Page 49 of Maverick
I took a tentative sip. Maybe I could stall for time. Surely someone would be coming to pump gas soon and could help.
“Why are you doing this?” How did the man go from buying tomatoes to a killing spree?
“Because you ruined me! All of you. I tried to go the nice route, even offered you a fair price for your dad’s land. But you didn’t want to play nice, did you? Now DRINK!”
As I lifted the bottle for another small sip, Ivan tipped the bottom of the bottle so that the water gushed out, going down my throat and over my face. I bent forward, choking, and Ivan turned to the trunk. He pulled out my suitcases and pushed me inside.
My vision doubled as I looked up at him. What the hell was in those pills? Everything was so fuzzy. Maybe I could take a nap.
“I thought I was fucked and ready to go out in a blaze of glory. But now? Fuck that. The skin trade still works. A fancy bitch like you will go for a good amount. Enough to get me a ticket to Argentina where I can start over. Say goodnight, Katie.”
The trunk slammed shut as sleep overcame me.
29
Maverick
Icalled the prospect over to search Larry’s house for the rest of the guns. Dan was a doting older brother to two younger siblings. I figured he’d had plenty of experience seeking lost objects.
And it turned out, I was right. He’d found one gun in a stock pot in a kitchen cabinet, and another on the top shelf of the linen closet. I cross-referenced the guns Larry bought from me; all of those were accounted for except one. I sent Dan to check the crawl space, but it wasn’t there either. Oh well, we’d find it eventually.
Based on Kat’s wishes, the guns would be locked up in my shop, waiting to be sold on consignment. Well, except for the one he used on the intruder. That gun no longer existed—it had been dismantled and its pieces scattered in four different locations. Two on Larry’s property and two on ours.
Miss Patsy and Leroy took care of the body like they always did. It was almost time to do a sweep. They were good at eliminating evidence, but pigs didn’t eat everything.
Every few years we had the prospects go through the pen with metal detectors to pick out any leftover evidence like a tooth with a filling or some kind of medical shit. We took anything that might be body-related on a late night deep-sea fishing trip. It was a system that worked well. Not that any policeman had ever come searching through the pigs’ shithole, but there was a first time for everything.
“So, what now?” Bear passed me a beer as we stood in Larry’s pristine kitchen and living room.
Baller had ID’d the dead guy as Viktor Romanov, one of the few crew members that stayed out of jail from the Volkovs’ fall. Viktor was the guy in the photos with the drip torch, but he wasn’t the one calling the shots.
“We could wait and see who turns up.” I took a sip. “Someone’s got to come looking for Viktor eventually, and a Reaper can be here to greet him.”
A feral smile crossed Bear’s lips. “And escort them to the shed.”
Not a bad plan, but it was too passive. We’d been waiting long enough. “Do we know where Viktor was staying?” I asked. “Would it be too much to hope his boss is sitting in a hotel room and we can end this now?”
“Baller’s working on it, but my guess is they aren’t that stupid. But you never know. In the meantime—”
The front door crashed open and Larry stomped inside.
“See, you mean old man!” Tracker shouted as he limped behind him. “Your house is right here. I wasn’t keeping you prisoner.”
“That’s what all the kidnappers say when they’ve been caught! You’ve got until I find my gun to get the hell off my land. Otherwise, I’m defending myself by any means necessary!”
Fucking hell. “Larry? What’s going on?”
“Oh, Mav, good to see you. You too, Wolf.”
“Bear.”
Larry shrugged. “Close enough. Maybe y’all can help me out. This man kidnapped me and kept me locked in his house in the burbs.” He shuddered. “But I escaped and forced him to bring me here.”
“Forced him?” I asked, my eyes darting to Tracker.
Larry held up a pocketknife. “Threated to slice his balls off.”
Tracker was recovering from a serious injury, but there was no way Larry’d taken him with a pocketknife.
