Death Echo

Mac frowned. Tommy wasn’t making any sense. He looked close to panic, eyes wide, sweating although the room was cold.

“You okay?” Mac asked.

Tommy took another long gulp. “Nothin’ wrong that a bottle of good bourbon won’t cure.”

Mac kept his mouth shut and wished he’d gone straight home from the marina.

Like the old saying-no good deed goes unpunished.

Before Tommy could swig again, Mac retrieved the bottle. “Careful, buddy,” Mac said. “That’s a load of alcohol hitting your system all at once.”

“Ain’t no pussy.”

“Somebody say you were?” Mac asked.

“A pussy wouldn’t take Blackbird out. Bad shit going down. Really bad. Gonna be rich. Gimme the bottle.”

Mac pretended to drink. Anything to keep the bourbon out of Tommy’s reach. He always had loved booze, but at the rate he was drinking, he was going to kill himself tonight.

“So when does your job begin?” Mac asked, trying to keep Tommy out of the bottle.

“What job?”

“The one that’s going to make you rich.”

“Need a drink.”

“Wait your turn.” Mac pretended to drink. The good news was that Tommy was going down fast, floating facedown in a bourbon sea.

“They been smuggling forever. Even before they got here.”

“Who?” Mac asked.

“Granny’s kind.”

Lovich, Mac realized, understanding.

Grant Robert Lovich, known as Bobby to his cousins and Granny to the kids who hated him in school. Like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather. Outsiders to the whites and Indians alike. Determined outsiders.

“Thought we agreed a long time ago that what our parents believed was bullshit,” Mac said.

“Then how come they own Blue Water and I don’t have nothing? Only crooks make out in Rosario.”

The sullen cast to Tommy’s face was more warning than Mac needed.

Time to go. “Gimme the bottle,” Tommy snarled. “Fuckin’ foreigners. We was here first, now we got dirt.”

And casinos.

And smuggling.

The kind of hopeless existence that destroys souls.

Mac went to the sink and poured out all but a taste of the bourbon. He gave the bottle to Tommy and walked out into the night.

Mac hoped whoever was following him caught up again. He felt like hitting something.

12

DAY TWO

ROSARIO

11:30 A.M.

Emma hated parking in the open for a surveillance, but there wasn’t any choice. The Blue Water marina parking lot didn’t have so much as a leaf to hide behind. The best she could do was wedge the Jeep between two rumpled pickups and pretend not to be there at all. The puddles and mud she’d deliberately taken the Jeep through helped it to blend in. She was no longer driving a shiny white rental.

And she had a lovely view of Blackbird.

People wearing tool belts were swarming over the yacht. A man whose picture was on the billboard advertising Blue Water Marine Group was overseeing, shouting and waving his arms. If the billboard could be trusted, it was Bob Lovich himself giving orders. Another man stood nearby-above medium height, stocky build, wraparound sunglasses, and a coat cut to fit over a shoulder holster. He didn’t look like Stan Amanar, also featured on the billboard, but he might have been.

If Stan had dyed his hair recently. And grown a mustache.

Plastic sheeting and other protective materials had been yanked out of Blackbird and piled up on the dock. Colored wires were coiled on the deck and what looked like electronics were stacked in boxes inside the cabin.

She lowered her small binoculars and remembered what the elusive Mac Durand had said about expensive toys and yachts. It looked like Blackbird was being wired to the max.

Her cell phone vibrated against her waist. She looked at the ID window and almost groaned.

Faroe.

All she had for him was nothing. Oh-and a sore back from the motel bed. Hey, that was something, right?

Too bad it wasn’t anything useful.

“Cross,” she said, answering the phone.

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Durand.”

“Good question,” she said. “I’ll get back to you with the answer.”

“Soon.”

“Which is primary-Blackbird or MacKenzie Durand?”

“Both.”

“Then you better send more bodies,” she said. “I can only be in one place at a time.”

“Lost him, huh?”

Emma took a deep breath and a better grip on her temper. “Yes. He ditched me out on the rez last night. There are multiple exits on the rez, so I got a motel room near the marina and had a bad night’s sleep keeping an eye on Blackbird.”

“Did Durand make you?”

“Define ‘make.’”

“ID,” Faroe said impatiently.

“Doubt it. The Jeep, quite probably. Me, no.”

“Steele is on my ass like a rash.”

“Try baby powder.”

Faroe laughed. “We’re flying in to meet Durand personally. We’ll be there tomorrow. Sooner if we can manage it without tripping wires and alarms.”

This going in soft is too damn slow, Emma thought, but didn’t say anything. Faroe knew the time limit as well as she did.

“Have you read Durand’s file?” Faroe asked.

“Three times.” And she’d wondered if Mac Durand had the same kind of nightmares she did.

“Steele wants him. So do I.”

“A hard man is good to find,” she shot back. “I’m working on it. That man you’re interested in is a ghost. He flat vanished into the rez. Early this morning I went by the address in his files. A nineteen-twenties cottage. His truck was in the driveway. By all external signs, he was sleeping at home like a good citizen. Now, I can cover MacKenzie or Blackbird, take your pick.”

“Long night?” Faroe asked.

Emma made a disgusted noise. “Yeah.”