Smitty busied himself cleaning the service bay floor. Someone came to the door shortly after he started. Smitty’s heart raced. Did the cops find out already? Smitty’s anxiety eased when he realized it was a customer wanting to drop off a car. He claimed he needed to clean up an oil spill before he could reopen. The man said he’d return later in the afternoon. Smitty heaved a sigh of relief and got back to work.
A few months ago, a large enforcer named Bobby threatened Smitty over Jake’s whereabouts. Tyler shot and killed him. It was the first time Smitty saw a fresh corpse up close—not a prepared body at a funeral. Bobby’s face still wore a surprised expression below the bullet hole in the center of his forehead. Smitty shuddered at the memory. He learned about cleaning up blood out of necessity and figured he’d never need to use it again.
Then, the events of today happened. Some part of Smitty understood what happened. One of the guys brandished a shotgun, and the other carried a pistol in his back waistband. They came to do one thing, and Tyler did what he needed to do. Still, no one had so much as slipped and fallen in the shop the entire time Smitty owned it. In the last four months, he’d been forced to deal with the fallout of three dead bodies. At least the first one had been his problem. These two came because Tyler couldn’t let something go.
Smitty scrubbed the floor clean and then used a bleach spray to finish. He put all the rags and towels into a paper bag, set it in an empty drum outside, and burned it all. While the fire crackled, Smitty returned inside and accessed the security system. The guys coming into the store appeared on two different cameras. The lone one in the bay picked up some of the action, including the second man getting shot and collapsing.
Smitty erased the footage. The system moved recordings to the cloud automatically overnight, but if he deleted something, it wouldn’t get archived. He hoped. Smitty dumped the entire day’s video so far and started anew. As he sat in the chair, a police car drove by. Smitty watched it keep going up Belair Road. He didn’t release his breath until it disappeared from view.
Lexi stifled a yawn. Professor Lord would never be confused for someone interesting or exciting. The same criticism could be levied at economics. Lexi understood money and basic personal finance—her father insisted on it even before she lived under his roof. The rest was a bunch of theory and math she really didn’t care about. Putting freshman year and all these gen-ed courses behind her couldn’t happen soon enough.
The front door opened downstairs. Lexi glanced at the clock on her PC. It was just past 1400 hours. Early for her dad to be home. She turned off her video—the TA might dock her for it, but half the students showed up as black squares on the screen all the time—and walked to the top of the stairs. “Dad?”
“Down here,” he said.
She joined him on the first floor. “You’re home early.”
“Kind of a rough day.” Tyler opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. He held it up. “Want one?”
“I might need one to make it through econ today,” Lexi said. Her dad handed her the longneck and took another one out for himself. “Everything all right at the shop?”
A long pull of the amber liquid prefaced his answer. “Not really.”
“You’ve seemed a little distracted for a day or so now.” Lexi frowned. “Is Smitty going to fire you from your first real job?”
Her father offered a faint grin. “I doubt it . . . though I couldn’t blame him if he did.”
Lexi sat at the small kitchen table and invited him to join her. “What’s going on, Dad? Does this have something to do with the girl who dropped the car off?”
“Yeah.” Her father downed the rest of his beer. Two gulps was a record for him. Something definitely gnawed at his gut. Despite the empty bottle, he joined her at the table. “She’s dead. Found in the woods beaten to death.”
Lexi felt her eyes go wide, and she drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, my god. You had me look into her boyfriend. Did he kill her?”
“Probably. I’m more convinced than ever now the cousin is in the drug trade.” He told her all about his visit to Talbot Lakes and then moved on to the events of this morning at the shop. Lexi gripped the edge of the table as he told her about the man with the twelve-gauge, killing both gunmen, and leaving the bodies in a cemetery parking lot. “When I got back, Smitty was done cleaning up the shop. He suggested I go home, so I did.”
“How long do you think it’ll take before someone realizes those two are dead?”
“By now, I’m sure their boss knows they’re missing,” her dad said. “I figure it’ll take until the evening before someone realizes the Explorer hasn’t moved.”
“If you’re right,” Lexi said, “this Héctor could have cartel connections.”
“I know.”
“I’m not trying to take Smitty’s side, Dad, but he probably thinks you dumped a load of shit in his lap.”
“I pretty much did,” he said. His head wagged from side to side. “Alice didn’t need to die over a car. The cops didn’t seem to be motivated.”
“So you acted instead,” Lexi said.
Her father spread his hands. “Someone needed to.” He paused. “You’re smart to consider the cartel possibility. Make sure you take your pistol with you if you leave the house. So far, I think these assholes only know where I work, but it’s probably a matter of time before they learn the rest.”
“You know I’ll help you with whatever research you need.”
“I know.” Her father smiled. “Thanks, kiddo. This isn’t your fight just like it’s not Smitty’s, so I appreciate it.” He stood and fetched another beer from the fridge. “How are you? Anything on your mind besides a boring class?”
Lexi considered telling him about her mother reaching out again. It sounded like his plate couldn’t hold much more at the moment, however. She could handle her mother. Make a visit to get it over with, and then they could go back to the occasional emails. “I’m good,” Lexi said after a moment of consideration.
“You know you can talk to me about anything.” He smirked. “Even boys.”
“I don’t exactly have a lot of prospects at the moment,” she said, “but thanks.” Her dad stared like he wasn’t quite sure he believed her before he got up and went back into the kitchen. Lexi drained the rest of her lager and walked back upstairs to finish her class.
Héctor’s security cameras picked up the approaching car as it ascended the driveway. On his monitor, he watched two men get out. These must have been the promised reinforcements from the cartel. He’d hoped for at least double their number. The fact they arrived so quickly meant they probably came from the Texas operation. Héctor frowned at the thought of adding second-rate men to his crew. In the end, though, the numbers spoke for themselves. This pair could take the places of Patricio and Pedro.
They knocked on the door a moment later. Orlan Osorio, Héctor’s largest man, opened it. Both did a double take at the giant standing before them. Orlan moved aside, and they squeezed past his enormous frame into the house. Héctor sized them up from the living room. Patricio and Pedro were wiry street fighters. These two carried more weight. They looked stronger. As long as they could intimidate people and shoot, they’d be welcome. “Good evening,” Héctor said. A clock struck eleven behind him.
“We’re from el cartel,” the one on the left said. Both wore leather jackets over jeans and black tennis shoes. Héctor wondered if they coordinated their outfits. “I’m Leonel. He’s Juan.” The latter offered a single bob of his head. “They told us you have a problem.”
“In a manner of speaking.” He wondered what else the cartel might have told these two. Héctor’s idea to expand this far north got greeted with skepticism when he suggested it. He got a chance to make it work, but he knew his leash was shorter than on someone closer to the border. Closer to direct control. “Someone has . . . taken an interest in righting a wrong.”
“We’ve heard,” Juan said in a deep voice. “Is your cousin going to keep being a wild card?”
Héctor shook his head. “He knows he screwed up. I’ve taken him out of action for a while. He won’t be a distraction again.”
“Good. Bring us up to speed on what’s happened today.” Héctor did. Both Leonel and Juan listened quietly, grimacing in spots but letting him talk uninterrupted. When he finished, Juan said, “One guy at a car repair shop?”
“As far as I know, yes,” Héctor said.
“You don’t know anything else about him?” Leonel asked.
Héctor wondered if anyone in the cartel fed them these questions. Were they going to report back later tonight? He shook those thoughts from his mind. Their challenges were more local and immediate. “Not yet, no.”
“I think we need to figure out who he is,” Leonel said.
“And then kill him,” Juan added.