Mike pulled the door open a crack and blinked at him with sleepy, bloodshot eyes, his hair sticking up all over the place.“What are you doing here?”he mumbled, either drunk or high.
They knew each other.Had partied together.But never worked together until now.“Nah, what areyoustill doing here?”He pushed the door open with his forearm, forcing Mike to take a stumbling step back and let him in.
“Whoa, calm down.There a problem?”
“You’re damned right there is.”He slammed the door shut and stalked into the cramped living room that smelled like it hadn’t been aired out in a decade.The coffee table was covered in empty beer bottles and a small mirror and razor where Mike had recently been doing lines.
While he fumed, Mike wandered over there and picked up a joint, lit it, and took a drag.“Want some?”He held it out.
Part of him was tempted.He was half-desperate to get high.Would love to just let loose the way he used to, forget how shit his life had become since that bitch had brought his world tumbling down on him and landed him in prison.“Did anyone see you plant the drugs?”
“No, course not.”He sounded insulted.“I was quick.”
“Were there cameras around?”
Mike gave him an angry look.“Like I’m supposed to know where every fucking camera in the area is?She parked at the far end of the lot, away from the road.But even if I was caught on camera, I had a hat on, wore it low.No one could’ve seen my face to ID me.”
Yeah, but if he’d been caught on camera, then it defeated the entire purpose of planting the drugs—to make it appearnot to be a fucking setup.
His anger shifted into something far more sinister and dangerous.This motherfucker was a potential liability who could get them all caught, bring them all down again.He couldn’t take that chance.The others would come after him if he didn’t take care of this himself.
He shoved his hand inside his vest and pulled his gun.Mike froze for an instant.
He felt a momentary twinge of guilt.Of sadness.He liked Mike.Loved partying with him.“Sorry, Mikey.”
Mike threw his hands up, eyes wide.“What—no,no!”
He fired two shots, center mass.Mike hit the floor on his back, wheezing as blood flowed out of his chest and bubbled out of his nose and mouth.
Lungs shot.Aorta severed.
Mike’s legs twitched on the scuffed hardwood like a squashed bug.
He stared down at the dying man.Mike’s family lived in another state, and he’d only moved here a few weeks ago.Nobody would miss him for a while.And out here, nobody would have heard or reported the shots.
But Mike’s phone was a potential problem.
He bent, quickly checked Mike’s pockets, ignoring the agonized, accusing stare leveled at him.The phone wasn’t in his pockets.Or on the coffee table.
He rushed to the cramped kitchen, every surface cluttered with so much shit it would take him half an hour to do a thorough search.Still no phone.
It wasn’t on the dresser or nightstand in the bedroom.Or on the bathroom counter.
Where the fuck would Mike have put the damned thing?It could have incriminating evidence on it.If he’d been caught on camera planting drugs, then it wasn’t a stretch to assume Mike hadn’t erased any message chains either.
He couldn’t leave it here and risk the cops finding any messages between the group, even though they’d all used burner phones.
His head snapped toward the front of the house when he heard a vehicle approach the bottom of the driveway.He rushed to the bedroom window at the front of the cottage, eased the edge of the blind aside and cursed under his breath when he saw the truck through the trees at the end of the driveway.
A flash of red was his only warning before a figure appeared on the driveway, coming toward the house.Why was this person coming up to the house?
He dropped the blind and pressed his back to the wall, thinking fast.There was no time to slip out the front.He didn’t want to add anyone to his body count.
He couldn’t remember if there had been a gap in the curtains on the window in the living room.If whoever was coming up the driveway looked in and saw Mike lying there on the floor...
Hollow footsteps sounded on the wooden front stairs.The porch creaked.Then whoever it was knocked on the door.Followed by a pause.Because Mike was in, but he couldn’t answer.
Another knock, louder.“Yo, Mikey.You there?Came to get the stuff from you.”
