Clay waited for a minute until he heard the sound of an engine as it revved hard to peel out of his drive. He took a second and then loped up the stairs to stalk back into the bedroom, tossing both guns in the direction of the bed.
“I called,” Grade said. He held up the phone like he thought Clay might want to see the evidence. “I couldn’t get through.”
Clay grabbed a T-shirt off the floor, ignored the wet splatter of blood soaked into it, and pulled it on. He stamped his feet into his boots, laces left to trail, and then threw Grade’s jacket at him.
“You’re coming with me,” he said. “Come on.”
Grade pulled the jacket on and then hesitated, arms halfway down the sleeves, as he nodded toward the dead man ruining the flooring at the other side of the room.
“What about him?”
Clay grabbed his jacket. “Tomorrow’s problem,” he said. “Come on.”
They took the car. Grade braced himself in the passenger seat, his thighs flexing when he tried to brake because Clay didn’t. Once they hit a straight stretch of road, Clay fished his phone out of his jacket pocket and called Ezra.
No one answered.
“He could have been lying,” Grade offered after a second. “He might have thought it would buy him time.”
“Yeah,” Clay said. He killed the call and put in one to his favorite bought and paid for dirty cop, Deputy Jones. The Bluetooth kicked in as Jones answered.
“Not a good time,” he said.
Clay snorted. “You’ve no idea,” he said. “If anyone puts in a call about a disruption at my house? There isn’t. Got it?”
“I can’t control who gets tapped by dispatch.”
“Not my problem,” Clay said. “Do it.”
He hung up and tossed Grade the phone. “Keep trying Ezra,” he said and put his foot down on the gas.
Chapter Eleven
Thirty minutes.
Give or take. That’s how long it would take Grade to render Ezra’s body down, from the first cut to loading him in the back of the van. He’d worked it out a couple of times. The most time-consuming part would be peeling the tattoo off Ezra’s back.
Proper disposal would take longer.
But Grade wasn’t going to put that estimation to the test. Not tonight, anyhow.
Watered-down blood dripped down the back of Ezra’s neck and stained the collar of his T-shirt as he paced angrily across his living room, a bag of peas pressed to his skull. Bloody welts ringed both wrists, and his left hand was swollen and discolored.
“My kids could have been here,” Ezra said. “Do you get that? Myfuckingkids.”
Clay handed him a glass of bourbon, and Ezra tossed it back in one. Then he swore and grimaced as he shifted the peas gingerly. He looked queasy as he stopped mid-stalk to lean his elbow on the oak island in the middle of the kitchen.
“That was a fucking mistake,” he said as he breathed raggedly through clenched teeth.
Clay took the glass out of Ezra’s hand.
“Stop whining,” Clay said. He gave Ezra two pain pills. “You’ve had worse, and the kidsweren’there.”
“Fuck you,” Ezra said. He dry-swallowed the pills and straightened up. “They could have been.Mykids. I’m going to fucking kill someone.”
Grade poked the corpse on the floor with the toe of his sneaker. The man’s head lolled limply on a twisted neck.
“Else,” he corrected Ezra. When that got him a glare, he shrugged. “When you’re the cleanup crew, clarity on the numbers involved matters.”
