Nineteen
"Hey, Craig," the guy said as he slid into her side of the booth whether she wanted him to or not. Well, there had been plenty of things that she'd had no choice in, the past few years, and this wasn't going to be the thing that ruined her.
"Who's the chickadee?"
"Don't be crass," Craig said mildly. If it were someone else, Erin might have thought that he was letting it go. But she knew that wasn't what was happening. Rather, Craig was relying on the fact that he wouldn't have to say it a second time. If he did, she knew, there would be trouble.
The man beside her had been one of the faces on that sheet of men who had dated the previous victims. She wasn't about to assume that the both of them were all she needed to find. Two people didn't just meet each other and set off on a whirlwind murdering adventure like that. And the prosthetic work that would have been necessary to make Craig fit perfectly with the other two was prohibitive.
"Okay, well, are you going to introduce me to your friend, Hutchinson?"
"What, like we're friends?" Craig's face darkened. "Do you have the money, or don't you?"
Erin had to fight to keep her face straight. Maybe this was all set up to intimidate her, or maybe it wasn't, but she had stumbled into something that she wouldn't have been remotely privy to if they knew what she did for work.
"Relax, man. I got the money."
"Good."
The man slipped a fat yellow envelope across the table. Roy opened the top flap and looked inside. If he had any doubts that everything he wanted was in there, he didn't show it, and he didn't bother to count it.
She waited for the pass back, whatever it would be. Instead, the killer beside her waited a minute before asking, in his most nervous voice, "we good?"
"Yeah, we're good. Go on, now."
The broad-faced man got up and took a few hurried steps toward the door. Craig caught his arm.
"You try to conduct business when I'm here to relax again, and we're going to have trouble. You feel me?"
"Sorry, man. Won't happen again."
"You got it?"
"I got it!"
Craig let him go, and he pulled hard as he started to move away. Erin let out a breath and closed her eyes a moment, trying to relax herself.
"Sorry about that."
"What was that all about?"
"Oh, I did some work on his bike. It was making a mean bit of engine noise. Turned out he needed a complete rebuild."
"So he paid in cash?"
"You bet," Craig said, nodding softly to music that wasn't playing.
"Is that how all your business goes?"
"Not all of it," he said with a shrug.
"Who was that, even?"
"Oh, you know," Craig said. Evading the question again. "I met him around."
"Around, huh?"
"What is this, twenty questions? Yeah. Around."
"Sorry I asked." Someone finally came around, a guy who looked like he could serve double-duty as a bulldozer if the need arose, and Craig ordered them both beers. They'd take a basket of fries, as well, and make it snappy.
Apparently the deal the day before had set him off. Well, she wasn't going to complain if it meant better service, but it told her something about the man across the table from her. All of it did.
Whatever he was getting paid for, it was worth more than the bike he was sitting on. Time rebuilding an engine might add up to ten grand, but that wasn't the kind of atmosphere that surrounded a mechanic getting paid, and this wasn't the sort of place a mechanic hung out at noon.
"You said you knew my sister."
"Yeah, I said that. Knew her voice, from over the phone, anyway. Saw a few pictures. We tried a video chat one time, but it didn't work out."
"You don't seem like the computer type."
"No?" Craig shrugged. "You have to keep up with the times, don't you?"
"I guess so," Erin agreed. The fries came out with the beer, steaming hot and overfull for the basket they came in. Craig dumped some salt on and took one.
"So. Between jobs, huh?"
"For now," she said, mildly. "They come and go. I could have a contract tomorrow, or I could be another few weeks."
"For real?"
"Sure," she said.
"How do you manage to pay for it?"
"My mom left me a little money." It was a lie. After Dad left, she'd been a wreck. Barely able to keep herself together. Erin wondered how bad Dad had taken it, but then she decided that she didn't need to worry about that. He probably took it as badly as he took everything. It would make a great excuse to drink, but not a great excuse to change anything about himself.
"We should all be so lucky."
"It is what it is."
"I hear that," Craig said, another tug of a smile at the corners of his lips. "But hey. We all do what we have to in this life, right?"
"Exactly."
Craig didn't know how true that was for her. She would do whatever she had to do, and if that meant spending time with this bastard until he slipped up and gave himself away, she'd wait all year if she had to.
He took a french fry between his fingers and moved over to her side of the booth, wrapped his free hand around her shoulder and pulled her in.
"I think something happened to your sister. You heard from her?"
"No," she said. "Not in years."
"See, that's a shame, darlin'. Family's family."
"I know."
"I watch out for my family, and they watch out for me. We fight, sure. Who doesn't? But we at least got that much figured out. We're responsible for each other. Nobody gets off, and nobody walks away."
"What's that supposed to mean? Like—you have brothers?"
"Brothers and brothers. I was the youngest, and my brothers looked out for me. Now I'm older, I look out for them."
"I don't know what that's like. My sister and I split up a long time ago."
"That's how it is, sometimes. But I'm telling you, it's not good. You need to reforge those bonds."
"Well, if I get any word on her…" Erin forced herself to swallow the anger that was threatening to spill out. "Then I'll do just that. You're right. It's too precious to waste time on petty little fights."
"See what I mean?"
"Yeah, I see what you mean."
He smiled and stood up. Pulled another fry and put it between his lips. Like a cigarette or something. Then he went over to an old jukebox, old enough to still be using C.D.s, and thumbed a couple quarters in. A minute later it started playing something and he slid back into the booth opposite her.
"Of course, sometimes you have to take a hard line with them, too, you know?"
"What?"
"With family. I heard a little about your parents' situation. A year, it's a long time, you get to talking, and that sort of thing comes up. Bad stuff."
"Well, sometimes you have to deal with bad stuff."
"Oh, no, I ain't doubting that. But what I am saying is, I know your dad didn't do your mom right. As much as I care about family, as much as I'd do anything to keep my brothers safe—" he sucked in a breath through his nose and let it out like a bull about to charge. "—Someone did my momma like that, and they wouldn't be in no position to do it to nobody else. Not ever again."