by Sam Hawken
They went to him. Matt slumped in the chair, his stomach and legs sodden with blood. The bullet wound in his forehead was perfectly round and placed directly over the left eyebrow. His eyes were open.
“Son of a bitch,” Camaro said.
Chapado was there. “Is he…?”
“Yeah, he’s dead. I wanted him alive for your friends.”
“I will tell my people you tried to give him to them.”
The karambit came into her hand. Camaro stepped into Chapado and brandished the blade against his throat. He froze. “You don’t tell them anything about me. You never saw my face. You never heard my name. You don’t know who I am or where I came from. If you owe me your life, then you will swear I was never here.”
Chapado swallowed. “I saw nothing. I know nothing.”
Camaro stepped back. “Your people will come for you,” she said. “You just have to wait.”
She wiped the karambit clean on Matt’s shoulder and put it away. Then she brought out the throwaway phone and called out. She waited until Ignacio answered. “Camaro,” he said.
“It’s time,” she said.
“Are you okay? You don’t sound too good.”
“Just come and get them.”
“Where?”
“You’re a smart guy. You figure it out,” Camaro said. She cleaned the phone on her T-shirt without ending the call and let it fall to the floor.
She picked up her shotgun from where it lay and left the warehouse behind, dragging her leg as she went.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
SHE WAS ON the flybridge of the Annabel when she saw Ignacio coming down the pier. It had been three days. He waved to her when he saw her, but she did not wave back. Ignacio stopped beside the boat and looked up at her. “Pardon my language, but you look like shit.”
She lowered herself down the ladder gingerly, her leg and hip stiff. She had tape across her nose. “It’s just my day off,” she told him.
“So you’re not taking any passengers today?” he asked.
“No,” Camaro said. “I don’t have any charters booked for the week.”
“I went by your house, but you weren’t there. I didn’t think I’d find you.”
“I was just waiting to say good-bye,” Camaro said.
“Taking a long trip?”
“Something like that,” Camaro said. She looked Ignacio over. He seemed relaxed. There was no sign of cuffs.
“I’m glad we got to see each other first,” Ignacio said. “I wanted to tell you how things went the other night. I thought I knew the whole story, but now that I see your face…”
“You found Chapado. You found Alpha 66.”
“Good guess. We found Matt Clifford, too. Unfortunately, his Cuban friends had already made sure he wasn’t in the mood for talking by the time we got there. Or maybe it was the other six guys we found lying around the place that killed him.”
“Sounds like a bad scene,” Camaro said.
“It’s not all bad. Turns out we matched prints off two of the dead guys with a double homicide where a man and his wife had their throats cut. And with Señor Chapado telling me all about how Matt Clifford and his buddy Sandro Soto kidnapped him and shot a few Alpha 66 members while they were at it, I’m closing cases all over.”
“That’s good,” Camaro said.
Ignacio took off his hat and fanned himself with it. “You got anything cold to drink? This day’s killing me.”
She thought a moment, then she nodded. “Come aboard.”
They went inside the cabin, and Camaro took water bottles from the refrigerator. Ignacio wiped his brow with the cold plastic before cracking the seal and drinking deeply. He exhaled and sat down. “That’s just what I needed.”
Camaro took a drink. “Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?”
“Only that I got a call yesterday from a man named Richard Story. He’s Lauren Story’s uncle. Lives out in Texas. He says she took a bus there to see him after her father got killed. So I guess I was all wrong about you taking off with her. Funny how that works out.”
Camaro didn’t answer. She drank again, waiting.
“There are a few other things, of course,” Ignacio said. “I almost hate to bring them up. We pulled a lot of bullets out of a lot of bodies in that warehouse. Got a lot of 9 mm, like you’d expect, but there were some .45 lugs, too. Took both out of Matt, in fact. And then there were the .45 GAP casings. I seem to recall you telling me your piece was a .45 GAP.”
“I don’t have that gun anymore.”
“That’s too bad. I know some people who would have loved to get their hands on it. Did you sell it, or did you just forget where you put it?”
“I sold it.”
“Oh, well. We don’t really need it, because we can still pull partial prints off cartridge casings. Which we did.”
Camaro put the water bottle on the counter. “What did you find?”
“It’s weird, but there was some kind of mix-up, and they weren’t ever put in the database. And then the print evidence ended up getting lost between the Florida City PD and Miami. The casings, too. So now we’ll never know who fired that gun. It’s a real shame.”
“Yeah,” Camaro said, and something dark inside of her went away.
Ignacio drained his bottle and put it down on the seat beside him. “I guess what I’m saying is: if you don’t want to run, you don’t have to run.”
“What about New York? Aren’t they going to want to talk to me?”
“I told you before: taking care of other cities’ business isn’t really high on my list of priorities, even if it is my hometown. They’ll have to get in line.”
Camaro collected his empty bottle and put it in the wastebasket. Ignacio’s eyes were on her. She looked back at him.
He got up from the seat and went out of the cabin, with Camaro behind him. When he was back in the sun again, he put on his hat and shaded his eyes. “Did I ever tell you this is a really nice boat?” he asked.
“You might have mentioned it.”
“I might like to try fishing off a boat like this one. How much does it cost?”
“Rates start at forty-five dollars a person, and I can take up to ten,” Camaro said.
“That sounds real fair,” Ignacio said. “See you around, Camaro.”
“See you, Detective.”
He looked at her and smiled. “Call me Nacho. It’s what my friends do.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Ignacio stepped onto the dock. Camaro cast off fore and aft and clambered back up to the flybridge to stoke the engine. She gave the Annabel some throttle, and the boat eased forward into the slow rise of the water. She didn’t look back.
A quarter mile offshore she was still getting a cell signal. Her phone chimed for a text message, so she dug it out of her pocket. She didn’t recognize the number.
There was a picture attached to a line of text. In the picture, she saw Lauren standing somewhere dry and hot with a horse looking sidelong into the camera.
His name is Gomer, said the attached message.
Camaro nodded at the phone and smiled only a little. Then she put it away.
Today she had no calling but the sun and the sea. The morning air stirred her honey-brown hair. She laid on more throttle and headed for deep water.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank a few people for their help in bringing Camaro to the world.
First and foremost, credit must go to my wife, Mariann, and my agent, Oli Munson. Without either of them, The Night Charter would not have made it into your hands. Thanks also go to the readers who bought the first Camaro stories in the summer of 2013 and convinced me the character had real potential. And finally I’d like to thank everyone at Mulholland Books for taking such good care of Camaro right from the outset. May she go far.
About the Author
Sam Hawken is the Crime Writers Association Dagger-nominated author of The Dead Women of Juárez, Tequila Sun
set, and Missing. He makes his home in Maryland with his wife and son, and is represented by Oliver Munson of AM Heath Literary Agents.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Newsletters
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2015 by Sam Hawken
Cover design by Lauren Harms; photograph by Sami Sarkis/Getty Images
Author photograph by Mariann Hawken
Cover copyright © 2015 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: December 2015
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ISBN 978-0-316-29925-1