The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(58)

27



Lewis’s tan Yukon with its tubular steel bumper was parked up the street from Dinah’s place, with a clear view of the house. The Yukon was shut off, and the windows were cracked open a half-inch. Someone sitting in a car was easy to miss, but tailpipe exhaust or fogged windows would get noticed by anyone watching Dinah’s house for more than a few minutes. This wasn’t Lewis’s first rodeo.

Peter stopped, leaned across the seat, and rolled down his passenger window. “Anything?” he said.

Lewis wore a thick down coat and a black watch cap. “Nothing.” His breath steamed in the cold. “No dude with scars, no black SUV. I’m starting to think you made this motherfucker up.”

“He didn’t get past you, did he?”

Lewis gave him a look.

Peter grinned. “What about the alley?”

“Nino’s there now. We trade off.”

“Does Dinah know you’re here?”

Lewis shook his head. It didn’t seem to make him happy.

“I’m picking her up now,” said Peter. “You can go home, get warm. Come back in the morning. I’ll be parked out here all night.”

“You owe me, motherfucker.”

“Hey,” said Peter. “I just stepped into this. It’s not my fault you got pulled in.”

“Uh-huh,” said Lewis. “I know what you doing. But that ain’t what I mean. Nino all banged up, and Ray out with a ruptured fucking testicle, thanks to you. And I got something going in four days. So if Ray not good to go by then, you gonna get drafted.”

“We’ll see,” said Peter. “And thanks for this.”

“Don’t thank me yet, motherfucker.”

—

When Peter pulled up, Dinah came down the steps of the new front porch. She wore her good wool coat with a yellow scarf. He hadn’t really talked to her in a day and a half, and a lot had happened since then.

He got out to open the door for her. She stopped him on the curb.

“What happened to you?” She leaned in to examine the bruise on his face and touched it with cool, professional fingertips. Her breath was warm on his skin. It smelled like peppermint.

“A misunderstanding,” said Peter.

She gave him a look, still leaning in close. “How does the other guy look?”

“Two of them, actually,” said Peter, suppressing a smile. “We have a lot to talk about. But I have something to show you first. Should we go?”

She got in the truck and they drove toward Jimmy’s apartment. Dinah rubbed her hands together. “I’m cold. Do you mind rolling your window up?”

“I can’t,” said Peter. He cranked up the heat. “The window’s broken.”

“I am so sorry.” She shook her head. “This neighborhood is just sad. I have got to get out of here. Did they steal anything?”

“That’s not it,” he said. “Somebody shot at me.”

“What?” Dinah was horrified. “Where? How?”

“It’s okay,” said Peter. “I’ve been shot at before.” He didn’t want to tell her he’d killed the man who’d shot at him. He didn’t want to tell her about his latest meeting with the scarred man, either. “But I think I got someone’s attention.”

“Was it the man with the scars who shot at you?”

Peter shook his head. “No. But that’s probably who sent the guy. I’m working on it.”

He turned at Jimmy’s block and found a parking spot. He pointed at the duplex house. “That’s where Jimmy was staying. The keys from his pocket fit the door to the upstairs apartment.”

Dinah watched the house through the glass. She didn’t speak.

Peter watched the line of her jaw, the curve of her neck. The pulse of the vein beneath her skin. “We could go in if you want,” he said. “I met his landlady. Jimmy told her he was going on a trip. He paid his rent three months in advance. He was looking for a Marine veteran who had gone missing.”

Dinah put her hand to her mouth and turned to Peter.

For a brief moment, it was the face of a child who had been told a terrible truth of the grown-up world. But Dinah was an adult. She knew what it meant.

Peter said it anyway. “It wasn’t suicide.”

He saw the muscles in her jaw clench and knot. She grabbed the edges of the seat with her fists and pressed her feet to the floor as if she were setting herself against the waters of a flood. She closed her eyes, turned inward, and took a deep, shuddering breath.

Then she turned and looked Peter hard in the face. “Tell me everything you know.”

He told her about meeting Miss Rosetta Phelps, about Mingus being Jimmy’s dog, about searching Jimmy’s apartment. He told her about the kid with the assault rifle and being grilled by Lipsky. He told her about going back to Lewis’s building, and the fight with Nino and Ray, and how Lewis had promised he would watch her house.

“I don’t believe it. Lewis said that?”

Peter nodded. “When you’re a guy like Lewis, all you have is your word. Your own sense of honor.”

“Lewis is a criminal,” she said. “A criminal and a killer.”

Jimmy was a killer. It was part of his job description. Peter was a killer, too, and now a criminal. He didn’t bring that up. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Lewis will keep his word.”