Lewis crossed the Montlake Cut and turned right onto Hamlin, a lush, tree-lined street with large and meticulously maintained older homes. Three blocks down, across from the Seattle Yacht Club, he pulled to the curb. “How you want to do this?”
“Well, I already know he doesn’t want to talk to me. But I also know he’s home, because he just posted a selfie with his protein smoothie. So we’ll knock on the door and start a conversation.”
“What if he don’t want to talk?”
She patted Lewis’s muscular arm. “That’s why I brought you.”
They walked past the high screen of trees and up the drive, where a large black Bronco stood beside a blocky gray Cybertruck, charging in the rain. The house was a big ugly box with a dark brick exterior and strange metal shutters beside the windows.
“You see those?” Lewis pointed at the shutters. “They’re steel, for security. Mounted on hinges so you can close them over the windows and lock them from the inside. In case a mob shows up with pitchforks, I guess.”
June looked closer. “What are those rectangular openings in the metal?”
“Gun slits.” Lewis shook his head. “Motherfucker’s paranoid as hell.”
He had a camera doorbell, too, which would capture them on video. June rang it a half dozen times, hearing the elaborate chime through the sidelights. Lewis said, “You looking to piss him off from the jump?”
“I just want him annoyed enough to come to the door.” She rang again and kept ringing.
After several minutes, the door opened with a jerk. “What the fuck?”
Troy Boxall wore tight workout clothes that showed a vastly overdeveloped musculature. His arms were so bulked up he probably couldn’t straighten them. At twenty-nine, he already had a receding hairline.
He also carried a pistol-grip shotgun hanging from one hand. “Get the fuck off my property before I call the police.”
Lewis gave June a quick questioning glance. She shook her head slightly, not wanting to provoke the man. She was pretty sure the shotgun was just for show, anyway.
So she flashed him the smile that had worked on tech bros before. “Hi, Troy. June Cassidy, with Public Investigations. I’ve been trying to reach you. We need to talk.”
“Huh.” He tipped his head to the side. “I thought you’d be uglier.”
She resisted the urge to kick him in the balls. He couldn’t answer her questions if he was curled up on the floor protecting his damaged manhood. She’d also heard far worse bullshit in her years interviewing tech bros, and you couldn’t kick themallin the balls—could you?
She kept her smile pleasant. “May we come in? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Boxall shook his head. “You are persistent, I’ll give you that. Almost as persistent as that other girl reporter, but apparently she’s no longer with us.” He smirked. Was he baiting her? Did he know something about KT’s death? Now she wanted to punch him in the face. He probably got that a lot.
But he didn’t close the door. It was the shotgun, she thought. It made him feel in control, overconfident. It was an opportunity.
“We are Legion,” she said, watching his face closely. He didn’t react. “Tell us about the Gun Club,” she said. “Tell us about the Messenger.”
Now he smiled merrily. “I’m not telling you shit. ’Cause obviously you don’t know shit.”
But he didn’t deny his involvement, June noticed. Boxall glanced disdainfully at Lewis, who stood silently beside her with the contained and implacable stillness he had. She’d had learned in the last few years that his stillness was more than lack of movement. It was a focused readiness for whatever might come. Boxall clearly had no idea what Lewis was capable of. Few people did.
“I know a few things,” she said. “I know about Circuit Rider. I know he ordered Scott Enderby to kill Katelyn Thorsen. I have the Telegram texts to prove it.”
“That’s enough.” Boxall raised the shotgun to his hip and put his free hand on the slide. “Time for you to go.”
June didn’t think he’d pull the trigger. She wanted to rattle him.
“You used to work with Enderby at Chatrbx, didn’t you? I wonder if the cops can connect you to that murder.” She made a guess. “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars you’re on a Telegram chat with him.”
She must have guessed right, because Boxall began to rack the shotgun’s slide to bring a shell from the magazine into firing position. Before he could complete the action, Lewis was in motion, flying forward and twisting the weapon effortlessly away.
Then he stepped back with the shotgun hanging down as if it had been his all along. “Never did like a pistol grip,” he said. “Kick like a mule, hard to control. Do a lotta damage up close, though. But you got to keep a shell in the chamber.”
Boxall put his hands out to his sides. But he didn’t back away from the doorway. His face red and bunched like a fist. “You have no idea what kind of shitstorm you’re facing.”
