“Yeah?” Harry said.
Clay leaned his arm against the door frame, phone pressed against his ear.
“Yeah,” he said. “Why make someone’s day by dying young, right?”
He supposed he could lie to himself about why, but he’d already talked himself down from murdering Grade. That had taken about five minutes. By the time they found him, Clay would be down on one knee with a ring. Or maybe not that far, but… yeah.
Harry was right. He liked the kid.
Who was twenty-six, which was perfectly appropriate.
The call connected. Clay hit 0 repeatedly with his thumb until the system dumped him through to the front desk. It was—he glanced at the dash briefly to check—after four. Terry should be on shift.
“Hello, this is Cave Lock Spa and Lodge,” Terry said, her voice chocolatey smooth. “How can I help you?”
“It’s Clay.”
“Fuck.” The rough edges of her accent broke through, and that was the Terry he knew. “What do you want? I’m at work.”
“Yeah, me too,” Clay said. “I need to know if someone’s staying there. Tall guy, from Lexington. Looks expensive. He’s got TJ with him. Or a car that has muffled screams coming from the trunk. Could be either.”
There were other hotels. Motels. Flophouses. If Clay came into town to do some bad shit, that’s where he’d go. Mouthpiece, though, Mouthpiece looked like someone who liked the nicer things in life. Why else wear a tailored suit to shake down the locals in a shithole like Sweeny?
“I could lose my job,” Tracy said. “Our residents expect their privacy.”
Clay cocked one leg up, his boot braced against the dash. “They also expect a nice wine list of pharma from you,” he pointed out. “You could lose your job for that too.”
She hissed out a sigh between her teeth.
“Fine. What’s his name?”
“If I knew that, I would have led with it,” Clay said. “C’mon, how many assholes can there be in the building?”
“You’d be surprised,” she said dryly. “Give me a minute. I haven’t seen him, but I’ll check with room service.”
She put him on hold. Clay pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers as he listened to a tinny, out of tune piano plink away. He got through two cycles of it before it cut off mid-plink.
“He’s here,” Tracy said. “Room 631. He checked in last night, asked for a mountain view and ordered creamy pesto shrimp for dinner but skipped breakfast. Are we done?”
“Put me through to him,” Clay said. “I need to have a word.”
“My job…”
“…is to put callers through to the rooms they ask for,” Clay said. “Just tell him I already knew.”
She made an annoyed noise, and he had dead air in his ear for a second. When it cleared, Mouthpiece’s voice said coldly, “What do you want?”
If they’d had the time, Clay had a list at this point. Since they didn’t…
“Meet me and Ezra at the Slap in an hour,” he said. “We’ve got Buchanan. That’s who you wanted, isn’t it?”
There was the sound of Mouthpiece taking a drink on the other end of the line. Then he cleared his throat.
“That’s convenient for you, isn’t it?” he said.
“You have no fucking idea,” Clay said. “If you think I’m lying, come to the Slap in an hour and prove it.”
He hung up and idly flipped the phone in his hand a couple of times. Then he grimaced and made another call, to Deputy Jones.
