You're Next

Deer Creek and look for me?’

‘I needed something to protect my tribe. McAvoy found out what I took from him, so he and I are at a standoff. For now. Next year’s tribal-acknowledgment review puts a deadline on our little stare- down, one way or another. But given what I have on him, I’m not dumb enough to think he’ll wait this out much longer.’ Two-Hawks kicked the trash can, rattling the pieces of his smashed cell phone. ‘They’re intensifying their efforts to get back what I’ve taken. I relocated my family out of state.’ His eyes found Mike. ‘My five kids.’

‘So why not make a move first?’ Mike asked.

‘McAvoy has made clear that he’ll burn the negatives if any of the evidence I’ve collected against him sees the light of day. That would destroy our tribe as we know it. Plus, the thought of those pictures burning…’ In the golden light of the office, his face took on shadow, and in his wrinkles Mike could see the faint etchings of his heritage. ‘All we are is what we came from-’

At this, Shep snorted.

Two-Hawks continued, undeterred. ‘Those are the only images of my early ancestors. I put this tribe back together one member at a time, driving around the state in a beat-to-shit Pontiac. Many were homeless. Most were destitute. But we built something for ourselves with our own hands. All of us living today, we’ve never seen the faces of our forebears. For us to be able to see where we came from, to validate our place on this earth…’ He shook his head. ‘You can’t put a price on that.’

Mike studied his hands.

Shep merely looked annoyed. ‘So what’s the play?’

Two-Hawks went on. ‘If McAvoy’s faced with losing his entire corporation to your… bloodline, maybe you and he could strike a deal. You get him to turn over those negatives in exchange for some financial arrangement. You give me the pictures. I give you what I have on him. And then you sink him with criminal charges.’

‘If he turns over the photos to me, he leaves himself unprotected against whatever you have,’ Mike said. ‘He won’t do that.’

A silent sigh lowered Two-Hawks’s shoulders. ‘So what do you propose?’

Mike and Shep were both leaning forward, elbows on knees. Their heads tilted slightly, their eyes meeting. Shep gave a little nod.

Mike said, ‘I think I know where your photo negatives are hidden. McAvoy has a safe where he keeps all his valuable dirt.’

‘A safe. So you’re planning on… what?’

Shep flared his hands. Ta-da.

Two-Hawks let out a guffaw. ‘Come on. A casino safe?’

Mike said, ‘It’s hidden in his office.’

‘In his office?’ Two-Hawks exclaimed. ‘Why not the vault?’

Mike said, ‘Think about it.’

Two-Hawks chuckled into a fist. ‘Of course. The vault is filthy with cameras. Not exactly a choice place to hide dubious materials.’ He stood, walked a tight circle, and leaned on the back of his chair. ‘It’s ballsy of McAvoy, I gotta say. But it makes sense, too. Keeping valuables in a secret safe in a locked room in a twenty-four-hour-surveilled casino on sovereign land – I suppose that’d make me arrogant, too.’

‘Arrogant’s good,’ Shep said.

‘But even then, you’ve got all the cameras on the casino floor.’ Two-Hawks was still winding up. ‘Plus, you can’t possibly crack that safe there. The time, the noise.’

‘No,’ Shep said. ‘I can’t. How’s your pull with the cops?’

‘In the event that you get caught?’ Two-Hawks asked. ‘Good. But relative to Deer Creek’s?’ He blew out a dismissive breath. ‘McAvoy has something we don’t.’ He jabbed a finger at his computer monitor, a reference to the footage Mike had shown him earlier. ‘Rick Graham.’

Mike moistened his lips. ‘Graham is no longer a consideration,’ he said.

Two-Hawks sank thoughtfully into his chair, tilted back, studied the ceiling. Then he glanced at the disc lying on his desktop. He cleared his throat, then cleared it again. ‘I don’t want to know anything more about that.’

‘Good,’ Mike said.

‘We have a police captain nearby who we’re quite close with,’ Two-Hawks said. ‘Coupla DAs, too. There’s no way I can get you off if you’re caught red-handed, of course. But if Graham is no longer a factor, I can ensure that if you’re taken into custody in the area, you won’t be handed over to McAvoy’s goons. There’s one big problem, though: If you get hung up at Deer Creek, on sovereign tribal land, the authorities’ll have trouble crossing territorial boundaries to make sure matters are handled aboveboard. Which leaves you at the mercy of McAvoy. And his attack dogs. In that event you’d better hope the cops arrive before the mallet falls.’

Shep said, ‘Ball-peen hammer.’

Mike squeezed his eyes closed, remembering Graham’s words: Hell, short of the right to pursue felons, the U.S. has shaky criminal jurisdiction on tribal lands.

Mike said, ‘The cops can come in after Shep.’

A moment’s delay, and then wrinkles fanned from the corners of Two-Hawks’s eyes. ‘You’re a felon?’

Shep scowled, insulted. ‘Course.’

Mike nodded at Two-Hawks. ‘We’ll be in touch with the plan.’

He and Shep rose to leave.

‘And I’ll need a lawyer,’ Shep said.

Two-Hawks asked, ‘Why?’

Shep paused on his way out the door. ‘Because I’m planning on getting arrested.’

Chapter 50

You will come back for me.

I will come back for you.

You swore it, now. You swore it.

Mike woke up with his head pulsing and the sheets twisted through his legs. His chest felt clammy beneath the motel vent, and sweat had pooled in the hollow of his throat. He shoved aside the sheets, ran a hand across the bristles of his cropped hair, and did his best to shake off the dream. Snowball II was wedged under the pillow next to him, glass eyes bulging as if from strangulation. Shep sat with his shoulder blades against the headboard of the other bed, spooning cold SpaghettiOs from the can, as calmly vigilant as ever. On the desk across the room, the police scanner gave off a steady stream of cop talk.

They’d returned to the motel at first light, it was 3:27 P.M. now, and the heist was set to go live at sunset, a little more than three hours from now. By then the darkness would offer some cover outside and the Deer Creek Casino offices, including McAvoy’s, should be empty, at least according to the schedules Two-Hawks’s surveillance men had pieced together over the past several weeks. But between now and then, Mike and Shep still had plenty to arrange.

‘You believe in God?’ Shep asked from around the spoon.

Mike realized that Shep thought he’d been praying. ‘When it’s convenient,’ Mike said.

‘Is it convenient right now?’

Mike pictured that cigar hole in Annabel’s side, the black trickle leaking from the wound. Dodge’s massive hand palming Kat’s head through the baby blue sleeping bag, the ball-peen hammer drawn back for the kill blow. The bay window where Mike had waited as a kid, the one Kat might be sitting at this very moment.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It is.’

Motoring along on a medical mobility scooter, Mike wore a battered mesh 101ST AIRBORNE hat, oversize mirror sunglasses, and a fleece lap robe featuring a bald eagle glaring over a craggy mountainside. Shep strode beside him through the outer reaches of the Deer Creek parking lot, undisguised.

At 6:40 on the dot, a minivan turned off the main road and slotted into a space in the row farthest from the casino. A wholesome, all-American couple emerged. The man, a robust fellow in a Hawaiian shirt, offered a big grin. His wife fussed with the collar of her shirtwaist dress, her layered curls and teased bangs like something out of a