by Brett Baker
I passed 342 just before eight o’clock the next morning, and felt my heart race in anticipation of getting to Oswalt. I had questions about Coulson, and since I knew that they were brothers I expected Oswalt to answer them.
I figured I was too late to catch Oswalt at home, so I passed through Cross City and found his company’s offices three miles south of town on another county road, this one much less straight than 342. When I pulled into the parking lot I saw only his Mercedes, and hoped that I’d find only him inside. I parked next to his car, and walked to the entrance of his building.
As soon as I walked in the door he met me, his arms extended straight away from his body, both hands wrapped around a gun. I’d never seen anyone look more awkward holding a gun.
“What the hell are you going to do with that?” I asked him.
“Get out of here!” he yelled. “You’re not welcome here. Get out of here before I call the cops. I don’t care what you think you know about what’s going on down here. If I call the cops I’m sure they’ll be very interested to hear what I have to say. They know me, Mia. You’re an outsider. They have no reason to believe a word you say. So if you know what’s good for you you’ll turn around and walk right back out that door.”
“Curtis must have called you,” I said.
“Who? Oh yeah, I forgot. Your idiot brother trusted you so much he wouldn’t even tell you Curtis’s real name. O. Is that better? O must have called you. Did he tell you that he told me that Coulson’s your brother? I think it was an accident. He didn’t mean to let it slip, so don’t be mad at him. He’s a dumbass, just like you.”
“You better watch what you say! I’m the one with the gun.”
“Be careful,” I said. “Those things are dangerous. You’re going to hurt somebody.”
“Get out of here and no one gets hurt,” he said.
“That’s not how this works, Dirk. You see, I gave you a chance to come clean the other night, and you still lied to me. You could have saved me a trip to DC, but you couldn’t just answer the questions I had. I told you that I didn’t care about what you guys were doing down here. I just wanted to know about Coulson. And you told me that he wasn’t your guy. But it turns out that he’s your brother. I don’t like that, Dirk. It makes me feel like you think you can just make a fool of me. So then I come here to talk to you about it, and you greet me with a gun. I’m not sure you should serve on the county council. I question your judgment. You make too many bad decisions.”
I took a step toward him. He took two steps back and yelled, “Don’t come any closer.”
“Give me the gun, Dirk. You know this is a bad idea. This is not what you want to do.” I could see him soften. His arms didn’t seem so rigid. He lowered the gun a few millimeters. “People try this shit with me all the time, and it never works. Just ask your brother.”
Any softening that had occurred immediately disappeared. Oswalt lifted the gun a little higher, and I saw tears begin to develop in his eyes. His hands began to shake. I saw him close his eyes and clench them shut, so I fell to the floor a split second before he pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun surprised him, and he opened his eyes, saw me on the ground, and fired again. I rolled out of the way just in time, and by the time he fired the third shot I’d rolled right up next to him, but the chaos of the situation affected his accuracy and he didn’t come close to hitting me.
Before he could get off another shot I swept his feet out from under him with my forearm, and as he fell to the ground, I pounced on top of him, and wrapped my forearm around his neck. I only intended to subdue him, but as I squeezed him, he reached for the gun again. I got my feet beneath me, and pushed off of the floor while still squeezing his neck. The force of my push and the weight of his body acted against each other, and I heard his neck snap, and his body went limp.
I let go of him and watched him collapse to the floor, landing on top of his gun, chest down.
Chapter 45
I always remind myself that the first night in any city is always the best. Any break from having to look over my shoulder, no matter how short, is always welcome. The only thing that comes close to the relief of the first night in a new city, is the first morning after that night. I never take for granted the chance to sit in a café, sip a cup of coffee, and watch the rest of the world happen without worrying about which person might try to kill me.
So after a brief rest following my adventures in Dixie County, my first morning in San Francisco was already off to a good start. I chose to stay at a small bed and breakfast, and when I went downstairs the next morning, the couple who owned the place had just begun making breakfast for all of the guests. I’d planned to grab a pastry at a café I’d seen nearby, but the offer of a homemade breakfast was too enticing to ignore. They suggested I pour myself a cup of coffee and wait in the parlor with the other guests, and said they’d call all of us when breakfast was served.
I took my coffee into the parlor and sat in a chair built just before the 1906 earthquake and listened to a seventy-seven-year-old widow tell me about her first cross-country road trip, which she’d just concluded by herself. She’d just finished telling me about a windy night she spent in a tent in Wyoming, when she stopped in the middle of a sentence, looked at the television, and said, “Uh-oh. Someone’s in trouble.”
I looked at the television, at the headline at the bottom of the screen, and asked her to turn up the volume.
“Mr. Curtis was arrested as he reported for work at DEA headquarters this morning. The twenty-two count indictment is the result of anonymous tips sent to the Department of Justice, and alleges that Mr. Curtis has supervised drug smuggling operations throughout the United States for at least the past five years. The U.S. attorney made clear that more indictments would follow, and that the arrest of Mr. Curtis is the tip of the iceberg. He faces more than 150 years in prison if convicted on all counts.”
“He’s screwed,” the widow said, just as one of the owners called us in for breakfast.
I nodded and smiled, and then helped her into the dining room, the smell of bacon wafting through the air.
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Also by Brett Baker
Must Come Down (Book 1 in the Mia Mathis series)
They had the perfect plan. And then she intervened. In the first book of the series Mia Mathis works to uncover a scheme worth billions of dollars.
For the Trees (Book 2 in the Mia Mathis series)
Gruesome murders that hit too close to home. A past filled with enemies. Can Mia Mathis unravel the truth before it’s too late to protect herself?
The Death Market
In this stand-alone novel, Elliot Whitcomb must navigate an illegal, underground market in which investors wager on whether or not a person will die during a specific period of time. His life depends on it.