Poisonfeather (Gibson Vaughn #2)(92)

What he still didn’t know was whether Lea was alive or dead, only that she wasn’t here. And that left only one option.

Niobe.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN


Not long after midnight Gibson arrived back in Niobe. He powered up the Stingray and programmed it to sniff for Lea’s cell phone. Then he rolled slowly up Tarte Street, looking for signs of life, but the town was as still as a held breath. At the liquor store, a tumbleweed dog aloof on its haunches watched him go. As the familiar outline of the Wolstenholme Hotel loomed up on his left, the Stingray began to ping, the signal strengthening as he passed the front entrance. Lea’s phone was inside. He glanced up through the glass doors into the dark of the lobby. A figure in the gloom stepped back and out of sight, or it might have been nothing but a shadow thrown by his headlights.

The hotel’s side parking lot was deserted. As were the five spots in front of the Toproll—a first in Gibson’s experience. He parked in back beneath the stairs to Lea’s apartment, tossed his baseball cap on the dashboard, and scratched his scalp hard with both hands. No sleep in the past twenty-four hours had him feeling like a tire with no tread left.

A cinder block propped open the Toproll’s back door. He counted that as an invitation and let himself inside. Faint music led him through the kitchen to the swinging doors that opened out to a nearly empty bar. Peering out, Gibson saw Margo behind the bar and Old Charlie at his regular perch, keeping a lonely vigil over a shot and beer. He found the man a comforting sight.

Gibson took a seat, and Margo came down the bar to see what he wanted.

“Well, well. The prodigal asshole returns.”

“Coffee,” he said. “Please.”

She poured him a cup. “Fresh pot.”

“Sugar?”

She slapped a caddy down on the bar.

“Where is everyone?”

“No one came in tonight, so I closed early.”

“How come?”

“You know how come.”

“What’s the sheriff think?”

“Ain’t seen the sheriff all day. Jimmy Temple neither. Hotel’s been shut up tight since the fifth floor came back from wherever they went. Then the phones went out—landlines and cell. Internet too. That was two hours ago now.”

“Is that all?” Trying to buck himself up with a lame joke.

“And I’m stuck with him?” She pointed to Old Charlie.

“You never had it so good,” Old Charlie muttered.

“Lea with them?” Gibson knew they had her phone, and that probably meant they had Lea, but he would love visual confirmation before making his next move.

“Lea quit and moved out this morning. She’s long gone.”

“You really believe that?”

“No,” Margo said and warmed up his coffee. “She went to the prison.”

Gibson filled Margo in on the rest. How from the prison she’d gone to the airfield with Charles Merrick. The text messages. He described what he’d found at the bottom of the hill.

“Why didn’t you stop her?”

“I think there was no stopping any of us.”

“Damn, but you’re a bunch of fools.”

Truer words had never been spoken; still, there was a silver lining. Gibson knew the fifth floor hadn’t gotten what it had come for at the airfield. How could it? There was no money to get—Gibson having finished the job that Martin Yardas had begun years before. But Emerson wouldn’t have taken Charles Merrick at his word. They’d have to interrogate him, and that would require time and privacy. Why else come back to the hotel at all? A town this size probably had a single trunk line that handled phone and data; knocking it out had put Niobe on an island. For one night, the fifth floor owned Niobe, and that was all the time they’d need to extract their mistress’s pound of flesh. Gibson didn’t like to think about what might be happening over in the hotel. Especially since Charles Merrick couldn’t give them what she wanted.

He needed a plan.

“What are we gonna do?” Margo asked with a bartender’s clairvoyance.

“Let me get a whiskey.”

“Not sure drinking is a solution,” Margo said.

“Actually, make it two. I’ll be right back.”

“Now we’re cooking with gas,” Old Charlie cracked.

Gibson went out through the kitchen to the back door, ready to win a bet with himself. Sure enough, the gray Scion idled beside the van. Behind the wheel, Gibson’s faithful shadow glowered at him. Rather than glower back, Gibson smiled. He felt a sense of admiration for Swonger. A camaraderie that surprised him, especially given all the trouble Swonger had caused him. Whatever else there was to say about Gavin Swonger, there was absolutely no quit in him. Didn’t mean that Gibson didn’t want to throttle him, and strangely that gave him sympathy for all the people in his life who wanted to throttle Gibson. An insight into what it must be like to care about him. He waved for Swonger to join him inside and went back to his two tumblers of whiskey.

“You gonna drink both of those?” Old Charlie inquired.

“Don’t know yet,” Gibson replied.

After a minute, Swonger eased through the kitchen door and stood there warily. “What do you want?”

“Talk.”