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I eased my way to the front stairs, following the sounds. On the first floor, I paused as the words became easier to make out.
“You’ve risked my entire business,” a young male voice said.
“You shouldn’t have been in business in the first place,” Blake responded.
Talking business at two in the morning? I inched down the hallway to listen in.
“You don’t understand,” the young man said. “No one will do business with me anymore. I’m marked now.”
“And with good reason,” Blake said. “You were the one stupid enough to get poor quality merchandise from a competitor to this territory. Did you think you were smarter than they were? That they wouldn’t figure it out?”
“The man said they’d buy it for three times what I paid. He promised—”
“Well, what do you expect?” Blake said, his voice stern, with a confidence I recognized from his business transaction earlier, once he had gotten serious. “He’s the one who knew exactly what he was doing. You’re a spoiled kid whose trust fund ran out and he was trying to put one over on you.”
“He’s going to come after me.”
“The cartels would have, too, once they found out someone was distributing stuff that almost killed off their market. Do you know who they would have pointed the finger at? You. And they’d come after your family, which is why they had to go into hiding in the first place. I can’t believe you’re standing here arguing about your business when that little sister of yours—”
“That’s not my sister,” he spat out.
I got to a door that was cracked open and peeked inside. Blake was in an office, with a big mahogany desk dead center in the room. He had on a dark gray bathrobe in a shiny silk material, though the chest hung open as if he’d thrown it on in a hurry.
In front of him was a young man, and at first I didn’t recognize him since his back was turned to me. I eased the door open a little more.
And then I recognized him. It was the guy from the party, the one that was acting odd. I’d only saw him that night, but I was sure. What was he doing here?
“I want you to give me the drugs back,” he said.
“I can’t do that. Your dad hired me to get the stuff and get rid of it.”
I sucked in a breath. This kid was who brought it into town? What did it mean that his father had hired Blake?
“You don’t understand. He expected that stuff to go out on the street.”
“He expected it to kill a bunch of people and shake up the market. He wanted to create distrust in the system.”
The guy jerked his head back and gave a small snort. “Who cares what the drug-heads do? But this guy will come after me and kill me if he thinks I didn’t complete the deal. He’s on my ass.”
“You shouldn’t have been doing deals. This isn’t the movies. Whatever he promised you is a lie. You need to go home. Lay low for a while.”
“I’m not staying home,” the guy said.
“Jason,” Blake said sharply. He squared off with him. “Listen to me. You’ve got one shot to live right now. Keep your head down. Stay at home. I know you’ve been prowling around, but the house I got for you and your family is a secure place. If you’re running around, you’re putting more than just your life at risk. The cartels know you got into the middle of this. You’re lucky they’re not after you.”
“What about this guy? He’s going to kill me. You may have had my dad move from the downtown house, but it won’t take long for him to figure it out.”
“If things go according to plan, you won’t have to worry about it.”
My breath stopped. He’d said Doyle was checking for the source. Wouldn’t this guy know the source if he’s the one Blake was protecting?
“What plan?” Jason asked, the same question I had in my mind.
Blake drew his shoulders back, breathing in deep and letting a puff of air out slowly. “They wanted me to make sure this distributor never tries something like this again.”
“You’re going to shoot him? Is that it?”
“No.” Blake made a face. “Who do you think I am? We’ll just give him a taste of his own medicine. There’s a well in that village. We’ll get rid of this batch there. Once the locals start fighting amongst themselves, sick with the same poison, that’ll send the message.”
Jason marched forward, nearly toppling the chair he was standing in front of. “Then he’ll really come after me! He’ll kill me!”
“He’ll come after the cartel. They’ve been in contact. They want their mark left behind.”
“Is that who you work for?”
“It’s who’s interested in what’s going on here. They control the territory. They’re sending a clear message. Stay out. We’re taking this war out of the city.” He pointed a finger at Jason’s face. “The war you started. You’re lucky we caught this in time. If this got out wider than it had, if the police caught on and exposed everything, it would have been the cartels after your ass.”
I backed up, terrified by what I was hearing. My heart was going crazy. Blake Coaltar worked for a Mexican drug cartel? He helped this bratty guy and was going to poison a well in a village? What war?
All the fears I’d thought I’d gotten rid of swept into me with a ruthless drop across my eyes and weighed heavily along my
chest and shoulders. If he had been a simple drug dealer for the wealthy people in his circles, it would have been better. This ... this was so much worse. He was helping the cartels! That was horrible, wasn’t it? And he had me help him?
I had to run. I had to get out of there. I was getting mixed up in things I didn’t understand, couldn’t figure out in the moment.
“Kate?” Blake said, and I jumped, driven out of my wild thoughts.
I bolted, not wanting to hear another word. I made a dash for the front door.
“Kate! Stop!” Blake called after me.
To my surprise, the door was open, probably because Jason had visited and Blake left it unlocked. I shoved it open until it crashed into the wall and dashed out.
The rain hadn’t let up. I jumped down the front porch steps in my bare feet, and raced through the open iron gate.
I ran across the street, to the park. I changed course, running barefoot through the grass, through the maze of trees, hoping to lose him if he was chasing me.
DELIVERANCE
I emerged on the far side of the park, and dashed down a side road between two houses. I kept cutting through streets to make sure I wasn’t being followed.
I probably looked like a mad woman running like I was, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. Blake was bad. The boys were right. I should have never done this alone. Now I knew everything. I had to get back. I had to get help. He could find me. He could find Wil.
I’d heard things about the cartels from Mexico, the reports about how they distributed the most drugs in the United States. How they had legions of military-trained assassins from the Mexican army and they controlled most of Mexico, and how that war was spilling out of the country and going global. All the ghost stories I’d heard in high school about not messing with drug dealers or distributors or you’d get into the line of fire, it all came to me. If you didn’t want to get involved, you got out of their way. Live in ignorant bliss. It was the way you survived. Someone else, the police, the DEA, those were the ones fighting that war.
