Page 108 of The Fourth Option
“That chick with the bat you put down with Rayne’s drop gun was the only witness?”
“Yeah. There was that kid upstairs in the tub, but he was out cold. He didn’t see shit.”
Steam hissed off the engine cowling as rain hit the hot metal. Gormley glanced at Dupuis, who gave a subtle nod. It hadn’t been the easiest cleanup, but they’d seen worse.
Gormley didn’t like Bates’s long pause back there in his comfy office. It felt like a rebuke he didn’t deserve. “We cleared the scene,” he said. “Bodies, brass. Why? You nervous?”
“Got a call from the Bureau. That agent, Jimenez. She wants to talk to me.”
“Jennifer Jimenez?”
“Yeah.”
Gormley wiped the rain from his eyes. “She came sniffing around me too. I told her it looked like a cartel war—no witnesses, no leads, our jurisdiction.”
“Think she bought it?”
“What else can she do? Now, if they’d identified these two boys at my feet and found out they were our informants, that would look suspicious as fuck and could have led back to us, especially with someone like Jimenez on it. This way, that connection disappears. We did the right thing, boss.”
Dupuis tapped Gormley’s shoulder. “Hey.”
Gormley cupped the phone. “What?”
“Gator nest. See that mound? Mama’s guarding it.”
A low rise of mud and reeds sat just off the bow. A pair of amber eyes glowed above the waterline nearby.
“There’s the bull floating off the bow,” Dupuis said. “Twelve-footer, easy.”
Gormley nodded. “Perfect.”
He brought the phone back to his ear. “Gotta go. We found a good spot.”
“All right. Make sure they don’t float.”
“They won’t.”
Gormley ended the call and slipped the phone back into the pocket beneath his poncho. He stood, the airboat rocking slightly beneath him. The bull gator’s eyes didn’t blink at the waterline.
“Come and get it,” Gormley said into the storm.
They reached for the first body.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE BOMBARDIER ROLLEDto a stop among the other private jets,PJsas Matheson’s friends called them, at the New Orleans Lakefront Fixed Base Operator flight line. Matheson looked out the window and admired the other planes: their size, livery paint, and parking positions. The FBO managers parked the jets in order of size and Matheson’s was at the far end; the wrong end.
Not for long.
The earnings meeting with the shareholders and analysts at the Plaza’s Grand Ballroom had gone well. Interviews were conducted by reporters from national outlets, and all of them led with Genyra Pharmaceuticals exceeding earnings targets and had developed a radical new treatment for suffering cancer patients to replace fentanyl. They explained that fentanyl had become a controlled substance in 1968 as a powerful opioid analgesic for palliative care and that other derivatives like Actiq followed, but even that drug needed a trace of fentanyl to be effective. As Matheson had described it in multiple interviews, with Carolyn Boyle sitting somewhere behind him, the whole country had suffered through an opioid crisis, with fentanyl-laced pills killing more Americans than had been killed in all wars since the end of World War Two. Fentanyl was snuffing out America’s youth. Matheson would be their savior. Xylaxyn would change the industry by improving patient care while eliminating the poison seeping into American communities. As he had repeated in one closing line after another,Genyra is about saving lives, and not just those of cancer patients.
As Kimbel had flown back earlier to prep the New Orleans team after the successes in New York, Matheson immersed himself in the business pages throughout the flight. His stock was surging. More satisfying, the reporters were calling him both a business wunderkind and a leader in cancer care research.
About damned time.
The co-pilot opened the door and heavy salt air rushed in off Lake Pontchartrain. Though called a lake, the enormous body of water was a shallow marsh estuary, connected to the Gulf via the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes. Matheson was born in Louisiana, to unknown parents, adopted and raised by a kind couple who still lived on the far side of the lake. His adoptive father, an HVAC dealer, insisted they fish together for speckled trout on this estuary, dropping lines from a steel boat. Matheson had never been interested, waiting out his father’s lectures and provincial career advice with silent irritation. The old man wanted Derek to join him in the air-conditioning business. “People always need to be comfortable,” he’d say. “There’s a future in that.” A future of shitty houses, bland women, and Chevrolets, Matheson would think to himself. When he returned from an exotic vacation or an important meeting, that swamp air remained a salient reminder of his roots, taunting him that no matter how hard he tried, his feet would always remain stuck in the thick swampy mud.
Today was different. Matheson welcomed the thick air. He was returning triumphant.
