A Welcome Grave

his money. That’s how it’s going to work out. He’s kidnapped a woman and sent you into a trap because of it. Still feel like covering for him?”

Doran was looking at the floor, quiet, taking it all in. I didn’t have time to let him think, though. It was too late for that.

“This is the guy you’re protecting,” I said. “He sent you to prison. You don’t have to believe me, don’t have to buy a word of it. But I do have to get Amy back.”

I held my hand out to Thor and pointed at his knife. He gave me a curious glance, then passed the knife to me. The grip was warm from his hand. No trace of Reed’s blood left on the blade, though. He’d wiped it clean.

“We’ll stay here a long time if we have to, Doran. I’ll do all the things to you that you wanted to do to Jefferson. I’ll do those things, and I’ll tell myself it’s justified because of Amy, the same way you told yourself it was justified because of Monica Heath. I’ll convince myself, easy as you did, and maybe it’ll work out better for me.”

Doran raised his head. “We’ll get her out, and then you’ll tell me.”

“What?”

“We’ll get your girlfriend back, I’ll deal with Gaglionci, and then you’ll tell me who paid him. I need to know that. I will know that. Because if this thing is ending tonight, I’m going to be the one who finishes it.”

We left the apartment with Doran walking free. Before he opened the door, Thor folded his knife and put it in his pocket, scratched the side of his nose with a gloved finger, and stared at Reed.

“You made good decisions today,” he said. “Better than the other decisions you have made recently. You will have to make another one now. We are leaving, and you have many choices of recourse over what happened today. I would recommend choosing to forget I ever walked through your door.”

Reed nodded.

“I do not want to see you again,” Thor said. “I do not want you to even speak my name.”

“I won’t.”

“Another good decision,” Thor said.

Joe was waiting for us in the garage. He had the Taurus back inside, watched us approach with Doran, and nodded at the car next to my truck, a little Mazda RX-8 sports car.

“This is what he drove in. He was alone, too.”

“Good.”

“You know where she is?”

“With Gaglionci. Somewhere out by Geneva. Doran’s going to take us there.”

He’d told us that much up in Reed’s apartment—that Gaglionci waited for him near Geneva, in a place he’d found weeks earlier. He refused to offer more, saying only that he would show us himself.

Joe frowned. “Why doesn’t he tell us where she is first?”

“He won’t.”

“I’m not going to tell you now, have you on the phone getting a hundred cops down here,” Doran said. “You want to do that, you can, but you’re going to waste time. You don’t have a lot of time, either. Gaglionci knows how long it should take me to get back. Waste an hour or two, he’ll know something’s gone wrong, and he’ll react. He’s not the sort of guy you want to force into reactions.”

I nodded. Doran wasn’t lying about the risk of panicking Gaglionci.

“All right. You’ll take us there. Joe will drive, and you’re going to sit behind him.”

I pointed at Thor. I’d been careful never to use his name in front of Doran.

“He’ll be beside you. Move one inch more than he wants to see, and you’ll find it to be a very painful experience.”

Thor was frowning.

“What?” I asked.

He nodded at the RX-8. “Gaglionci is expecting this car to return. He will not look at it the same way as your car. It is not a threatening vehicle to him.”

A damn fine point.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay, we’ll take the car. It may let us get closer.”

“He will go with you and your partner,” Thor said, pointing at Doran. “I will take this car and follow. If we are all in the same vehicle, he may try to cause an accident. By following, I will make sure that if he does that, he dies.”

Doran looked at Thor as if he were impressed. Doran had been a soldier, but he’d probably never had a sergeant who was more coldly efficient than Thor.

“You heard him,” I said to Doran. “Give him the keys.”

He took the keys out of his pocket, tossed them to Thor, and then got into the passenger seat of Joe’s car when I waved my gun at him. I holstered my gun, and Joe withdrew his Smith & Wesson with one hand and his keys with the other.

“You drive,” he said. “I’ll get in back and watch him.”

I was surprised for a moment, and then I understood: He had one good arm, and if Doran attempted to disrupt anyone’s driving, it would be easier with Joe than with me. Neither Joe nor Thor had any trust in Doran’s good intentions. I got behind the wheel of the Taurus, and Joe climbed in the backseat, sitting behind Doran, with his gun out. We left the garage with Thor following in Gaglionci’s car.

“This place you’re taking us,” I said to Doran. “You’ve been there since you broke out?”

“Yes.”

“Pretty secure place, then.”

“Empty place. Has been for years. A sort of campground for motor homes. It’s been closed a long time. There are some old cabins. Used to be a lake there, but the state breached the dam because it was going to fail. That’s been years ago.”

I was surprised he’d offered that much, but it didn’t help me a whole lot. I could get on the phone and tell the cops to find an old RV camp near Geneva and blanket it with a SWAT team, but before they got that in place, I’d be there.

“How’d you find Gaglionci?” I asked.

“Jefferson sent him to do the first money drop. He told me what the real deal was, that Jefferson had paid him to kill me. Said he thought Jefferson was too rich for me to settle for just fifty grand anyhow.”

“That’s what you asked for?”

“I told him fifty grand would buy his son one extra week of life.”

“You were serious? You would have killed his son?”

Doran was quiet for a moment.

“Maybe,” he said. “I thought about it a lot. All the time. I mean, I did his sentence, you know? And he killed Monica. End of the day, that’s what it was really about. Nobody had answered for her yet. But would I have killed him, really, if Jefferson had done what I asked, not brought Gaglionci into it? Maybe not. I think if I had that money in my pocket . . . maybe not.”

“It was Gaglionci’s idea to partner up and go for more?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know how much Jefferson was worth. He did.”

“You ever see any of that fifty grand?”

“None. He told me it was what he’d been paid to kill me and that he was keeping it. Told me we’d get a hell of a lot more than that.”

“He did. Left you out, though, and all that fifty grand went to was setting me up. How’d he get my prints on it?”

“I did that. The night I grabbed you off the street. He’d told me what to do, just put the bills in your hands and work them around once you were out. Easy trick.”

Easy trick, easy answer, and somehow I still hadn’t thought of it.

“Who is that guy, anyhow?” Doran said, pointing in the rearview mirror at Thor.

“Someone I’ve worked with, time to time.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Sure, Perry. You’re a PI. That guy’s a warrior.