Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(80)

Peter looked at June, who was back on her laptop.

“Yeah. You could do a drive-by on my friend’s place. I’m wondering if someone is watching. We could use some kind of handle. We still don’t know who they are.” He gave Lewis her address.

“Got it. What else?”

“We need to ditch our ride. You got a car?”

“Yeah, a rental. I’ll call when I’m done, maybe an hour. Let me know then where to pick you up.”

“Sounds good. Hey, Lewis?”

“Now what, motherfucker? You holding me up here.” Lewis putting some street in his voice.

Peter could hear the tilted smile.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Shee-it. Jarhead gone all sentimental.”

Then he hung up.

Peter turned to June. “So, you want to meet my friend Lewis?”

She looked thoughtful. “Is he cute?”

“No,” said Peter. “Lewis is definitely not cute.”

? ? ?

THEY KEPT DRIVING SOUTH. Peter weighed different ways to get rid of the car. He could leave it in a high-crime area with the keys in the ignition and hope it got stolen. That way at least the local chop shop got something out of it. But he and June had been in and out of the car for days, it was loaded with their DNA. Blood and hair. If it was spotted by a neighbor at the scene of the shooting, the cops might find it before the crooks.

So he stopped at a service station, bought a two-gallon gas can, and filled it up.

The matches were free.

It wasn’t easy finding someplace inconspicuous, because, like many growing cities in the West, Seattle wasn’t big on zoning. Development seemed driven by views, greenspace, and waterways, so a nice neighborhood might overlook a railroad yard, and a golf course could stand beside a battered commercial strip. Real estate was expensive, so businesses and hipsters were quickly colonizing the crappy neighborhoods.

But between Google Maps and June’s explorations, they found a long industrial zone in a suburb between two freeways, with a wide vacant area awaiting redevelopment. In order not to be the only car in the area, June parked outside a busy microbrewery-slash-restaurant a few blocks from the vacant lot. Peter’s phone rang again.

“Your friend definitely got company,” said Lewis. He described single watchers in four different cars.

“Any Ford Explorers?”

“No, they diversified,” said Lewis. “Prob’ly personal cars, nothing fancy. But careful. Motors off, windows cracked, slouched down low. One at each end of the block, one pretty much right across the street, and another around the corner, where you might sneak in the back.”

Peter thought of the neighbor with the woodpile. That would have been his way in. These people weren’t bad.

“They get a look at you?”

“Jarhead, who you think you talkin’ to?”

“You’re a family man now. I thought you might be a little out of practice.”

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that. Anyway, they got tiny little cameras planted all over, I counted eight. A little weird, though. They cover the same angles as the cars. Like the guys in the cars don’t know about the cameras.”

Peter looked at June. “You don’t have any security cameras, do you?”

She shook her head. “Leo might have put some in, I guess. But I never saw any.”

“Okay,” said Peter. “Lewis, you might as well come get us.” He gave Lewis the name of the brewpub. “I’m in a parking lot off South Sixth on the west side of the street, a green Honda minivan. We need to offload a few things.”

“Lemme find you on the map. Okay, I got you. Thirty minutes. I’m in a silver Escalade.”

June had picked up her new laptop, which had been open and running since they’d gotten to the master sergeant’s house. She was absorbed in the pale glow of the screen, so Peter closed his eyes and went over what they knew. It wasn’t much.

When he heard her speak, his eyes popped open.

“Holy shit, yeah!” she said, and thumped her hands on the ceiling. “That’s how Mama likes it.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.” Her eyes were bright. “I think I just found the bastard. Charles Dawes the Fourth. Ex-CIA asshole and founder of Citadel Security.”

Lights flashed across the bushes as a car slipped into the space beside theirs. A silver Cadillac Escalade.

Lewis, right on schedule.

“Time to go,” said Peter. “Grab your stuff. I’ll get the gear. You take the front seat.” He opened the rear hatches of both cars, and began transferring their stuff. His waterlogged suit, camping equipment, the HK assault rifle still reeking of spent powder.

June packed her laptop bag, got out of the van with the Thai leftovers, then opened the passenger door of the Escalade. “Hi, I’m June.”

Peter heard Lewis’s low, heating-oil voice, slippery and dark. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

Peter closed the hatches, walked to June’s side of the Escalade, and tapped on the glass. She rolled it down, her eyes bright with amusement. “You were wrong, Peter. He’s both handsome and charming.”

Lewis flashed the widest version of his tilted grin. “I got out early for good behavior.”