Cade didn’t plan to stay long enough to finish anything.
He got out of the truck and shambled toward the front door of the diner, a big man with a sunburnt neck and a stained Food Lion T-shirt tucked into a pair of too-long jeans. The god-awful straw cowboy hat had been part of the thousand-buck package deal he’d struck with the kid in the Food Lion. It made his head itch, which he hoped was just the sunburn.
The chime over the door jingled as he let himself in. Five or six people scattered between the various booths and tables turned to look at him. Cade ignored them and kept his hat pulled down over his eyes as he headed toward the counter.
“Hey there, darlin’,” the heavyset man behind the counter drawled as he cleared away the cups in front of Cade. “Breakfast?”
“Give me a stack of pancakes and bacon,” Cade said. He’d notaskedthe kid’s opinion, and he made his own decisions—even if it did involve getting pancake food poisoning. The name tag on the man’s shirt said “Susie.” There was probably a quirky story there. “And a lemonade. Busy in here.”
Susie shrugged as he grabbed a fresh glass and filled it up. “Morning after the blue moon,” he said. “Everyone’s in to lick their wounds and wonder how the hell they got Ms. Gardner’s gnome wedged where they wedged it.”
He laughed at his own joke. “Locals?” Cade asked.
“You ain’t.”
“I’m not asking about me,” Cade said. “This is police business.”
It was. Cade just wasn’t the police. That was a technicality, though. Susie hesitated and looked around as he pushed a small bowl of sweeteners over the counter.
“The big blond man’s been in before. Always gets his food spicy as hell and then can’t eat it,” Susie said. “Tips like shit. I don’t know the guy with him. The two at the door and the kid in the corner with the cast just drove up an hour ago, been nursing their coffee ever since.”
Null at least, then. Probably whatever members of Franklin’s crew he trusted to be okay with outright murdering one of their own.
“Could I borrow your pen?” Cade asked.
Susie hesitated for a moment and then shrugged and handed it over, along with his order pad. The first stroke of the pen didn’t work. Cade scribbled in the corner of the page until the ink came through and then wrote a quick message to Lem. He tore it off, folded it in half, and handed it over.
“Take that and two—” He glanced at the menu out of habit. It didn’t matter. The food was an excuse, but some stuck-in-the-past part of his brain wanted to make sure he fed his baby brother something nutritious. “Chorizo and egg tacos over to the car parked in the gas station. Nice car, blond guy in the front seat. He’ll give whoever takes it over fifty bucks.”
“For that tip, I’ll take it,” Susie said dryly. “I don’t want any trouble here. The bank might own this place, but sometime in the future, they’ve promised to sign it over to me.”
Cade shrugged. “There’s going to be trouble,” he said. “One way or another. This way you make sure the right guys win, and I’ll make sure the SDPD compensates you for any damages.”
“Shit,” Susie muttered. “If you turn out to be a serial killer, I will be so pissed.”
He turned away and beckoned the waitress over to give her the order and the note. Hopefully, the distraction of a pretty girl and a bag of food wouldn’t slow Lem down too much.
Cade slid off the stool and slouched through the tables. He walked like his feet hurt after a long night—they did after his walk through the desert, and in these broken-down boots—and after a quick look, the three he’d pegged as Franklin’s men dismissed him as nobody.
It was stupid—and Cade hated to admit it—but that bugged him.
Maybe Franklin wouldn’t have been so quick, but he was busy holding forth to Marlow.
Who could, like Lem said, be involved. Cade didn’t believe that but disproving it gave him a reason to take a nearby table and crane his ears to listen in on what they said about him. That wasn’t the only reason—he needed to give Lem time to get into position—but he could have done that from the counter.
“…I am sure you have a whole speech about how I’m better than this, that underneath it all, I’m a good cop,” Franklin said as he dug into his hash with enthusiasm. “But—”
“I don’t,” Marlow said. “You’re a bad person and a corrupt cop. We’re on the same page.”
“Huh.” Franklin speared a crisped chunk of chorizo. “Questions about where I went wrong? Started down this path?”
“No, worked that out,” Marlow said. “You aren’t that special, Franklin.”
Franklin forked the food into his mouth and chewed it irritably. “You’ve always been like this,” he said. “Never let me have anything. But I think you’re lying. You’ve no idea…”
“I spoke to Randall,” Marlow said. “I found those people you killed—”
“Let die.”
