Page 114 of But For You

“Mr. Harcourt?”

Turning, I found Clint Farmer in front of me.

“We find ourselves in a unique situation. Obviously, Mr. Salcedo sent Dr. Dwyer here to keep tabs on Sam because they felt he was getting too close to finding Andrew Turner. They tried to kill him in Phoenix, and now, tonight, they tried to acquire you. So, we need to stop this before they come at him again. The problem is, of course, that we have no idea what Mr. Salcedo looks like.”

I nodded.

“I need to slap a wire on you, and I need you to walk into that warehouse in the shipyard and meet with these people.”

“Okay.”

He took a breath. “We would never ask this if we thought they truly wanted to do you any harm. You were being kidnapped for leverage, and that was all. It is our understanding that no one actually wants to hurt you.”

“Sure.”

“That being said, there is always a danger that something could go wrong.”

“I understand.”

“Unfortunately, you’re the only one who can do this.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Okay, so are we good to go, then, Mr. Harcourt?”

I couldn’t for the life of me answer. Yes, I wanted this whole thing to go away, but on the other hand, it wasn’t just me anymore. Me being dead would affect the man I loved and the two short people who lived with me.

He waited for a moment and then took hold of my arm and walked me out of the circle of the other men before he turned and looked at me. “Three years ago, my wife, Maggie, got in the middle of a mob hit.”

He had all my attention.

“I’m still a bit fuzzy on the details, but she worked in PR, and her firm was putting on an event, and this dear, sweet old man gave her a letter to pass on to his son. I mean, how Breakfast at Tiffany’s can this get, right?”

His tone, the reference—I was liking him.

“Okay, so, all of a sudden, we had hit men following her, trying to kill her, and she had no idea what the hell was going on. Then, one night, when I was trying to decide whether to lock her up or kiss her, she said, ‘Oh yeah.’ ” He paused. “ ‘I think that old man gave me a letter that I forgot to deliver. It’s filed under F for favor in my file.’ ”

I smiled at him.

He made the international sign of strangulation, and I understood his wife had driven him insane.

“I love her, but I was going to throttle her.”

“What happened?”

“I had to send her alone and wired for sound into a room with men I didn’t know, or she was going to be running for the rest of her life. So, I get it. I get what we’re asking of you, of the marshal, of your family. I understand, so the choice is yours.”

“Was she okay? Your wife?”

He lifted his phone and showed me a picture of a woman smiling at him in the midst of what looked like a demolished kitchen. There wasn’t a part of her not covered in baking flour.

“Cookies for my daughter’s third-grade class this afternoon. There’s no telling what it looks like currently.”

I took a breath. “If it’s crap you just laid on me, it’s really good crap.”

He lifted his hand so I could see the thick band of gold. “It’s not crap.”

“Okay.”