“But you know who did?” Cain said. “And why?”
“No, I don’t. It was a big shock to me.”
“Let me offer you another shock,” Cain said. “One you can take to the bank.” He had slid one of his blades from its secret pant-leg compartment and now aimed it at Jason’s eye. Only a couple of inches away.
Jason flinched. “What the hell?”
“You see, Jason, we aren’t constrained by laws and rules and crap like that. We each have a considerable body count and aren’t bashful about moving that needle north. So, I can either gouge your eye out, or you can cut the BS and tell us the truth.”
Jason’s face was now slick with sweat, his breathing deep and fast.
“Who the hell did this?” Harper asked.
“I don’t know.”
Cain moved the knife point closer to Jason’s eye. “Not the right answer.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you what I know. Just get that thing away from me.”
Cain lowered the knife. “Talk.”
“I have no idea who did any of this. I swear. Tommy handled all the supplies. I know he got everything out of Memphis. I don’t know from who. I was never in on any of that. I only helped him sell.”
“Okay, so far, so good,” Harper said. “The rest of it.”
“Tommy had found another guy over in Knoxville. Better prices, he told me, and closer by so easier to get supplies.”
Supplies. Sounded so innocuous. Sort of like typing paper, rubber bands, and number two yellow pencils.
“The guys in Memphis?” Cain asked. “How’d they feel about that?”
Jason shook his head. “Tommy said they didn’t know nothing about it.”
“I’d say current events suggests that they did. So they settled his account.”
Jason’s shoulders sagged. “After what happened, I figured they must’ve. You know, killed Tommy and his family.”
“That’s what happens in the world you decided to inhabit,” Cain said.
“These people you don’t know from Memphis?” Harper said. “Sounds like convenient forgetfulness.”
“I don’t know them. Never met or talked to them or anything.” He glanced toward Harper, Cain, back to Harper. “That’s the truth.”
“You will get to meet them,” Cain said. “Up close and personal. You do know that, don’t you?”
“What?”
“You think they don’t know about you? That you worked with Tommy?” Cain smiled. “You don’t think they have eyes and ears everywhere they ship product? That they would kill off a supply line unless they had another one already in place? Not sure that would be a smart business decision.”
“So?”
“So, tag, you’re it. The next man up.”
“I won’t do it.”
“Will you have a choice?” Harper said. “I don’t think the guys who did what I’ve seen in the past few hours are good at accepting no.”
Jason wavered, flattened a palm against the tree for support.
“We don’t really care what you decide,” Cain said. “Or better, what they decide. But when they contact you, and they will, I want to know about it.”
Jason said nothing. His brain apparently on overload.
“What’s your phone number?” Cain asked.
“Why?”
“I’ll text you my contact info. You’ll need it to call me as soon as you hear anything.”
“Why would I do that?”
Cain caught his gaze, held it. “So we won’t have to visit you in the dead of night.”
Jason recited the number and Cain shot him a text. And just like that, they were in his phone. Or, Mama B was anyway.
CHAPTER 32
“Mr. Greene came by to see you,” Poppy said from her perch behind the PD’s reception desk.
“Where is he?” Cassie said, looking around.
“He went across the street to grab a coffee. He said he’d drop back by.”
“Thanks.” Cassie tapped a knuckle on the desktop. “I’ll be in my office.”
She sat behind her desk. The stack of papers she had neglected for a few days glared at her. She knew most would be inane memos and forms but she still needed to weed the wheat from the chaff. She dug in, tossing the first three into the blue trash bin. The one that held documents to be shredded.
Hack stuck his head around the door jamb. “Anything new?”
“Nada.”
“Duckworth and Fowler laid out a search plan. Kind of spreading out from The Crossroads.”
“If they went that way,” Cassie said.
“That’s where most of the cabins and stuff are but that’s why I’m headed east. See what’s in the hills that way.”
Cassie swiped her hair back. “Hell, they could be in Montana by now.”
Hack scratched one cheek. “Probably not with one of them shot.”
Cassie shrugged. “Probably not.”
“Before I head out, you need me to do anything?”
She picked up a stack of papers. “Maybe go through these.”
He laughed. “Another reason I got tired of playing chief.” He waved and headed down the hallway.
Wasn’t that the truth. It seemed she spent more time pushing paper around than she did actually doing cop work. Bureaucracies kill more trees than forest fires and she had a good sized sapling on her desk right now. She began the sorting again, assigning each to one of three fates: trashcan, shred can, or a stack that she would have to actually deal with. Unfortunately, most ended up in the latter.
Her intercom button buzzed and flashed. She punched it to open the line.
“Mr. Greene is here.”
“Send him back.”
She and Simon Greene had a history that reached back to grammar school. He was two years older and for some reason glommed on to her as a love interest in her sixth grade year. He never let go of that desire either. They actually had one date. His senior prom. She a sophomore and his second choice; Marla Jackson was the first. She didn’t uncover that little fact until much later, however. Marla had been dating one of the football players then. Simon wasn’t an athlete. He was smart though. Smart enough to win a full-ride scholarship to Ole Miss and then another to Yale Law. Then he returned to Tanner’s Crossroads and built the largest law practice in a hundred-mile radius.
He also picked up his pursuit of Cassie. So far she had batted away all his advances and didn’t see any way that would
