The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(62)

I slid past lines of preamble and jargon, down to the meat of the contract. My finger froze on the page. “Holy shit.”

“What?” Caitlin said, glancing over as she revved the Barracuda’s engine.

“Calypso wasn’t kidding when he said Roth was bound for greater things, or that this was his most ambitious project in centuries. Cait…Roth didn’t sell his soul for the Senate. He wants to be the president.”

“Ambitious is right. Still, wouldn’t be the first time we’ve put a man in the Oval Office.”

I looked over at her.

“No, not that one,” she said. “And not that one, either.”

“Since when can you read minds?”

She smiled and pulled out of the parking spot, gliding onto the open road and aiming for the highway on-ramp.

“I can’t,” she said. “I can just read you.”

“Can Calypso actually pull it off?”

“He wouldn’t have taken the contract if he didn’t think he could. The more pressing question is what this means for us. He was deadly serious, Daniel. We can’t do anything that puts Roth in mortal danger or jeopardizes his chances of success.”

“In other words,” I said, “we can’t expose him. If he gets implicated along with Carmichael and Ausar or worse yet, arrested—”

“Bye-bye, White House,” Caitlin said, finishing my thought.

“We can still use him,” I said. I rolled up the contract and tied the ribbon around it. “And we can still use this. I’ve got an idea.”

We rolled along down US-95. Caitlin found a blues station broadcasting out of Reno, but the tinny recording was just a ghost of a live show. She twirled the old radio’s dial until it landed on dance music. Thumping, pulsing bass carried us out into the desert night.

“What’s the plan?” she said.

“Roth thinks Lauren is his best hope,” I told her. “Let’s disabuse him of that notion.”





Thirty



I fell into a fitful sleep around the time the last radio station died, leaving us in the long dark silence between cities. I woke to soft sunlight and dusty streets, home again.

“You should have woken me up. I would have taken a turn driving,” I said, wincing as I shifted in my seat. A jolt of pain shot up my neck, punishing me for sleeping slumped against the passenger door.

“You needed your rest,” Caitlin said. “Besides, I’ve never driven a car with a hemi before.”

I eyed the dashboard clock. We’d made great time on our way back. Suspiciously great time.

“Cait? Exactly how fast were you driving?”

“I drove five miles under the speed limit, stayed in the slow lane, and made sure to properly signal at all posted turns,” she said. “Honest.”

Now I was glad I’d slept through the ride home. My blood pressure was high enough already. I had a message from Bentley waiting on my phone, and I called him back.

“I have good news!” he said. I hadn’t heard him sounding that chipper in a while.

“So do I,” I said, “but let’s hear yours first.”

“I think we’ve found the place. The source of Meadow Brand’s minions. There’s a furniture workshop here in town, Y&M Custom Woodworking, and they handle all kinds of special requests. Well, I gave them a call and indicated I was in the market for a human-sized armature doll.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “They’ve already got ’em in stock.”

“More or less. The gentleman I spoke to said that he’d already fulfilled several requests for that very item lately, and he invited me to stop in and discuss the particulars.”

I smiled. “Fantastic. Pick up anything hinky about the guy? Like he might know what he’s doing or who he’s really working for?”

“Not at all. He seemed a little befuddled by the request and asked if there was some sort of big art project in the offing. Brand is keeping him in the dark.”

Even better. I got the address and passed it on to Caitlin, who pulled a U-turn at the next stoplight.

“What do you think?” she said. “Find out when she’s making her next pickup, then ambush her? Deny Lauren an ally?”

“I’ve been looking forward to putting a bullet between Meadow’s eyes, and no one can say she doesn’t have it coming. Lauren’s ally, though? I’m not so sure. Last time we faced off, Lauren almost locked her out of her safe room while Sullivan and his Choirboys were tearing up the joint. I’ve gotten the idea that Lauren uses Meadow like a junkyard dog. She’s rabid, vicious, and pretty much disposable the second Lauren doesn’t need her anymore.”

“The question then becomes does Lauren still need her?” Caitlin said. “And if not, how can we turn that to our advantage?”

Y&M was tucked away on a backstreet, inside what used to be an auto repair shop. I could still read the old lettering reading “Tire and Battery” under the new coat of paint on the sign out front. They had the old garage bay doors open, letting natural light stream into the grease-stained concrete hull where a couple of guys in T-shirts and jeans labored over a screaming table saw. They powered down the saw as we walked across the tiny parking lot.