“Yeah,” Clay said. He wiped his thumbs under Grade’s eyes. “I can see that.”
Grade took a breath and felt it wobble in his chest. He turned away and—fuck sake—pulled the hem of his T-shirt up to wipe his face. His eyes stung, and for some reason, it felt good. Not great, but better. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried.
That was a lie. He could. It just wasn’t a good memory.
“It’s the dust,” Grade said. “From the wall.”
“Sure,” Clay said. He sounded as relieved as Grade did to have a reasonable excuse for the breakdown. “That makes sense. You OK now?”
Grade took a deep breath. He felt it catch in his chest, but nothing new leaked out of him, so…
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”
He gave his face one last wipe and turned back around. “Look, I screwed up,” he said. “I know that, but why would I ask you for help? Why would you want to help us?”
Clay looked pissed but just shook his head.
“That’s a fucking sad thing to say,” he said. “Jesus Christ, Grade.”
That wasn’t an answer. Grade let it go, though. After the whole “naked moth” thing, he didn’t have the goodwill banked to push it. He sat down on the edge of the bed. It creaked under him, and the smell of old piss and mothballs oozed out of the mattress.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Help,” Clay said. “I’m going to help both of us. But that means you have to trust me.”
Grade hesitated for a second as he squinted at Clay and tried to work out how he was going to get fucked over. Because he probably was. People were, in general, out for themselves. That’s why he got money upfront.
Except he didn’t have a lot—any—options right now, and letting Clay in felt a little like kissing him. It made the knot in Grade’s chest loosen until he could breathe without choking on the air. So he’d just be surprised when Clay dropped him in it. He’d survive that. He always did.
“OK,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
Clay pointed at the wall. “Why the fuck you cut a hole in the wall instead of knocking on the door,” he said. “And how much Hadley wants to ransom your sister.”
“A hundred grand by midnight. Hadley said that once I had it he'd tell me where to take it,” It didn’t sound any less an amount of money or any more of a reasonable time frame when you said it aloud instead of reading it in a text. “And there were people outside watching the motel. I didn’t want them to see me go in. I don’t have the time to explain.”
Clay chewed his lower lip.
“A hundred grand?” he said. “That’s all.”
“Yeah,” Grade said bitterly. “Just pocket change.”
“Buchanan stole money from the Catfish Mafia,” Clay said. He turned on his heel as he talked and looked around the room. “He must have been skimming off the top for years. Me, I’d be fucking thrilled if someone dropped a hundred grand in my lap. But it’s not ‘run away and live out the rest of your life in Mexico’ money, and that’s what Buchanan would have needed to do. Someone like Fisher can’t let one of his men get away with stealing from him. He’d wait years, decades, to get his own back. A hundred grand isn’t enough money to run far enough or hide well enough. It wouldn’t be worth the risk for Buchanan.”
That did make it sound like aslightlysmaller amount of cash. Slightly. Grade didn’t see how it changed anything, though. It was still more than he had.
“Maybe the rest of the money is in an off-shore account somewhere?” he said. “This was just his run-for-it stash?”
“Then why would Elizabeth have him killed now, in Sweeny?” Clay asked. “If her and Hadley had pulled it off, they would have got$50Keach. Why not wait and get the whole haul?”
Grade rubbed his forehead. He could feel the seconds as they ticked away.
“Why did someone steal Buchanan’sshoes?” he asked. “People do stuff that makes no sense all the time. Maybe she knows where the rest of the money is?”
That made Clay nod reluctantly. He chewed on the side of his thumbnail as he thought it through. “So Hadley gets his$50K, and she gets the rest of the money once the heat’s died down,” he said. “Hell, once everyone, including Fisher, knows Buchanan is dead, there won’t be any heat. No one would look for her. Does this place look like a guy has stayed in it?”
The sudden question caught Grade by surprise. It dislodged the itch ofsomethingthat had nudged at him while Clay talked through Hadley and Elizabeth’s plan. He tried to catch the tail of it, but it was gone.
“Um.” He looked around the room. There was a dirty tissue with lipstick blots on it on the dresser and a spray of setting powder on the mirror. The clothes in the wardrobe were wrinkled and were mostly dresses and leggings. A few pairs of jeans, but… “No. And how long was Buchanan supposed to have been in town?”
