A moment passed.
“You want to tell me about it?” Hannah said.
I closed my eyes, praying for a dreamless night. “No.”
The AC turned off, and the room was completely silent.
“Good night, Arlo.” She reached across the bed and patted my arm.
Her touch was soft and comforting, and soon I fell asleep.
My wife came to me in my dreams, as I knew she would.
The last time we made love, a crisp fall night that might as well have been yesterday, the details were so clear in my mind.
The kids were asleep. The house was quiet. Moonlight streamed through our bedroom window. She clutched my back, pulled me deeper. Her breath came in shallow gasps, a strand of hair streaked across her face.
The tingling began in the pit of my stomach.
I tried to hold back, tried to wait for her.
The tingling grew stronger, and I realized it was not the feeling of sex.
It was fear.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Nine Months Ago
The diner was in East Dallas, the kind of place where the busboys carry blackjacks and the cook learned his trade in prison.
I ate there at least once a week, occasionally meeting with low-level informants who knew to find me there, people looking to drop a dime on someone who had screwed them over on a drug deal or some other transaction in the underworld economy.
The diner was sandwiched between a strip club and a store where you sold blood for cash, in a neighborhood only slightly less charming than a bail bondsman’s waiting room.
The woman sitting across from me was named Chloe. She was a lieutenant with the Dallas Police Department, the vice squad, a third-generation cop. Her father had been one of the officers who’d helped arrest Lee Oswald at the Texas Theater that November afternoon in 1963. Her grandfather, a deputy sheriff back in the 1930s, had been a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
It was lunchtime.
I had been in a booth by myself, eating a hamburger, when Chloe slid across from me, uninvited.
She was in uniform. Her hair was pulled back in a bun, which accentuated the angles of her face, the jutting jaw and long, thin nose, the wide cheekbones. Her eyes were the color of concrete, cold and hard, and never seemed to blink.
I was on duty, badge pinned to my breast.
“You must be Arlo Baines.” She introduced herself. “Look at you in your starched shirt and your cowboy hat. Aren’t you a picture?”
Before I could reply, a half dozen other officers sat down at the tables around us.
Some were in uniform. Others wore tactical garb—utility pants, combat boots, SWAT T-shirts. They were all big men, stocky, more than six feet tall, no doubt chosen for their ability to intimidate.
The tables where they sat were occupied with other patrons, but that didn’t seem to matter. On any given day, half the customers at this particular diner were either just out of jail or had outstanding warrants they were dodging. The civilians got up and left, meals unfinished, coffee still steaming in their cups.
After a few moments, no one was in the dining room but me and a bunch of cops.
“My first husband wanted to be a Texas Ranger,” Chloe said. “But he gave me gonorrhea.”
“What’s one got to do with the other?” I asked.
She glared at me with her unblinking eyes. “You think it’s OK for a disease-ridden piece of shit to be a Ranger?”
I didn’t reply. I looked at the other cops. They were all staring at me with deadpan expressions.
“He quit the DPS not long after I divorced him,” she said. “Everybody decided that was in his best interest. Last I heard he was selling used cars in Lufkin.”
“What’s with all the muscle?” I pointed to the other officers.
“I like strong men around me.” She pulled a pack of Capri Ultra Lights from her pocket. “Are you strong, Arlo?”
I took another bite of my burger. Chewed. Swallowed. Drank some iced tea. Thought about finishing the burger, but I was getting full. So I pushed away the plate.
When it was obvious that I was done with my meal, Chloe lit a cigarette. Smoking was illegal in Dallas restaurants, but I didn’t think the manager was going to come over and complain.
“Nice talking to you.” I started to slide from the booth.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t go just yet.” She tapped some ash onto my plate.
I stopped. “Are you threatening me, Chloe?”
No good deed goes unpunished, the favor I’d performed for my father-in-law being a prime example. I should have impressed upon the Frisella brothers a little more forcefully the need to not discuss our business together.
“Not at all,” she said. “I’m just giving you some advice.”
“I don’t need advice from Dallas PD.” I stood, headed toward the exit.
The other cops didn’t try to stop me. I’d gotten about ten feet away when Chloe spoke again.
“Dr. Sanders,” she said. “A three-thirty appointment, right?”
My blood felt like it had stopped flowing. My skin turned to ice.
I turned around. “What did you say?”
My voice was low and husky. Sounds were muted, my vision tunneled.
“That’s your son’s orthodontist. Dr. Sanders. His next appointment is tomorrow afternoon, right?”
“You fucking bitch.” I tried to control the shaking of my limbs.
“Your daughter’s got ballet at four fifteen, so your wife, she’s gonna be spread thin, running all over town.”
I reached for my pistol, but two officers from the nearest table had been waiting for that. One had his gun out already. He aimed at my face. The other took my weapon from the holster. Then he removed the backup piece in my hip pocket, the knife from my belt.
Chloe said, “Sit back down, Arlo. We’re not finished yet.”
I reached for my cell phone, the last weapon I had. One of the officers grabbed that, too. He took the phone and my guns and my knife and put everything on a table across the room, a long thirty feet away.
Another officer pushed me back to the booth, forced me to sit. I resisted the urge to lash out at the man. He had too many allies, and I was unarmed. The best course of action, the only one, was to bide my time.
She waved away the other cops. They retreated to the front of the diner, out of earshot.
“The duffel bag you got from the Frisella brothers,” she said. “I need it back.”
“Do you have any idea what it’s gonna be like when every single Texas Ranger in the state comes after you?”
“Shut your piehole, Arlo, and listen to me.”
I stared at her face, imagining those gray eyes empty and dead.
“The contents of that bag weren’t theirs to give,” she said. “Or yours to take.”
I didn’t reply.
“If you hand over the bag, then nobody’s gonna hurt your family.” She lit another cigarette. “That’s deal point number one.”
I weighed the odds of reaching across the table and strangling her before the other officers stopped me.
“Deal point number two,” she said. “If, after you give me the bag, you come looking for any sort of payback, you need to get it through your head that I will be unable to guarantee the safety of your wife and kids.”
I flexed my fingers, tensed my legs.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
My breathing was shallow and rapid. I couldn’t reply if I wanted to.
One of the cops moved a little closer, still out of hearing range. He pulled a Taser from his belt and held it by his side.
Chloe leaned across the table. “Say that you understand, Arlo. Say, I understand.”
My stomach churned, bile in my throat. After a moment, I whispered, “I understand.”
“Whew.” She leaned back. “Glad we got that over with.”
I felt like I’d run a marathon. My heart pounded. My skin was sweaty.
“Now let’s work out the details,” she said. “And those are really simple, so I don’t expect we’ll have much trouble. Ready? You give me the fucking bag of money.”
I took several deep breaths, willed myself to remain calm. The details were going to be harder than she expected.
“I don’t have the bag,” I said.
She stared at me, head cocked.
“The money is in the bank. It’s not mine to give back anymore.”
“Oh, fuck a duck.” She massaged her temple. “My partners are not going to be happy to hear that.”
“The Frisellas owed that money for a real-estate loan. They settled a debt.”
She rolled her eyes. “The Frisella boys are hemorrhoids with bad suits. What they owe to some bank is immaterial to this situation.”
She pulled out a phone and sent a text. The phone dinged in reply. She texted back, and a period of time passed. Probably only a couple of minutes, but it felt like hours. Chloe drummed her fingers on the tabletop. She lit another cigarette, took two puffs, and stubbed it out.
The phone rang. She answered. A one-sided conversation ensued. She listened a lot, occasionally saying “yes” or “uh-huh.”
The called ended, and she turned her attention back to me.
“Five o’clock today. That’s when we need the money.”
“I told you. I don’t have it.”
“You won’t have any trouble finding the drop-off location,” she said. “It’s your house.”
My heart started pounding again.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Arlo. We’re there already, keeping your family company.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
I awoke in darkness, drenched in sweat. I reached for Chloe’s throat, but my limbs were paralyzed.
An unfamiliar hand stroked my face. Arms I didn’t know cradled me.
A woman’s voice spoke in a soothing tone. “Shh. It’s OK.”
I sat upright.
Hannah was next to me in the bed. “You had a bad dream.”
I looked around the room. Boone’s house. Piedra Springs.
“Who’s Chloe?” she asked.
“Wh-what?”
“You were thrashing around, mumbling that name.”
“She’s a . . .” I couldn’t find the words.
Air caught in my chest, not going in or out. A metallic taste filled my mouth.
“It’s OK,” Hannah said. “Relax.”
I concentrated on breathing, big, slow lungfuls.
“Is Chloe your—”
“No, no. That’s not my wife.” I paused. “Chloe is . . . she’s dead now, too.”
Hannah didn’t say anything.
I got out of bed, stumbled to the bathroom. I drank a glass of water, then slid back under the covers.
“Are you OK?” she asked.
“I haven’t been OK in a long time.”
We were silent for a moment.
“Me neither.” She fluffed her pillow. “Let’s go back to sleep.”
I closed my eyes, and fatigue overtook me. Soon I drifted off.
Hannah and I woke the next day when the sun streamed through the bedroom window.
Though we hadn’t been physically intimate, there was an awkwardness between us like lovers after a first encounter. Hannah slid from the bed, pulling her T-shirt down on her legs. She grabbed her suitcase and disappeared into the room next door.
Twenty minutes later we met downstairs, cleaned up, ready to start the day.
Boone was in the kitchen, cooking bacon. A Mr. Coffee percolated on the countertop, nearly finished brewing a full pot. There was no sign of Suzy.
“Y’all want breakfast?” he asked.
Hannah shook her head at the same time as I said, “Yes.”
Boone chuckled.
“We’ve got a long day,” I said. “We need to fuel up.”
Hannah acquiesced as Boone whipped some eggs into a mixing bowl. The old man seemed contented, puttering around in the kitchen. His hair wasn’t in a ponytail, the gray locks dangling around his shoulders. I wondered how long it had been since he’d cooked breakfast for more than one person.
“While we eat,” I said, “you can tell us about the banker in town.”
He removed the bacon from the pan. “Why do you want to talk to him? He’s like an impacted bowel but without the pleasant memories.”
Hannah poured three cups of coffee. “Bankers make good sources. They know a lot about what’s going on.”
“They also crack easily,” I said. “If you know how to break them.”
Boone let me borrow his car again. He walked us out to the garage after we’d eaten.
“Those kids aren’t in town anymore,” he said.
“How do you know?” I asked. “I thought you were supposed to get them to safety.”
“That’s making the assumption they still want to get away.”
“What do you mean?”
“Their mama’s dead, and they’re all alone,” Hannah said. “Odds are they went home.”
“The compound.” I sighed.
Boone nodded.
“Think about it,” Hannah said. “That’s the only world they’ve ever known.”
“Back to what’s familiar,” Boone said. “They were talking about doing that the night before last.”
“And you’re just now telling me?” I tried not to sound angry.
“What difference would it make?” he said. “Not like you can just waltz in and find them.”
No one spoke.
“You’re not thinking about actually going there, are you?” Boone asked.
Silence. Hannah and I looked at each other.
“Go talk to the banker or whatever makes you feel good. Then leave town.”
“We’ll try to get your car back in one piece.” I headed to the driver’s side.
Before we talked to the banker, I decided to get a gun.
It was a little after nine in the morning when I parked in the lot between the feed store and the bar, the place where Molly’s body had been discovered. Both businesses were closed, and the crime scene tape was gone.
At the rear of the bar was a large dumpster that reached halfway up the wall.
I hopped on the dumpster and then pulled myself onto the roof. The movement sent a spike of pain through my knee, like an ice pick on the inside trying to poke out. As soon as the pain appeared, it just as quickly vanished. I walked around the rooftop for a moment, working out the kinks and various aches from yesterday.
The pistols I’d taken off the guards the night before last were where I had tossed them. In the middle of the roof, both lying by an empty wine bottle and a faded running shoe.
The guns were Glock 9mms, a workhorse of a pistol, pretty much indestructible. I picked one at random and fieldstripped the other, dropping the frame in the dumpster and leaving the barrel on the roof.
The magazine of the one I kept was full, one round in the chamber. Eighteen bullets total.
I slid the pistol in the waistband of my jeans behind my hip and covered the grip with my T-shirt. Then I climbed down and got back in the Crown Victoria.
When the door shut, Hannah asked, “Did you get one for me, too?”
; “No.” I started the car. “You see anything that needs shooting, you let me know, and I’ll take care of it.”
Turns out Boone didn’t live in the biggest house in Piedra Springs. The president of the First State Bank did, a two-story colonial on the northern fringes of town.
Where Boone’s place was run-down, the banker’s home was immaculate. White columns gleamed in the morning sun, stark against the deep green of the lawn and the spray of color in the flower beds.
A late-model Chevrolet Malibu was parked across the street, the only vehicle not in a driveway. The Malibu faced east and had a tiny sticker on the front window that looked like it could have been a bar code for a rental-car company.
A man in his thirties with close-cropped blond hair sat in the driver’s seat. He watched us go by, craning his neck as we passed.
At the end of the block, I turned right and headed north, intending to circle back around.
But there was nowhere to circle back. The street morphed into a state highway a hundred yards later as the city limit sign appeared. Ahead of us lay the open range of West Texas.
I pulled onto the shoulder. “The guy in the Malibu. What’d you make of him?”
Hannah stared into the distance. “Seemed like he didn’t belong.”
I nodded.
“He looked like a cop,” she said. “Maybe a federal agent?”
“Maybe.” I got out of the car, popped open the trunk.
Boone struck me as a resourceful fellow, so it came as no surprise that the rear of the old Crown Victoria was filled with all sorts of useful stuff. Tire irons and towropes, a can of WD-40, duct tape. A tool kit with enough tools to rebuild the engine on a ’56 Dodge.
I debated my choices and selected two items—the duct tape and the WD-40—and got back in the car.
I made a U-turn and drove back the way we came, heading in the direction the Chevy was pointed. I slowed and parked behind the car. The man with the blond hair was facing away from us.
The Devil's Country [Kindle in Motion] Page 17