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“Please call me Shep.” She was innocent. They were on the same side.
She sniffed damply. “He begged me to take Mato and make a run for it, but I haven’t seen my cousin all day. I asked around, but no one has seen him. I have a very bad feeling about it. So when Jace called and asked me to go out for ice cream, I sort of broke down and told him everything. He wanted to go to the cops right away, but I told him it wasn’t safe.”
Shep mulled over what she’d revealed. “Are they using the race cars to transport the money?”
“Yes, though I had no idea until Uncle Levi spilled his guts about it earlier. You have to believe me,” she pleaded. “I race cars for a living. That’s it.”
“I do.” Though he would’ve said just about anything to keep her talking, he really did believe her.
“Thank you.” The rest of her story spilled out. “The only reason I came to town was because my uncle was talking up some new race track. He said he had the opportunity to get in on the ground floor as an investor, but he wanted my opinion first on the specs. He’s been running me and eleven other drivers back and forth nearly every day between the rez and the racetrack in Overton. We’ve been testing out everything from track widths, to lane composition, to curve embankments.”
“With the cars you drive there?” he asked carefully, trying to figure out where the counterfeit money was being kept.
“Yes. We run through short race simulations. Then they change our tires and gas us up for free. Plus, they’ve been paying us weekly stipend checks to offset the wear and tear on our vehicles.”
“Tires,” Shep said to himself, hoping Adriel could hear him.
Alina must have assumed he was speaking to himself because she kept talking. “We report back to Uncle Levi and the other prospective investors for daily debriefing sessions. It’s been a lot of fun, actually. Like a paid vacation.” She paused to take a sip of her water.
“Plus, I met Jace,” she added shyly. Now that she’d started talking, she couldn’t seem to stop. “My cousin was trying to strong-arm me into dating one of his hotheaded new friends, so I asked Jace to fake date me to serve as a buffer between me and them.”
“Then I forgot we were supposed to be faking it and fell in love with her.” Jace descended the last couple of stairs and entered the room, carrying two steaming bowls of stew. His hair was damp from his shower, and he’d changed into a clean shirt and jeans.
He set one of the bowls down on the coffee table in front of Alina and tried to hand the other one to Shep.
Shep waved it away, straightening.
“Not a bad setup down here.” Jace joined his girlfriend on the couch, eyeing the football game as he took his first bite of stew.
“I’m gonna go check on Uncle Caleb.” Shep jogged up the stairs to the kitchen, pulling his cell phone from his pocket and lifting it to his ear. “You there, sheriff?”
There was a brief pause. Then Adriel’s voice sounded across the line. “Present.”
“How much of Alina’s story did you catch?”
“Every word of it.” Marco Perez answered for the sheriff this time. “We recorded it and passed it on to a contact at the FBI. The Dallas Kings have been on their radar for a very long time. From what I gather, this is the biggest break they’ve ever gotten on the case.”
“By break, you mean…?”
Uncle Caleb tossed a wooden spoon into the kitchen sink. It hit something and made a loud clattering sound.
“You still alone?” Marco’s voice grew wary.
“Mostly.” Shep glanced over at his uncle, who was still shamelessly piddling in the kitchen, trying his hardest to eavesdrop on their conversation. “You talk. I’ll just listen.”
“This isn’t the first time the Dallas Kings have exploited a group of small town criminals,” Marco confided in a hushed voice. “In every other case, the Feds didn’t make it in time. The kings don’t leave behind witnesses. Any. Witnesses.”
Shep drew a heavy breath, knowing that meant there were crosshairs on everyone who knew anything about the current operation — the Paddocks and all their hired security guards, Jace, Adriel, Marco, Paco, himself…
And Prim.
“Prim,” he muttered her name hoarsely. Here he was, hunkered down in relative safety while she remained exposed.
“We’re on it,” Adriel assured quickly. “Called in a favor with Gil, and he has his nephew keeping an eye on her place tonight.”
Shep tossed his Stetson on the table. “Still haven’t had the chance to talk to him.”
“I gave him the update.” Adriel’s voice was moderately amused. “Told him you’d touch base with him as soon as you finished saving the world as we know it.”
