Will followed Amanda inside. His eyes took their time adjusting in the tiny, airless front office. The fake paneling on the wall had buckled from humidity. The carpet was brown in ways that would repulse a more fastidious man. The whole place smelled of sawdust and oil. Will could hear machines running in the warehouse: finish nailers, compressors, lathes. Guns N’ Roses played on the radio.
Amanda told the man, “Mrs. Ling should be expecting me.” She smiled at the camera mounted above the doorway.
The man didn’t move. Amanda dug into her purse like she was looking for her lipstick. Will didn’t know if she was reaching for her gun or if she just needed lipstick. His answer came when the door was opened by a tall, lithe
woman with a grin on her face.
“Mandy Wagner, it’s been ages.” The woman seemed almost pleased. She was Asian, roughly Amanda’s age with short salt-and-pepper hair. She was as thin as a teenager. Her sleeveless shirt showed well-toned arms. She spoke in a distinctive, slow southern drawl. There was something catlike in the languid way she moved, or maybe the smell of pot clinging to her body had something to do with that. She was wearing moccasins with beads on the top, the sort of souvenir you’d find at a tourist trap outside an Indian reservation.
“Julia.” Amanda gave a convincing smile. “It’s so good to see you.” They hugged, and Will saw the woman’s hand linger at Amanda’s waist.
“This is Will Trent, my associate.” She put her hand over Julia’s as she turned to Will. “I hope you don’t mind his tagging along. He’s in training.”
“How fortunate to learn from the best,” Julia cooed. “Tell him to leave his gun on the counter. You too, Mandy. You still using that old Crown Royal bag?”
“Keeps the lint out of the firing pin.” The gun made a thud as she dropped the bag on the counter. The dour man checked the contents, then nodded at his boss. Will wasn’t as quickly compliant. Giving up his gun was not something he was comfortable with.
“Will,” Amanda said. “Don’t embarrass me in front of my friends.”
He unclipped the paddle holster from his belt and put his Glock on the counter.
Julia Ling laughed as she waved them through the door. The warehouse was even bigger than it looked from the outside, but the operation was small, the sort of thing that would’ve fit into a two-car garage. There were at least a dozen men putting together cabinets. Will couldn’t tell whether they were Asian, Hispanic, or anything else, because their hats were pulled down and their faces were turned away. Whoever they were, they were obviously working. The smell of glue was pungent. Sawdust littered the floor. A gigantic Confederate flag served as a divider between the work area and the vacant-looking rear of the building. The stars were yellow instead of white.
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