Cade braced his hands on the counter and let his head hang forward as he waited for the wave to pass. His skin felt too hot and tight to sweat.
“I can’t pay right now, but—” he said.
“Don’t worry about it,” the kid said. “We have a fund for anyone that loses their tags and can’t pay. Water and sweats, use the store phone.”
Huh.
Cade wiped his mouth on his arm and straightened up.
“Happen often?” he asked
“Once,” the kid said. “Guess that was enough. Some guy came in, ranting and raving that he’d been kidnapped? He wanted us to call the police, but fuck sake. Wolf chases a coyote into the desert; you don’t call the cops for that… unless you’re the coyote. We don’t have a payphone anyhow, so… The guy got real mad or scared and took off. He went the wrong way and, well, died. Awful. But his friend or brother, or something? He heard my boss talking about it on the radio and turned up a couple of weeks later. I guess he didn’t want that to happen to anyone else, so he gave us money to keep things stocked and even bought and paid for a phone so that people could call for help if they needed it. Bad reception up here, though. I used it a couple of times in an… um… medical emergency, and it just kept cutting out.”
“Huh,” Cade said. “And what happens if I just take the water and the clothes?”
“Nothing? You don’t have to pay it back or anything,” the kid said. He pulled a phone from behind the counter and pushed it toward Cade. “I just call the guy’s brother, and he gets it all restocked.”
“How much would it cost for you not to call him?”
“I… I don’t know. Fifty bucks?”
“Lend me your phone,” Cade said. “I’ll give you a hundred.”
Cade transferred the money, waited for the kid to get confirmation, and then headed over to peer out the dusty, fly-specked door as he made the call.
“Who thefuckis this?” Lem snapped. “I don’t have time to play games, so—”
“Lem, shut up.”
He did as he was told. That wasn’t a good sign. Cade heard Lem take two deep, unsteady breaths before he cleared his throat.
“Holy crap, man,” Lem said, his voice relaxed into a laid-back drawl. “I’ve had the shit scared out of me. We’ve been putting together a ransom.”
“We?”
“Yeah. Me and that cop of yours,” Lem said. “FYI? I may have embezzled some money. I’m good, so I don’t think anyone will notice if I move it back. But if they do mention it—”
“Shut up,” Cade told him again. He pinched the tender skin of his nose and tried to think through the pulse of his headache.
Ransom hadn’t been the plan. If it had, they would have put him somewhere he had to stay put, wolf or man. Franklin had dropped him off in the middle of the desert to die. So, whatever was going on with Marlow was… improvised. And a ransom drop for an already dead victim—or that’s what Franklin assumed—would end with two.
“Tell Marlow not to go,” he said.
“Too late,” Lem said. “He’s on his way there now.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not a complete asshole,” Lem said. “I’ve not let him go alone. He could be in on it for a start. I followed him. The meet is in some roadside cafe out in the sticks,Sunny’s Side Hustle.They’re in there now. I’m parked in the gas station next door. Want me to go in and tell Franklin he’s a shit kidnapper?”
“No,” Cade said. “He’s a pretty good murderer. Stay there.”
He hung up and went back to the counter. The kid tried to look like he hadn’t been listening.
“Do you want to earn some more money?”
The kid shrugged. “Sure,” he said. Belated suspicion flickered over his acne-scarred face. “How?”
The truck was bright blue except for the primer-red doors. Cade parked it in an empty row at the back of the lot outsideSunny’s.The kid at the counter had told him to order the Chorizo Hash, but not to listen to a word the waitress said about the pancakes.
