“I’d have done the right thing.”
Radcliff looked like he was going to ask her what she meant by the right thing but decided he didn’t want to know. Instead, he told her, “Marv will have to get over it. If you hadn’t put two in Brantley’s skull, I suspect he would have made sure Marv didn’t get that fighting chance. Until you and Shaw came along, I don’t think Brantley left many witnesses. I get the feeling he was thorough.”
“You think there are more bodies out in the desert other than Randy and his mother?”
“I know there are. It’s too good of a place to bury bodies for there not to be. I’d make an educated guess that a fairly high number belong to Deputy Brantley.”
“I guess we’ll never know.”
“Probably not.”
“So, do you think he was ‘the cowboy’ Mal was talking about?”
“It makes sense. He certainly dressed the part and he certainly worked for the cartel. I’d say he showed himself to be very determined and he took things personally. He could have been long gone, but instead, he stuck around to try to take you out.”
“Is it possible all this cartel shit is over?”
“I think it might be. Would have been easier to let Mal kill Dean Stone.”
“Maybe, but maybe not. You wouldn’t have let him just walk.”
“No, I wouldn’t have.”
“I don’t suppose anyone has found Mal?”
“No.”
“Any idea how three dead bikers ended up on ice?”
“One theory is it was Brantley who came looking for Mal and killed them.”
“But not Mal?”
“Mal either got away and has stayed away, or—the more likely scenario—Brantley took him somewhere to kill him slowly.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I don’t either, but that doesn’t make it false. The other theory is Mal killed them, probably because they were sent by Manny to pick him up and take him to Brantley.”
“Which would mean Mal acted in self-defense.”
“He’d have an argument.”
“Why would Manny do that?”
“The cartel asked him to? The word is that Manny and Racers are in deep. Or, more likely, Brantley approached them since the new leadership was supposed to forget about you and Mal. They might have known him as a cartel enforcer, so if he asked them to bring them Mal, they probably wouldn’t question it.”
Margot thought about the other room that looked like it had been occupied recently and the bandages in the trash can.
“That might explain how Brantley disappeared. The Racers might have put him up.”
“Could be.”
Margot was silent for a moment before she said, “I’ve got a feeling Manny gave me up.. One of his lackeys went out of his way to delay us leaving. It didn’t seem out of character for him to act that way, but it makes sense now. I don’t see how else he would have known we were there.”
“He could have been tailing you.”
“Unlikely. He would have had to pick me up at my place since I didn’t advertise I was going to the clubhouse with Marv. Then he would have had to trail us through the desert where it’s not hard to spot a tail if you’re looking for it.”
“And you were looking for it.”
“Always. After all the crap I’ve been through, I can’t not do it anymore. I can tell you, if he was on me the whole time, he missed some easier opportunities. He could have ran Marv and I off the road while I was on the back of his bike multiple times. Someone had to have tipped him to where we were. The only person that could have done that was Manny.”
“Makes sense. Just because it makes sense though, doesn’t mean it’s easy to prove.”
“Did you find a phone on him?”
“We did. I’m guessing given the brand and everything, it was one he was planning to get rid of soon after he took care of you. It would have been nice if Manny’s number was on there, but all of them belong to pay-as-you-go phones that are burners as well. We can tell the calls are local; it could have Manny, but they couldn’t narrow it down enough to say so definitively. The time of the calls makes sense though for someone tipping him off about your location. Trust me, if we can nail Manny, we will.”
“If Marv and I hadn’t been talking in the parking lot, he never would have made it to us.”
“It’s better not to think about that kind of stuff. Maybe if you and Marv don’t talk he runs you off the road somewhere else and things don’t go your way. You couldn’t have known.”
“I should have considered that a guy with alleged cartel connections might do me wrong.”
“It’s easy to say that in hindsight. If I were you, I might have done the same.”
“In hindsight, I should have never gone looking for Mal.”
“Yeah, if you’d asked beforehand, I would have said not to do it. Mal seems to draw trouble. If you were missing, however, I’d look for you…even though more than one person would tell me not to.”
“Are you saying I draw trouble?”
Radcliff shook his head and laughed. “You’re in the hospital recovering from a shootout on a public street. I’d say the evidence points to yes!”
Margot couldn’t argue with him.
After a few minutes of silence, she said, “You know what the big problem is? Mal’s still missing.”
“Yeah, but maybe let me worry about that one. I don’t want to have to visit you in a hospital or a jail cell for at least a couple of weeks. Let’s face it, when you start running around the desert, both of these seem best-case scenarios. Maybe you should take some time and enjoy being alive with the cowboy
