The keypad went dark, the light extinguished with a finality that made her panicky. But she could still call him, couldn’t she? It would look pathetic and needy, but he remained on the planet even though he wasn’t on her phone.
The potential for the call was there.
God, his mother had died today. And of all the people in his life who he could have passed the hours with, he had chosen her.
Pulling the sheets and the duvet up her legs, Ehlena curled herself around the phone, cradled it close, and passed out.
THIRTY-NINE
Marking time in the crappy ranch he’d decided to use as a drug house, Lash sat upright on a chair that in his old life he wouldn’t have allowed his rottweiler to take a shit on. The thing was a Barcalounger, a cheap, fat padded POS that unfortunately was comfortable as fuck.
Not exactly the throne he was going for, but a damn good place to park his ass.
On the other side of his open laptop, the room beyond was fourteen by fourteen and decorated in low-income can’t-afford-replacements, the sofas worn at the arms, the picture of a faded Jesus Christ hanging cockeyed, the stains on the pale carpet small and round-thus suggesting cat piss.
Mr. D was out cold with his back against the front door, gun in his hand, cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes. Two other lessers were parked in the archways of the room, each propped up against a jamb with their legs stretched out.
Grady was over on the couch, a Domino’s Pizza box open beside him with nothing but grease spots and stripes of cheese in a spoke pattern left on the white cardboard. He’d eaten an entire large Mighty Meaty by himself and was now reading a day-old Caldwell Courier Journal.
The fact that the guy was so frickin’ relaxed made Lash want to do an autopsy on him while the SOB was still breathing. What the hell? The son of the Omega deserved a little more anxiety out of his kidnap victims, fuck you very much.
Lash checked his watch and decided to give his men only another half hour of recharge. They had two other meetings with drug retailers set up today, and tonight was going to be the first time his men hit the streets with product.
Which meant that symphath king’s business was going to have to chill until tomorrow-Lash was going to do the deed, but the financial interests of the Society had to come first.
Lash looked past one of his snoozing lessers into the kitchen, where a long folding table was set up. Scattered across its laminated top were tiny plastic bags, the kind you got with a pair of cheap earrings at the mall. Some had white powder in them, some small brown rocks; others contained pills. The diluting agents that had been used, like baking powder and talc, were in fluffy piles, and the cellophane wrappings the kilos had come in littered the floor.
Quite a haul. Grady thought it was worth about $250,000 and would move, with four men on the street, in about two days.
Lash liked that math, and he’d spent the last few hours examining his business model. Access to more product was going to present a supply issue; he couldn’t keep up the pop-and-pinch routine forever, because he was going to run out of people to target. The issue was where to insert himself in the chain of commerce: There were the foreign importers, like the South Americans or the Japanese or the Europeans; then the wholesalers, like Rehvenge; then the larger retailers, like the guys Lash was picking off. Considering how hard it was going to be to get to the wholesalers, and how long it would take to develop relationships with importers, the logical thing was to become a producer himself.
Geography limited his choices, because Caldwell had a ten-minute growing season, but drugs like X and meth didn’t require good weather. And what do you know, you could get instructions on how to build and work meth labs and X factories on the Internet. Of course, there were going to be problems securing the ingredients, because there were regulations and tracking mechanisms in place to monitor the sale of the various chemical components. But he had mind control on his side. With humans being so easily manipulated, there would be ways of dealing with those kinds of problems.
As he stared at the glowing screen, he decided that Mr. D’s next big job was going to be setting up a couple of these producing facilities. The Lessening Society had enough real estate; hell, one of the farms would be perfect. Staffing was going to be an issue, but recruiting needed to be addressed anyway.
While Mr. D was pulling the factories together, Lash was going to clear the way in the marketplace. Rehvenge had to go down. Even if the Society dealt in X and meth only, the fewer retailers of those products the better, and that meant taking out the wholesaler at the top-although how to get at him was going to be a ball-scratcher. ZeroSum had those two Moors and that she-male bitch and enough security cameras and alarm systems to give the Metropolitan Museum of Art a hard-on. Rehv also had to be a smart son of a bitch or he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had. The club had been open for what, like five years?
A loud rustle of paper refocused Lash’s eyes over the top of the Dell. Grady had jacked up from his lounging sprawl and was gripping the CCJ in fists cranked tight as knots in boat rope, that class ring without a stone cutting into the flesh of his finger.
“What is it?” Lash drawled. “You read about how pizza causes high cholesterol or some shit?”
Not that the fucker was going to live long enough to worry about his coronary arteries.
“It’s nothing…nothing, it’s nothing.”
Grady tossed the paper aside and collapsed into the couch’s cushions. As his unremarkable face paled out, he put one hand over his heart, like the thing was doing aerobics in his rib cage, and with the other he brushed back hair that didn’t need any help moving away from his forehead.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Grady shook his head, closed his eyes, and moved his lips as if he were talking to himself.
Lash looked down at the computer screen again.
At least the idiot was upset. That was good enough.
FORTY
The following evening, Rehv walked carefully down the curving staircase of his family’s safe house, leading Havers back to the grand door the race’s physician had come through a mere forty minutes ago. Bella and the nurse who had assisted were following as well. No one said a thing; there was only the unusually loud sound of footfalls on padded carpet.
As he went, all he could smell was death. The scent of the ritual herbs lingered deep in his nostrils, like the shit had taken shelter from the cold in his sinuses, and he wondered how long it would be before he didn’t catch a whiff of it every single time he inhaled.
Made a male want to take a sandblaster and go to town up there.
Truth be told, he was in desperate need of fresh air, except he didn’t dare move any faster. Between his cane and the carved handrail, he was managing okay, but after seeing his mother wrapped in linen, he wasn’t just numb of body; he was head numb, too. Last thing he needed was to do an ass-over-ears down to the marble foyer.
Rehv took the last step off the staircase, switched his cane to his right hand, and all but lunged to open the door. The cold wind that hustled in was a blessing and a curse. His core temperature went into a free fall, but he was able to take a deep, icy breath that replaced some of what plagued him with the stinging promise of coming snow.
Clearing his throat, he put his hand out to the race’s physician. “You treated my mother with incredible respect. I thank you.”
Behind his tortoiseshell glasses, Havers’s eyes were not professionally compassionate, but honestly so, and he
