The third man nodded and smiled. “We’ll get them now.”
The first man wasn’t as delighted. “We have to locate them. Then scope out where they live and figure out how to get in without being seen. And we still don’t know what the hell to look for.”
After a few minutes, the second guy spoke. “It has to be a flash drive.”
“Why?” demanded the first man. “We were talking about reporters keeping notes on paper because they couldn’t be hacked.”
“I was thinking,” the other man answered. Man Three chortled sarcastically, but the second man ignored him. “Thinking,” he repeated. “If you’re going to give someone a bunch of information to protect or hide, you’re not going to give them the paper. You’re going to copy a lot of the crucial stuff to a flash drive and encrypt it.”
They regarded the idea almost glumly.
“A flash drive won’t be easy to find,” said the third man. “How will we know if we have the right one?”
“Take as many as we find. Bet they’re near a computer, where they shouldn’t stand out.”
“Or between the mattresses, or in the cupboard, or...” The first man trailed off. “Better than where we were yesterday.”
“Marginally,” Man Three remarked. “Hell. But at least we’ve got a starting point.”
Man One rubbed his face with his hands. “Let’s get that fire up again. I want me some coffee.” Then he zeroed in on the second man again. “Find anything on that computer?”
“Hardly. Didn’t I tell you the battery is dead? I need a plug. Recharge it or run it on AC.”
The third man spoke. “Just don’t tell me you don’t have the adapter or the recharger.”
“I got them. But I gotta plug it in.”
Man One leaned back while Man Three tossed some dry twigs on the fire. Soon it was crackling but not smoking.
“Okay,” said Man One. “That’s the easiest of our problems. We can charge it at Larry Duke’s house tonight, depending on whether they’ve still got a cop watching it. And speaking of Duke? His brother’s in town, I heard earlier.”
“Daniel Duke?”
The first man nodded.
“Damn,” said the third man. “It’s like playing whack-a-mole. Start to solve one problem, and another springs up.”
After that, no one spoke at all.
MAHONEY’S PROVED TO be just the pick-me-up that Cat needed. The country music wailing quietly in the background, the voices of people talking and Mahoney’s warm greeting and his promise to give them the best BLTs.
Mahoney put a cold diet cola in front of her and a large glass of draft in front of Duke.
The place still hadn’t heated up for the evening, so it was relatively quiet. Soon after five, the bar would be jammed.
Duke spoke. “This the only watering hole around here?”
“No. There are roadhouses around the county, serving scattered ranches. I imagine they did better in the days when every ranch employed a lot of cowboys. And there’s one only a few miles outside town. Local bands play, it has a dance floor, that sort of thing.”
“Popular?”
“Oh yeah. Can’t beat the dancing, for one thing. A lot of the college students head out there for that, but they have a good mix of customers.”
Mahoney brought the sandwiches, one for her and two for Duke, and conversation between them flagged. In the lull, Cat looked around and realized some of the patrons were staring at Duke.
Had they heard who he was and why he was here? Given the local grapevine, she thought that might be it, though she harbored a fleeting hope that maybe a few of them wanted to talk about Larry. If that was the case, she hoped she wasn’t putting a damper on it.
While they ate, more patrons began to drift in. By the time they finished eating, the bar was at least half-full.
The hum of conversation had grown stronger, and occasionally laughter punctuated the background noises. A good night was on the way at Mahoney’s.
Cat would have liked to kick back, enjoy a couple of beers, then go home to her basement gym and take a stab at working off her sins, but no. She was driving, first of all, and secondly, the man beside her seemed to be getting a bit restless. Probably impatient for the conversation he was awaiting with Matt.
“You in a hurry?” she asked as he finished his sandwiches.
“Sort of. Not really. Hell, we got time.”
She glanced at her watch. “Yeah, but that’s not necessarily a reminder that will make you less impatient. We can go if you need to move.”
He turned his head, looking across his shoulder at her as he leaned into the bar. “I used to enjoy spending an evening like this.”
“With friends. That’s different.”
“Probably. Or maybe I’m just feeling like I’m wasting time.”
He might be, she thought. Even he had lowered his expectations for these meetings. Justifiably so, considering she truly believed that these poker buddies would know nothing they hadn’t already shared in interviews with the police.
She spoke. “Your brother’s secrecy didn’t help.”
“I think he meant it to protect. And not just his sources. But yeah, he’s a blank slate in that regard.”
“Tell me more about the story he did. The one that affected your career. It might have some clues in it.”
He shook his head, and she thought he was going to shut her down. Then he said, “Not here.”
“Okay, then. Time to go home.” She was surprised how easily she used that word, including him in it. Not “my home” or “my place.” Just home.
Dang, she thought as they walked out to her car. How had he gotten past her barricades? She’d hated this assignment, distrusted him, and now she was taking him home with her.
Egad.
THEY STOPPED AT the gas station and bought a six-pack at Duke’s suggestion. When they got back to her place, she started coffee in case Matt didn’t want a brew while he was there.
Then she sat facing Duke across the table
