WEDDING PLANS. ABIGAIL SAW THEM AS A SMALL, SHINY snowball rolled down a mountain. It grew, and grew, and grew, gathering weight, speed, mass, until it produced an immense, messy, thunderous avalanche.
In the sunstruck afternoon in the Gleasons’ backyard, that avalanche roared over her.
“So, are you thinking next spring?” Mya asked her.
“Spring? I …”
“No.” Under the picnic table, Brooks patted Abigail’s thigh. “I’m not waiting that long.”
“Spoken like a man who doesn’t have the first clue what goes into doing a wedding. We had ten months for Sybill and Jake’s—and worked like dogs to get it all done in time.”
“But it was beautiful,” Sybill reminded her.
“I assumed we’d just go to the courthouse,” Abigail began, and was rewarded with stereo gasps from the women.
“Bite your tongue.” Mya pointed at her.
Sybill gave her sister an elbow in the ribs. “You want something simple.”
“Yes. Very simple.” She looked at Brooks.
“Simple, sure. I’m betting there’s a lot of simple between a run to the courthouse and the diamond jubilee forming in Mya’s mind. I’m thinking in the fall—time enough for a little fuss, not enough time to rent a circus tent.”
“That’s less than six months! Less than six months to find the perfect dress, book the right venue, interview caterers, photographers—”
“Photographers?” Abigail interrupted.
“Of course. You can’t have your uncle Andy taking your wedding photos.”
“I don’t have an uncle Andy.” And she’d always avoided photographs. Ilya had recognized her in New York, in a matter of seconds, on the street. If a photo of her somehow got online or in a newspaper it could—likely would—lead to discovery and disaster.
“Which leads back to the guest list. I can help with our side. I have the list from mine, and from Syb’s. How many do you estimate from your side?”
“There’s no one.”
“Oh, but—” Mya didn’t need an elbow jab or the warning look from Brooks to cut herself off. She rolled on as if “no one” was perfectly normal. “That sure keeps it simple. What we need is a planning session, a ladies’ lunch—because you don’t have anything to do about it,” she told Brooks with a wide grin. “Weddings flow from the bride.”
“Fine with me.”
“I know this wonderful bridal boutique down in Little Rock,” Mya continued.
“White Wedding,” Seline put it. “It is wonderful. I found my dress there.”
“What we need to do is take a day, all us girls, go down there, check it out, have lunch, brainstorm. I’ll have to check my calendar.” Mya dug out her phone, began to swipe screens. “Maybe we can set it up for next week.”
“Next week,” Abigail managed.
“You always were a bossypants.” Sunny sat back, sipping a margarita. “That’s one of the things we love about her, Abigail, but it takes some getting used to. Why don’t you give her a few days, Mya, to get settled in to being engaged?”
“I am bossy.” Mya laughed and tossed back her hair when her husband snorted into his beer. “And when we’re sisters? I’ll be even worse.”
“She means it,” Sybill said.
Abigail heard the quiet hum of the vibrating phone in Brooks’s pocket. When she looked down, he eased it out, checked the display. “Sorry, need to take this.” His eyes met hers briefly as he stood up, walked some distance off.
It seemed surreal. Mya continued to talk about wedding boutiques, flowers, and plated meals or buffets, and all the while Brooks talked to Anson about decisions that would put her life on the line.
Like the snowball again, she thought, rolling, rolling, growing, picking up weight and mass until it took the mountain with it.
No stopping it now, she reminded herself. She was committed to pushing through.
“Are you all right?” Sybill asked her.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. It’s just a little overwhelming.”
“And it’s just getting started.”
“It is.” Abigail glanced over at Brooks. “It’s started.”
Brooks walked back, laid a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, I have to take care of this.”
“Go be a cop, then,” Mya advised. “We can drop Abigail home on our way.”
“Oh.” For an instant, Abigail’s mind went blank. “Thank you, but I really need to get home to some work I left pending.”
“Then I’ll call you tomorrow, or e-mail you. E-mail might be better, I can send you some links. Just give me your—”
“Mya.” Sunny arched her eyebrows. “What happened to those few days to settle?”
“All right, all right. I can’t help it if I was born to plan and organize parties. You e-mail me when you’re settled.” Grabbing a paper napkin, Mya wrote down her e-mail address.
Abigail had a feeling it would take more than a few days. “I will. Thank you so much for the afternoon.”
“Abigail.” Sunny crossed to her, hugged her hard, and whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll run interference with Mya for a week or two.”
It took some time. Apparently, people didn’t just say good-bye at a barbecue. They hugged, or stretched out a conversation, made future plans, played with the dog. Even called out and waved once you got as far as the car.
“Before you tell me what Captain Anson said, I want to say your family is …”
“Loud, pushy?”
“No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I want to say. Affectionate. Naturally so. I understand you better now, for having spent the afternoon with them. Your mother … Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t like it.”
“Okay.”
“Your mother put her arm around my shoulders. It was just a careless gesture. I doubt she gave it a thought, and has done the same, countless times, to others. But when she did that, to me, I felt—I thought—So this is what a mother does. She touches you, or holds you, just because. For no important reason. And then I thought, If there are children, I want to learn to be the kind of mother who can touch or hold without thinking, and for no important reason. I hope I have the chance to do that.”
“You will.”
“For most of the day. His take is, initially, at least, they’d hoped to do an end run around him, get to you. But he stuck with the out-of-left-field contact. They were careful what they passed on to him, but he’s dead sure they’ll be doing some surveillance on Cosgrove and Keegan.”
“Does he think they believed my story?”
“You’d laid it out, step-by-step, right down to what John said to you. And now you’ve been this very valuable source over the last couple years. Why would you lie about Cosgrove and Keegan?”
“It wouldn’t be logical.”
“No, it wouldn’t. They want to talk to you in person. They want you to come in. They promise you protection.”
“They want to question me, to make certain I wasn’t complicit in John’s and Terry’s deaths. If and when they’re sure of that, they’ll want me to agree to testify against Korotkii.”
“Yeah, and they’re going to want more. You’ve got an inside track on the Volkovs, access to data that can, likely would, put a lot of the organization in prison, fracture the rest.”
“As long as the data comes from an anonymous source, the authorities can use it. Once it’s known the data’s been obtained by illegal means, they won’t be able to.”
“No, they wouldn’t. They may be able to find a little wiggle room.”
She’d considered this, all of this. “I won’t give them the process, even if they grant me immunity for the hacking. I need the process to take down the network. They can’t do what I hope to do, not technically nor legally. I’ll be exposed again unless I can break their network and siphon off their funds.”
“Siphon off … You have that kind of access to their money?”
“I can have, to a great deal of it. I’ve been considering where to funnel it once I’m ready to transfer funds from various accounts. I thought substantial anonymous donations to charities that feel most appropriate.”
He glanced away from the road, gave her a long look. “You’re going to clean them out.”
“Yes. I thought you understood. If they have what’s approximately one hundred and fifty million in accounts to draw from, they can easily rebuild. And then there’s the real estate, but I have some ideas on how to dispose of that.”
“Dispose.”
“Tax difficulties, a transfer of deeds—some property the authorities can and will simply confiscate, as they’ve been used for illegal purposes. But others are rather cleverly masked. They won’t be when I’m finished. It’s not enough to testify, Brooks,” she said, when he pulled up at her cabin. “Not enough to put Korotkii, potentially Ilya, even Sergei, in prison. With their resources, their money, they’ll regroup, rebuild—and they’ll know I caused the trouble. I don’t intend for them to know how their network was compromised. And I don’t intend to tell the authorities. They couldn’t sanction what I plan to do.”
She stepped out of the car, looked at him over the roof. “I won’t go into a safe house again. I won’t let them know where I am, even if and when I agree to testify. I don’t trust their protection. I trust myself, and you.”
“Okay.” He opened the door for the dog, then held out a hand for hers. “We find a location in Chicago when that time comes. You and me? We’re the only ones who know where it is. We’ll stay there. For the meet, you pick a place. A hotel, I’d think, maybe in Virginia or Maryland, and you don’t tell them the location until you’re in.”
“That’s very good. You can’t be with me.”
“Yes, I can. As long as they don’t see me.”
It stopped now, every bit of it stopped, unless he was with her through it.
“I figure you can get eyes and ears in the hotel room so I can follow—and so we have a record, if we ever need one.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. I should have, as that would be best.”
“You think, I think—that’s how it’s done.”
She turned to him, let herself move into him. “It has to happen fast, when it starts. Everything will have to happen quickly, and in proper order.”
She wouldn’t take him from his family if things went wrong. She’d learned that, too, at a backyard barbecue.
“I need to finish the program. This is only partially done without it.”
“You work on that, and I’ll start some research myself. I’ll find us a location for the meet.”
“Virginia,” she said. “Fairfax County. It’s far enough from D.C., and less than an hour from a small regional airport in Maryland. I’ll charter a plane.”
“Charter? No shit.”
“Perhaps you forgot you have a rich girlfriend.”
He laughed. “I don’t know how that slipped my mind.”
“If they want to back up the meeting, have me followed, we’d be able to lose them on those roads, and they’d most likely look at Dulles Airport, or Reagan National.”
“That’s a plan.” He kissed her. “Go play with worms.”
HE STAYED OUT OF HER WAY, for the most part. But, Jesus, after a couple hours on the computer, a man wanted a beer on a Sunday evening. And some chips, which he’d had to sneak in, as she didn’t have a single item of junk food in the place.
When he walked into the kitchen, she sat, hands in her lap, staring at her screen. He eased open the fridge, took out a beer, glanced her way, eased open the cabinet where he’d stashed the chips. Sour-cream-and-onion.
And she turned.
“I’ll be out of your way in a second.”
“I did it.”
He studied her face, set the beer aside. “You finished the program.”
“Yes. It works. Theoretically. I’ve tested it several times. I can’t actually run it into the network until it’s time, so I can’t be absolutely certain. But I am. Certain it will work.”
He grinned, came over, boosted her up by the elbows for a kiss. “You’re a genius.”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you look happy?”
“I am. I’m … numb, I think. I believed I could do it, but when I did, I realized I hadn’t really believed I could do it.” Because it ached a little, she pressed her fingers to her left temple. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Brooks. I can take down their network, corrupt every file, every program. I can shut them down, no matter what operating system or computer any individual uses. I can do it, and, doing it immediately after I siphon the funds, they’ll be ruined. Broken.”
Now she pressed her hand to her heart. “And before I do that, I can give the authorities enough to shut down a string of operations, use that to prosecute other lieutenants and soldiers, until the Volkov bratva is in pieces they can never put back together.”
“Humpty Dumpty them.”
She let out a breathless laugh. “Yes. Yes. I didn’t really believe I could do it,” she murmured. “If I had, I’d have done it before I agreed to testify.”
He kept his face blank. “Do you want to step away from that?”
“You’d let me.” As he often did with her, she framed his face in her hands. “I love you so much. You’d let me step away, even though it’s against your code. But no, I won’t. I can’t. It’s part of the whole, part of who I want to be. Part of who you expect me to be.”
“I only expect you to be who you are.”
“I expect more now. I expect more of Elizabeth. I expect more of Abigail. And I want you to expect more of me now. My testimony, my data, the hacking, the supervirus. It’s all one. When it’s finished, Elizabeth can go with a clear conscience.”
She closed her eyes, then opened them, smiled into his. “And Abigail can marry you with one. I want to marry you so much. I might even want to go to a wedding boutique.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I’m a little afraid of it, but I might.”
“Now you look happy.”
“I am. I’m very happy. As soon as we find a hotel, I could arrange for transportation. We could have your captain set up the meeting. We could start the next stage.”
“I’ve got the hotel. In Tysons Corner, Virginia. Middle-range, right off the highway.”
“I’d like to see the hotel’s website, and a map of the area.”
“Figured you would. I’ve got them bookmarked on my laptop.”
“We could book the rooms, arrange the meeting for tomorrow or the day after. It’s less time for the authorities to try to find me.”
“Day after. I need to rework the schedule so I’m covered.”
“That’s better. I have to make arrangements for Bert.”
“My mother will take him.”
“Oh. But …” She hesitated, looked down at the dog. “I thought a licensed kennel, with professionals.”
“You’re going to put him in jail?”
“A kennel isn’t a jail.” Now she had two sets of hazel eyes staring at her. “He did enjoy being over there this afternoon, but it seems like a lot to ask of your parents.”
“They’ll love it. Plus, that’s what family does. Get used to it. Go on and check out the hotel. I’ll give her a call.”
“All right.”
Brooks pulled out his cell phone as Abigail left the kitchen. “You owe me,” he said to Bert.
EVERYTHING IN PLACE, Abigail told herself. She stood in her safe room, carefully selecting what she’d need to take this next step.
She booked the hotel rooms under two different names, at two different times, from two different computers. Brooks would check in as Lucas Boman—the name of his first Little League coach. She’d create his ID the next day. Hers, which she’d give Anson to pass to the feds once she and Brooks were checked in, set up, would be Catherine Kingston, an ID she already had in her supply. She considered her collection of wigs, her supply of hair color.
“Going as a redhead?” Brooks commented, when she lifted a short, straight bob in golden red.
“My natural color tends toward auburn. I don’t have a wig that matches my natural color.”
“Hold on.” Head angled, he studied her. “You’re a redhead?”
“Brown’s more accurate, but with reddish tones.”
“Just want to mention I’ve seen the other area on you, and it’s not brown with reddish tones.”
“It would be, but I’m thorough when I change appearance.”
“Interesting. Really interesting. Maybe you should’ve aimed for the CIA.”
“It didn’t capture my interest. I think they’ll expect me to alter my appearance somewhat for the meeting. This should be just enough, along with some slight changes with makeup, and some padding. Larger breasts.”
“You can hardly ever go wrong with larger breasts.”
“I believe my natural breasts are more than adequate.”
“Let’s see.” He cupped them, considered. “More than.”
“Obsession with breast size is as foolish as obsession with penis size.”
“I believe my natural penis is more than adequate.”
She laughed, turned toward the mirror.
“I guess you’re not going to check to make sure.”
“Perhaps later.”
She put the wig on with such quick, skillful moves he knew she’d worn one often. “It’s a change.”
He preferred her longer hair, he thought, and the less studied style.
“Yes. I can work with this. I’ll need to buy one closer to my natural color, a longer length I can style in several ways. I’ll want to look like the photos they’d have of Elizabeth, even though they’re dated. I can use contacts, change my eye color—just the tone of it—subtly. Fuller hips, larger breasts. A few shades deeper in skin tone with some self-tanner. Yes, I can work with this,” she repeated.
She took the wig off, replaced it on its stand. “Operatives in the CIA have to lie and deceive. It’s necessary, I imagine, for the tasks they perform. I’ve done a lot of lying and deceiving for the last twelve years. I’d like to have a life where lying and deception aren’t part of my every day. I can’t put all the lies away, but …”
She turned to him. “I’ll have one person who knows the truth, who knows everything, whom I’ll never lie to. That’s a gift. You’re a gift.”
“I’ve got one person who believes in me enough to tell me the truth, to trust me with everything. That’s a gift, too.”
“Then we’re both very lucky.” She crossed to him, took his hand. “I think we should go to bed. I need to run a few tests to verify your penis is adequate.”
“Lucky for both of us I’ve always tested well.”
HIS CELL PHONE RANG at a quarter to two in the morning. Brooks did a half-roll to the side of the bed as he reached for it.
“Chief Gleason.”
“Hey there, Brooks, it’s Lindy.”
“What’s the problem, Lindy?”
“Well, that’s what I need to talk about. I got Tybal here with me.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, it’s some shit, but not the kind you’re thinking. You’re going to want to hear what Ty has to say.”
Brooks shoved himself up to sit. “Where are you?”
“Right now, we’re in my truck about a half-mile from the Lowery place. Since your car isn’t in town, I figured you’re there.”
“That’s like police work, Lindy. Why don’t I meet both of you at your place?”
“Rather not do that under the shit we’re talking about. It’s going to be best if we come on over there, talk this out in private. People tend to see things in town, even at an hour like this. Maybe especially.”
“That’s a point. Hold on.” He put his hand over the phone. “I’ve got Lindy—from the diner?”
“Yes, I know who he is.”
“He’s telling me he’s with Tybal Crew, and they need to talk to me in private.”
“Here?”
“If it wasn’t important, and didn’t need to be private, Lindy wouldn’t be calling me at two in the morning.”
“I’ll get dressed.”
“I’ll keep them downstairs, out of your way.”
“I think if someone needs to come here at this hour to talk to you, I should hear what they have to say.”
“All right, then.” He put the phone back to his ear. “Is Ty sober?”
“He is now, or near enough.”
“Come on ahead.”
Shoving one hand through his hair, Brooks set the phone aside. “I’m sorry about this.”
“Even days ago, I wouldn’t have let anyone come here like this. But I don’t feel nervous, not really. I feel more curious. Should I make coffee?”
“It wouldn’t hurt my feelings.”
It pleased her to do it, to think that in her future with Brooks, late-night calls, making coffee for people in trouble, would be part of the routine.
She hoped she’d make a good cop’s wife.
Still, she was just as pleased to know that Bert, with orders to relax, lay in the corner of the kitchen. And she also took the precaution of turning her computer monitors to screen savers.
She wasn’t quite sure how to address two men who visited in the middle of the night, but when she took coffee out to the living room, Brooks let them in the front door.
And Lindy, long gray braid dangling down the back of a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt, led the way.
“Ma’am.” He bobbed his head. “I sure do apologize for disturbing you this time of night.” Then slapped a backfist into Tybal’s gut.
“Yes, ma’am,” Tybal responded. “Sorry to put you out.”
“I’m sure you have good reasons.”
“Damn well better,” Brooks muttered. “Jesus, Ty, you’re sweating Rebel Yell.”
“I’m sorry about that.” The tips of his ears went pink as he dipped his head. “There’s extenuating circumstances. I got my sixty-day chip, and now I gotta start over.”
“Everybody takes a slide, Ty,” Lindy told him. “Your first day starts now.”
“I’ve been going to meetings.” Ty shuffled his feet and looked to Abigail like a scruffy, shamefaced bear. “Lindy’s my sponsor. I called him. I know how I shoulda called him before I took the drink, but I called him.”
“Okay. Okay, sit down, the pair of you,” Brooks ordered. “And tell me what the hell you’re doing here at two in the damn morning.”
“The thing about it is, Brooks, I’m supposed to kill you.” Ty wrung his ham-sized hands. “I ain’t gonna.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. Sit the hell down.”
“I didn’t know what to do.” Ty sat on the couch, hung his head. “Once I started thinking past the whiskey, I still didn’t know. So I called Lindy, and he got me sobered up some, talked it all through with me. And he said how we needed to come tell you. Maybe Lindy could tell you some. I don’t know how to start.”
“Drink some coffee, Ty, and I’ll get it rolling for you. Seems like Lincoln Blake’s wife left him.”
“When?” Brooks frowned as he picked up his own coffee. “I just saw her this morning.”
“At the church, yeah. I heard about that, expect most everybody has by now. That’s what did it, to my way of thinking. What I hear is after they got home, she just packed up a couple suitcases and walked out. Ms. Harris’s granddaughter Carly was out and about, saw her putting the suitcases in the car and asked if she was going on a trip. Ms. Blake says, just as calm as you please, how she’s leaving her husband and never coming back. Just got into the car and drove off. Seems like he holed up in his study the rest of the day.”
“That can’t have set well,” Brooks commented. “Blake’s pride already took a hard hit this morning.”
“Earned it, didn’t he? Anyways, Birdie Spitzer does some for them, and isn’t one for gossip, be why she’s hung on to the job, you ask me. She told me herself. I guess this was too juicy a grape not to squeeze some. Said there was some hollering, but there’s some hollering per usual in that house, from him, anyhow. Then the missus left, and he shut himself up. Birdie knocked on the door sometime later, to see if he wanted his supper, and he yelled out for her to get the hell out of his house and not come back.”
“Blake fired Birdie?” Surprised, Brooks raised his eyebrows. “She’s worked in that house for twenty years.”
“Twenty-four, she says, come August. Guess that’s another reason she carried the tale to the diner. She doesn’t know if she’s got a job or not, doesn’t know as she wants it, should he expect her back, even so.”
“Now he’s alone,” Abigail said quietly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t interrupt.”
“That’s all right, and you got the truth of it. He’s alone in that big house with his son in a cell and his wife gone. Speculating, I’d say he sat and brooded some on that, and came to the conclusion the reason for his situation rested right here on Brooks.”
“That’s an inaccurate conclusion based on faulty criteria,” she began. “Mr. Blake’s conclusion, I mean, not yours.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lindy grinned. “That’s a pretty way of saying he’s full of shit, if you don’t mind plain speaking.”
“No, I don’t. Yes, he’s full of shit.”
Brooks took a sip of coffee, shifted his attention to Ty. “How much did he pay you to kill me, Ty?”
“Oh, well, God,” Abigail managed, and surged to her feet.
“Relax, honey, Ty isn’t going to hurt anybody. Are you, Ty?”
“No, sir. No, ma’am. I come to tell you. Lindy said that was best, so here I am.”
“Tell me what happened with Blake.”
“Okay. See, he called me out there, to the house. I ain’t never been in there, and it’s sure something. Like out of a movie. I thought maybe he had some work for me, and I could sure use it. He had me come right into that study of his, and sit right down in this big leather chair. Offered me a drink. I said no, thanks. But he just poured it, set it there beside me. My brand, too. I got a weakness, Brooks.”
“I know it.”
“But I haven’t had one drop since you arrested me, God’s truth, not till tonight. I was kinda nervous, sitting there in that fancy house. He kept saying how one drink wouldn’t hurt me. I was a man, wasn’t I? I didn’t take it.”
“All right, Ty.”
“But he kept saying it, and saying how he had some work, but he didn’t hire pussies, and what was that word I told you, Lindy?”
“Eunuchs. Fucker—sorry, more plain speaking.”
“I agree with your opinion,” Abigail told him, then looked at Ty. “He tied your weakness to your manhood, and tied both to your desire for work. It was cruel and manipulative.”
“It made me mad, but it felt true when he said it. How you tried to make me feel less of a man, Brooks, and how you humiliated me, and castrated—he said you’d castrated me, and it made me feel bad. Mad, too. And that glass of Rebel Yell was right there. I only meant to have the one, just to prove I could. But I had another, and I guess another after that.”
Ty’s eyes filled, and when he lowered his head, his shoulders shook.
Abigail rose, left the room.
“I just kept drinking, ’cause the glass was right there, and it never seemed empty. I’m an alcoholic, and I know I can’t have one drink and not take another.”
Carrying a tray of cookies, Abigail came back in. She set the plate on the table.
As he watched her take one, pass it to a teary Tybal, Brooks thought he loved her more than breath.
“He was cruel to you,” she said. “He should be ashamed of what he did to you.”
“I kept drinking, and getting mad. He kept talking about what Brooks’d done, making me look weak and gutless in front of my own wife, how he was trying to run this town into the ground. Look how Brooks’d framed his son. Something had to be done about it.
“He kept talking, and I kept drinking. He said what was needed was somebody with guts and balls. He asked if I had guts, if I had balls. Goddamn right I do, that’s what I said. Maybe I’d just go kick your ass, Brooks.”
Ty shook his head, hung it again. “I’ve been going to meetings, and I’ve been going to group. I’m getting to understand when I’ve been drinking I just want to go beat hell out of something. I hurt Missy ’cause of it. And between what he said and the drink, I was wound up good and proper. It seemed like a good thing when he said how ass kicking wasn’t enough. It had to be permanent. You’d killed my manhood, that’s what you’d done. The only way to get it back was to kill you. Since he’d be grateful, he’d give me five thousand dollars. Like a reward, he said. He gave me half of it there and then.”
“He gave you money?” Brooks asked him.
“I took it, too. I’m ashamed to say, it was cash money and I took it. But I didn’t keep it. Lindy’s got it. What he said—Mr. Blake said—to do was go on home, get my gun. How I oughta wait till after dark, sit on out here, on the road. Then I oughta call you up, tell you there was trouble. And when you drove out, I’d just shoot you. I went home to get my gun. Missy wasn’t there, as she’s over to her sister’s. I got my rifle, loaded it up, too, and I started thinking why the hell wasn’t Missy home. Started thinking she’d earned herself a couple good smacks. I don’t know how to explain, but I heard myself thinking those things, and it made me sick. It made me scared. I called Lindy, and he came over.”
“You did the right thing, Ty.”
“No, I didn’t. I took the drink. I took the money.”
“And you called Lindy.”
“You have an illness, Mr. Crew,” Abigail said. “He exploited your illness, used it against you.”
“Lindy said the same, thank you, ma’am. I’m ashamed to tell Missy. She’s still some pissed at you, Brooks, but she’s glad I’m not drinking. Things are better with us, and she knows it. She’ll be more pissed if you put me in jail. Lindy said you wouldn’t.”
“Lindy’s right. I’m going to need the money, Lindy.”
“And I’m going to need you to come in, make an official statement, Ty.”
“Missy’s going to be pissed.”
“I think she might be a little pissed about the drinking, but when she hears it all, start to finish? I think she’s going to be proud of you.”
“You think so?”
“I do. I’m proud of you. I’m glad you didn’t try to kill me.”
“So’m I. What’re you going to do, Brooks?”
“I’m going to put all this together, all right and tight, then I’m going to go arrest Blake for solicitation of murder for hire of a police officer.”