End Game (Will Robie #5)(58)

“Myriad. Gun running. Intimidation. Racketeering.”

“Human trafficking?” asked Reel. “Drugs?”

“I’ve seen nothing linked to those.” He stood. “I’ve got to get going. I’ll try to have your backs when I can, but I can’t promise I’ll always be there.” He passed Robie a slip of paper. “Here’s a number where you can contact me if you need anything. If I’m still breathing, I’ll get back to you.”

Robie put out his hand. “Thanks, but you’ve done more than enough, Agent Sanders.”

After shaking both their hands Sanders left. A minute later they heard vehicles driving away.

Robie put the slip of paper in his wallet and sat down on the bed. “Well, that puts a whole new spin on things. So do we tell Sheriff Malloy that her sister is dead?”

Reel pondered this for a few moments. “I don’t see how we can and not have her storm that place with her one deputy. With the result they both get killed.”

“So we keep quiet?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, but I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like anything about this damn place,” replied Reel.





CHAPTER





34


“I couldn’t have shot you.”

Robie glanced over at her as the pair was driving toward Lamarre’s place. They had cleaned up and changed out of the clothes Dolph had made them wear. They were both gunned up and watching their vehicle’s mirrors carefully for any sign of pursuers.

It was now around nine at night and car lights could be easily seen. There were none back there.

“There was no reason for both of us to die,” replied Robie.

She shook her head in disagreement. “You dead, me not, what would have been the point?”

“I don’t get you sometimes. No, I don’t get you most of the time.”

She shrugged. “What can I say, Robie? It’s a Mars-Venus thing.”

“No, I don’t think you’re in the same universe as me, actually.”

“On the other hand, I should have shot him.”

“Who?”

“Dolph. I had him on the ground begging for his life. My muzzle was a foot from his chest. One pull, dead.” She paused. “And I didn’t do it.”

“You couldn’t kill the guy in cold blood, asshole or not.”

“We kill in cold blood all the time, Robie.”

“On orders. It’s different when it’s a personal thing.”

“Doesn’t matter. I still should have done it. I would have saved the world a ton of grief. I get a second chance, he’s a dead man.”

And Robie didn’t argue the point.

The house where Lamarre had stayed, according to his boss, was a tumbledown bare-bones cottage, but despite its derelict appearance there was what looked to be a new car parked out front, and they could see lights on inside.

Robie stopped the truck about a hundred feet from the house and they got out, their hands on their backup guns, which had replaced the ones lost to Dolph’s ambush.

“Think we’re going to find a headless body inside?” Reel asked.

“I’ve found out here that anything is possible.”

They approached the front of the house.

Robie touched the hood of the vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser.

“Cold,” he said.

They stepped to the front porch. Reel stood to the right of the door, her gun ready, while Robie rapped on the wood and then stepped to the left.

They heard footsteps padding toward the door.

It opened and a young woman looked back at them.

She was about five four, in her thirties, with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair possessing dark roots. A nose ring hung from each nostril. She had on jeans with a tank top revealing a spread of tattoo that swept over her left shoulder and continued down to her wrist.

It looked to Robie like a woman being swept along by rough water.

“Can I help you?” she said, looking first at Robie and then Reel.

Robie said, “We’re federal agents.”

“Where are your badges?” she demanded.

They held out their creds.

“What do you want?”

“We’re looking for Clément Lamarre. We understand he used to live here.”

“‘Used to’ is right.”

“What’s your name?”

“Do I have to tell you?”

“You don’t have to do anything. But we can take you in for questioning somewhere more formal. And I don’t see how telling us your name is being too invasive.”

“Beverly Drango.”

“This your house?” asked Reel.

“It was my momma’s, and she left it to me when she passed on.”

“You know where Lamarre is?”

“No.”

“When was he last here?” asked Robie.

“I can’t remember.”

“We have his last paycheck,” Robie said. “Two hundred bucks.”

Drango’s eyes bulged. “In cash?”

“No, a check that he has to endorse on the back to cash.”

Her eyes returned to normal. “Figures,” she said disgustedly.