“Dad died,” Charity corrected him. “He would have recouped his losses; he always did. Mom just didn’t understand money the way he did.”
“Bet that’s what went through your mind when Melanie confronted you,” Clay said.
“Did you tell Fisher about the laptop?” Charity yelled. Her voice bounced off the inside of the box, and Clay winced. He would have rubbed his ears if he had a hand free. “Does he know? Is that why he keeps calling me?”
“Maybe,” Clay said.
The thing about losing your shit was that it took alotto get there the first time. Once that trigger was pulled, though, it loosened up quickly.
Charity swung her head around and saw the steel rails stacked up next to the wall. She stalked over, grabbed one, and swung around with it cocked back at waist height like it was a badminton racquet.
“Does he know!” she demanded.
“Not yet,” Clay said. “I was just there to set up the meeting for Ezra. It’s not information he’s going to give away for free. Been a bit rough, the last few weeks.”
“If you’d handed the laptop over, it wouldn’t have been necessary,” Charity said. “You brought this on yourself.”
“You tried to have us killed.”
Charity dropped the rail. It hit the floor with a clatter.
“Where’s the laptop?” she said.
“Why should I tell you? You’re not going to let me walk out of here.”
Charity brushed dirt off her palm. “No,” she admitted. “But I can have you killed, or I can leave you here to rot. They used this one for human trafficking, you know. It was one of my cases. Some of them died from asphyxiation. Others dehydration. It wasn’t nice. Thesmellalone must have been horrendous.”
Clay shifted in the seat and absently wriggled his hands. The plastic restraints had been pulled too tight. He could feel the itch of trapped blood in his fingers. This hadn’t exactly been part of the plan. He was going to have to improvise.
“Ezra has it,” he said. “It’s in one of his garages in town, in the trunk of his ex-wife’s car.”
Charity looked triumphant for a moment, and then suspicious. “That was easier than I expected. I thought I’d have to ask one of our friends to soften you up. Isn’t that how your kind of people put it?”
“No, we just call it torture,” Clay said.
That made her flinch. It was funny how much distance people could put between what they were about to do and what it meant as long as they got to pick the words.
“I can be bought a lot cheaper than Grade.”
Charity looked suspicious. He’d have thought less of her if she hadn’t been. “You’d betray your partner? And your lover. For money?”
“Money and my fingernails,” Clay said. “Ezra got us into this. It wasn’t my idea. Getting into bed with Fisher wasn’t my idea either. I don’t want to die with the consequences of his actions, and there’s no honor among thieves, Judge Parker.”
“Fifty grand,” Charity said.
Clay mugged resentment, but he wasn’t in a position to haggle, so he finally nodded reluctantly.
“Deal,” he said. “Babbage Auto Shop, off Armitage.”
Charity’s shoulders relaxed, and she exhaled in relief. Then she looked over at Errand Boy.
“I’ll call you when I’ve got it,” she said. “Then have Harris shoot him.”
Errand Boy blanched until he was nearly whiter than his nice expensive shirt. “W…w…what?” he stammered. “I don’t…I don’t want to tell anyone that.”
Clay flailed about in the chair and tensed his arms as he tried to bust the cable ties.
“We had a deal!” he yelled. “I gave you what you wanted. You can’t fucking kill me.”
