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“How?” I said.
“That election fifteen years ago was rigged,” George said. “He paid off the election board commissioner.”
Liz gaped at him. “And you’ve waited untilnowto tell us that?”
“Only a limp dick contests an election after he’s lost,” George said. “I didn’t get solid proof until about ten years ago when the commissioner retired and moved to Florida. He called me from there, feeling guilty. And by then . . .” He shrugged.
By then he’d stopped caring, I thought. His wife had left him and his enemy had power over him and his fire just went out. And then Anemone Patterson came to town with a blowtorch . . .
“I’ll talk to Honey,” Anemone said, now as grim as Liz. “If you give me the proof, I’ll take care of Honey.”
“Wewill talk to Honey,” Liz said. “You be the sugar, I’ll be the knife.” I raised my eyebrows at her and she added, “Butter knife.”
I’d pity Honey with those two coming after her, but she’d dumped George for O’Toole based on a rigged election. She deserved what was coming. Actually, if you thought about it, she deserved the last fifteen years with O’Toole, too.
George looked at me. “You and I will take care of the Wolves. First. We’ll do that first. They’re the most immediate danger to the town.”
I nodded at him. George was fully back to speed, in charge again. Anemone beamed at him and he got larger. I wondered if I did that when Liz smiled at me.
And so we made a four-point plan. It wasn’t a perfect plan, there were many things that could go wrong, but I’d learned long ago there is no perfect plan. A maxim in the Rangers had been that a bad plan ruthlessly executed is better than a great plan, poorly executed. I looked around at Anemone, George, and Liz and thought,These are ruthless people.
And once we’d cleared the ground and left Cash standing alone?
He’d come after Liz and I’d take care of him. I’d been wanting to for months and now I had a good reason. And a plan.
Cash probably had a plan, too.
But another maxim of combat is the plan lasts until you cross the line of departure to execute the plan, and the line where you make contact with the enemy. Which in Cash’s plan was me. He had to get rid of me to get Liz. Once you make contact with the enemy, your plan goes to hell.
Which is where I planned to send Cash.
MONDAY
CHAPTER 45
Vince woke me up a couple of hours after we’d hit the sheets, long before the sun came up. I rolled down over the foot of the bed, cursing Major Rogers and his perverse lust for dawn, and found my “This is not a drill” t-shirt because this was the beginning of the real thing. The tee has a picture of a hammer on it, which kind of undercuts the seriousness of the sentiment, but still, we were really going in. I bitched about the hour until Vince changed the subject to my immature vandalism of O’Toole’s posters, which I could have gone to jail for.
“There is no free lunch, Danger,” he said. “Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
“It was a paintbrush,” I said. “Die by the paintbrush just doesn’t have the same ring.”
He continued to explain why trashing the posters was immature, unproductive, and illegal, but I could tell he was worried and just talking. Which was really so much not like Vince, that I realized that I might have been underestimating the serious stuff we were about to get into.
Vince pulled off Route 52 onto a dirt road to a small clearing where George was waiting in his big truck and Rain was snug in her snazzy Mercedes. They both got out when we stopped.
“Where’s Molly?” I asked Rain.
“Sleeping,” Rain said. “The sleep of the unjust. You two are so immature. Did you have fun trashing the posters?”
“We did until we got busted by the dour law,” I said, and turned to see Vince pull a wicked-looking assault rifle from the back seat of the Gladiator and hand it to Rain. Then he handed me a scope.
He checked his watch. “Exactly ten minutes.”
I’d have synchronized my watch except I don’t wear one, but Rain had us covered, of course. She was the type of woman who always wore a watch. I had a feeling that, like Vince, she always knew what time it was even without the watch.
“Stay frosty,” Rain told him.
“Stay safe,” I told him. “Don’t be a hero, Billy.”
