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“Yeah?”
“The club’s been a solid investment. We pay our taxes. Stay right with the State Liquor Authority. Get an A from the health department every year.”
He doesn’t have to say the rest. The club’s business prospects will be in the shitter if I leave the joint looking like a slaughterhouse.
“Hell of a job that must be,” I say. “Health inspector for a club called Kynk. But it probably gets boring after the first year or two. Same old, same old…” That’s the only promise I can give him over this open line.
But he takes it. “Like I said, the name’s on the list. Anyone you want to bring with you?”
I could bring Alix.
The thought zaps something at the base of my spine. I picture her wearing one of those little black Zorro masks and nothing else. I imagine watching her in the crowd at a fucking sex club, seeing heads turn, knowing she’s mine. I think about a scene I could make her play in public.
But Alix can’t be anywhere near Jonas and Ansel Herzog when the cocksuckers take their fall. Not if we have a prayer of getting her off the hook for Klaus’s death.
“No,” I say to Rider, before he can worry the line went dead. “Just me.”
“Good enough,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say again. That’s not enough. There’s no way I can say enough, on this open line or in person, now or forever. But I try to balance the books a little: “I owe you one.”
He hangs up, and I’m back to watching the police station door. But now I have something to fill my time. I need to figure out how to take out the Herzogs without triggering a fucking metal detector at the door. Or leaving behind a bloodbath. Or letting anyone make any connection with me or with Rider or with Alix.
Definitely not with Alix.
The station door finally opens. She steps into the late afternoon sun, blinking like they’ve kept her chained in a cave. Her lawyer’s at her side, briefcase in one hand, an attentive look on his face as he helps her down the steps. He does his best to clear a path through the fucking pap vultures.
I climb out of the car, ready to cross the lot and retrieve her. She sees me, though, and waves before she turns to shake her lawyer’s hand. They exchange a few words—no smiles, no frowns, not a fucking hint about what they’ve been doing for the last five hours.
Then Alix makes a beeline to the Range Rover. I open her door and hold it while she gets settled. Biting my tongue, I wait for her to nod before I close her in.
We’re out of the parking lot, heading back to the freeport, before I finally ask. “How’d it go?”
“I don’t know.”
“They let you go, though. Didn’t say anything about arresting you?”
“They let me go.”
“What did your lawyer say?”
“Nothing. Not in front of the police. Just now, he said he’d call me tomorrow. Not to worry too much. Try to get some sleep.”
“Princess…” I say, because it’s better than asking a dozen questions she’s obviously too tired to answer.
“I hate this,” she says.
“I know.”
I wait for her to say more. To open up the whole right-and-wrong can of worms again. To tell me she’s a bad person. That she deserves punishment. That she can’t lie about killing the asshole who ruined her life.
But she doesn’t.
She just looks out the window, at the dusty streets of Dover. She studies the office buildings, then the houses, then the dried-out fields of corn and the abandoned-looking chicken barns.
When we get home, she’s out of the car before I turn off the engine. I follow her into the kitchen, but she doesn’t stop there. I watch her head upstairs, wishing I could say something, do something, make something happen so she never needs to feel this lost again.
I hear her turn on the shower. The water’s still flowing half an hour later, when I pour myself a drink and go sit outside, trying to find a way to take advantage of Gage Rider’s gift.
