Dead Six

horny ranch hands from sniffing around, and it was better than the town thinking he’d shacked up with a woman young enough to be his daughter, I guess. Hawk’s been letting me crash here, too.”

Hawk? I looked around the living room. Suddenly everything seemed to fit. I knew this wasn’t Valentine’s house. It was Hawk’s. I knew that Hawk would take care of her when I sent her to him. I never imagined she’d end up living in his house.

“How do you know Hawk?” I asked. “And what are you doing living over his garage like the Fonz?”

“You making a scrapbook?” Valentine retorted. “That’s none of your business. And no, he wouldn’t tell me anything about you, either.”

Of course. Hawk was a professional. “Let’s keep it that way. Where is he?”

“He’s out in town talking to some people, trying to find out if anyone saw anything. He’ll be back soon. But money says she’s long gone by now. I wish I had more to tell you.”

“I’ve called in some help. My associates will be here soon.” It sounded more important to say associates rather than lone techno-geek. “They’re good at shaking the trees and seeing what falls out. Right now your buddy Gordon Willis is the only lead we’ve got. He’s a federal employee of some kind, right? It’s a start.” There was the outside chance that Bob might know of him, too, but I didn’t say that.

My phone rang. “Hang on.” I was hoping that it would be Bob with good news about how he’d arranged to get the family to safety, but I didn’t recognize the number.

“Mr. Lorenzo.” The voice was electronically distorted, drastically deep.

“Yes?” My frown must have indicated to Valentine that something was up. He stood, looking nervous, and peeked through the blinds.

“We have your friend, Jill Del Toro. If you ever want to see her alive again, you will do exactly what I say.”

“I’m listening,” I replied calmly. Inside I was raging, wanting to kill, to murder, to drive my knife through someone’s trachea and shower in the arterial spray. “What do you want?”

“You have two videos of Americans in Zubara. One video of two Americans executing a man. A second aerial video of a gun battle between Americans and the Zubaran army. You will deliver those to us. You will do so in person. If you do not, Miss Del Toro will die.”

Videos? I hadn’t even thought of those since getting the key back. As far as I was aware, Reaper had them on his laptop. Jill must have told Gordon’s men about them while being interrogated. “Let me speak to Jill so I can know she’s okay.”

The line was silent for a few seconds. Then Jill’s voice, desperate, “Lorenzo! It’s a tra—” Then she was gone.

Of course it was a trap. Why else would they want me in person? I could easily have made copies. The videos were just an excuse. They wanted the witnesses dead. Back to the distorted voice; the speaker sounded vaguely demonic. “Where are you now?”

“Maine.” My cell phone was untraceable.

“You have twenty-four hours to get to Nevada. We will contact you then.”

“I want to see her in person or you don’t get the videos.”

“Of course.” The line went dead. I resisted the urge to chuck the phone across the room.

Valentine scowled at me. “They’ll be waiting for you. You know it’s a trap, right?”

I nodded. “They won’t expect you, though. Feel like making some trouble?”

Valentine actually grinned. It was an unpleasant, predatory expression, like a wolf eyeballing a rabbit. “I need to break in my rifle anyway.”

“We need to make a plan.”

“How about we drive there and shoot everybody?”

“Except for Jill,” I corrected. “But that’ll do.” We were going to need a little more finesse than that, probably, but that was pretty much what it amounted to. Valentine held out one hand. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t like him. But I knew he could fight, and he was the best option Jill or I had right now.

We shook on it.

Chapter 27:

Last of the Gunslingers

VALENTINE

Once again I was in the middle of somebody else’s fight. The story of my life, right? Well, not so much this time. I had reason to believe that Gordon’s group was behind the abduction. It wasn’t really through any desire to repay Lorenzo for saving my life, because fuck him. But I liked Jill. And like I told Lorenzo, she didn’t deserve to die because of her association with us.

As for Lorenzo . . . he was a strange one. He was constantly on edge, with a sort of angry nervous energy. I didn’t trust him, though I really didn’t think he’d try anything while Jill’s life was on the line. Frankly I couldn’t see how somebody with a heart of gold like her could fall for such a prick.

Lorenzo was hard to describe. He was short, six inches shorter than me at least. I couldn’t tell what ethnicity he was. His skin was a pretty indistinct shade of brown that could’ve originated from dozens of countries. His black hair was cropped short, and he had some kind of permanent stubble thing happening on his chin. His eyes were like knives, and I swear he was always watching you.

He had gone into the other room to make a phone call, muttering about “gathering intel” or something. I listened to his half of the conversation through the door all the same. Some guy named Bob had been pissed about something but had known right away who Gordon was. The conversation had ended abruptly after that.

A couple hours later, Lorenzo’s so-called associates arrived. His associates consisted of exactly one skinny Goth kid dressed all in black, carrying a laptop. He had a big hockey bag slung over his shoulder.

The kid was a trip. Black fatigue pants, combat boots, black Rob Zombie T-shirt, black trench coat, and his hair hanging in front of his eyes. He had piercings in his nose and ear. He had tattoos on what small amount of his pasty white skin could be seen.

He looked surprised when he noticed me sitting against the far wall.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“Who the hell are you?” I retorted.

“Wait . . . it’s you! You’re that guy!”

Raising my eyebrows, I looked over at Lorenzo. Seriously? Lorenzo just shrugged.

“What are you doing here?” the kid asked.

“I’m going to help you get Jill back so I can get on with my life,” I said, going back to my cleaning. On a table in front of me was my disassembled DSA FAL carbine. It had a short, sixteen-inch barrel, a folding stock, and rail hand guards. It was equipped with an ACOG scope and a weapon light. It was nearly identical to the carbine I’d carried while on Switchblade 4. Also on the table was my beloved .44, a S&W Performance Center Model 629 Classic. It had a five-inch heavy barrel, a smooth, stainless-steel cylinder, and a black Melonite finish on the rest of