I had avoided describing this in detail earlier, and Frank leaned in, waiting for the answer, too.
“Hemmings pushed Travis into a corner,” I said. “Behind the cart they’d been using to load ammo. The saw blade got stuck in a piece of bone,” I continued. “It came out the other side of Travis’s head. That’s why I knew he was dead.”
“Geez Louise,” Frank said.
“Hemmings came outside and took a rag,” I continued. “Wiped blood and brains from his face. Called up somebody, probably Sandoval or Regnar. Told them it was done.”
“These bastards,” Cassie said. “I hope they all fry.”
After we ordered, Frank got up and left for the restroom, and I looked at Cassie.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked up from her phone. Squinted. “What are you sorry for?”
“Your comment about ‘more partnership on the way’—it made me think about my decision fifteen months ago. Shooter and I working together. You and Richie.”
She held my gaze but said nothing for a moment. Then: “Richie needed a mentor, right?”
“Right,” I said.
But I could tell that she knew the truth. That this had always been about her and me.
O’Reilly’s Honda pulled into the restaurant parking lot, and I walked outside to meet him.
“Nice driving, Tex,” he said. “I’m sorry about that fuckup. I swear I don’t know how it happened.”
“It all worked out,” I said.
He glanced behind him. Up and down the highway. “You feds keep busy, huh? What is PAR anyway?”
“We’re an analytics group,” I said. “Pattern recognition. Statistical analysis.”
“And this thing?” He pointed at the road. “You probably can’t say, but—what if I guess?”
I put out my hand to shake and say thanks. To leave it at that.
“Domestic terror?” he pressed. “Ghost guns? If I get it right, will you blink once?”
I smiled at this.
“Serial number mismatch?” he asked.
“I appreciate your help,” I said.
He shook my hand finally. “Anything comes up—you have my number.”
“I do.”
O’Reilly took off. After breakfast, we got back in the van and headed up to Jacksonville, toward our old office.
I-95 moved inland, and the April breeze of the salt air from the ocean disappeared, replaced by the thickness of humidity. A shimmer of heat rose off the highway in front of us, and I turned my head, counting fourteen cell phone repeaters mounted on a three-story metal tower that emerged from a bank of white oaks.
I closed my eyes for a moment, my brain exhausted, my head feeling thick.
When I flicked them open a second later, an hour had passed. A freshwater fishing pond sat beside the interstate, ten minutes from the old office.
Frank took the next exit, and I sat up, ready to focus.
