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“I don’t know Caldwell,” Luke said. “But he’s been to a house. A big-ass house with white columns in front. There’s a gate and a stone wall. Trees in the lawn. I don’t have an address, though, or a number or anything. I also don’t have a real name. And there’s no phone number. He never calls, is only called.”
“You’re sure it’s in Caldwell?”
“Yeah, it’s somewhere in Caldwell.” Luke looked over. “He wasn’t going there to report on business. They’re fucking. He’s in love with this guy, Mozart, and it seems like the man feels the same.”
“So, wait . . . what is the house like again?”
“All I can tell you is that it’s got columns across the front. Six fluted columns with curlicue tops. And a pair of carved dogs.”
Well, Rio thought, at least that narrowed the neighborhoods down. There was only one in Caldwell that would have a house like that.
“Take a left up here,” she ordered. “I have an idea of where to go.”
Come on, José, you think I’m a mind reader? I can barely remember what I had for breakfast. Getting in your brain is way over my pay grade, even as chief. Hey, can you kill the lights. Christ.”
“I know you’re aware of what I’ve found.”
“Religion?” Stan put his mail on the trunk of his car and started for the inner pockets of his jacket. “Oh, wait, you already were a churchgoer—”
“Keep your hands where I can see ’em.” José upped the volume on his voice. “Stan, don’t make me—”
It happened so fast, and in any other suspect confrontation, José would have handled things differently. But the past and present had milkshaked on him, the presence of a suspect looking like his old friend, sounding like the guy, too, making him sloppy and slow: Just as José drew his service weapon, Stan unholstered his and pointed it at José’s heart.
“What the fuck is wrong with you,” the chief said. “What the fuck is going on with you.”
They were squared off, nothing between them but thin air, two muzzles pointed at two mortal torsos.
“Why did you do it, Stan. You killed Leon Roberts, and you sacrificed Hernandez-Guerrero to Mozart. Was it for the money? Was that the end game?”
There barely was a pause, as if Stan had been holding on to his truth for too long.
“Oh, easy for you to say. You got a wife and a family. You got holidays and weekends, and people waiting for you to come home. You got hot meals made for you, the ones you like, the way you like, and a warm body sleeping next to you. Fuck off with the judgment, okay? I come home every night to an empty fucking house—”
“Stan, you gotta put that gun down—”
“—and you know what I think about?” The man jutted forward on his hips, his tie hanging loose. “You know that pension I got? Half of it went to Ruby. The money I spent twenty-five years earning by showing up to work and kissing ass until I got promoted high enough to get kicked in the ass by the mayor’s office is now paying the mortgage of the house she lives in with her new fucking husband.”
“Stan, listen to me. I know you’re not going to shoot me, and I don’t want to shoot you. Let’s just talk.”
“We are talking, José,” the guy snapped. “You know what the best thing about under-the-table money is? It’s mine. I don’t have to report it to the fucking government and I don’t have to give it to my ex-wife. Thank fuck she couldn’t have children or I’d be up to my ass in college bills right now, just like you are—”
“I can help you.” José raised his voice. “Listen to me, with what you know about Mozart, you can get a deal. He’s the big fish, not you.”
“You think I don’t know that? Have you seen his house? I keep telling him that only the president has a bigger, fancier facade.” The guy spat out a curse. “And besides, I don’t need much. I just want enough to get me out, my golden parachute that I’m owed.”
“I know you didn’t mean to hurt Roberts—”
“Fuck Roberts. He’s just another goddamn weight around my neck. You all are. Arguing about money, equipment, days off, time off, pensions—it’s never enough. Nothing I ever fucking did was enough for any of you, and you know what, I don’t have to give a shit anymore. I’ve taken care of myself, and I’m not sorry, and now I’m going to take care of you—”
There was just an instant, a split second, of dropped attention, that gun listing off to the side as Stan continued to rant.
Slow motion. It always happened in slow motion, didn’t it.
Knowing that he was seconds from his own death, José pulled his trigger, and the bullet discharged—and given that he was just a few feet away from point-blank range, there was no question of that slug not hitting home in the center of Stan’s chest.
