Secret Triplets(21)

 

The wait dragged on even longer than I’d expected. I returned my mom’s call (“Yes, Mom, I’m fine. Just working on a really big case. Yes, I’ll come down for dinner tomorrow. Yes, I love you too.”) and Tiffany’s (“Hey! Sorry about taking so long getting back to you. Been consumed by this crazy case. Yeah, things are looking up. Dinner Wednesday? Definitely!”)

 

And then, finally, just when two hours had rolled around to three and I’d given up on Russell Snow entirely, in he came.

 

Even the second time seeing him was jarring. He was taller than I remembered, more angular. His all black suit was hilariously out of place in the quaint little café; his whole body was, really. His face was all sharp planes that looked tacked together. The smile he tried to give me looked more sinister than if he had scowled outright. He sat across from me and bared his teeth into another troubling, yellow smile.

 

“Knew you could do it. Knew you were different,” he said in his cold voice.

 

“So you’re sure this guy is dangerous?” I found myself asking in response.

 

The thin white lines of his eyebrows lowered.

 

“You went to his cabin, you said?”

 

“I… He just doesn’t seem like the ‘unhinged criminal’ type is all.”

 

An unseemly smile crept over his face, and he gave my hand an icy pat.

 

“The worst ones never do.”

 

He took out an envelope and said, “Here’s your $2,000 as agreed upon.” Then he paused. “Can I see the pictures?”

 

“Sure,” I said, taking out my phone.

 

When he saw the guns, that same smile returned.

 

“Yes, yes.”

 

I took the phone away, perhaps too fast, because he gave my hand another pat, this time resting his bones over my fingers.

 

“Miss Combs, if only you knew what this vicious man has done.”

 

My gaze was rapt on his boney hands: their snakes of tendons, knobs of knuckles, yellow half-moons of nails.

 

“Try me.”

 

At this, his gaze grew hard. Russell Snow rose.

 

“You ready for that ride?”

 

His hand was clutching the envelope so hard the knuckles and tendons were standing out and white. His face was just as strained looking. Clearly, I was going to have to go along with Russell Snow’s ride in order to get paid.

 

“Yes,” I said.

 

With that, he strode out the café door. I hurried after him to find him at a fully blacked-out SUV.

 

Catching my stare, he grinned.

 

“Can’t be too careful.”

 

Just then a tow truck stopped, barring my way.

 

“That tan one yours?” a young ball-capped guy asked from the open window, pointing to my car.

 

“Yes,” I said. “Do you need anything else from me?”

 

The boy shook his sandy blond head.

 

“Just call us up and we can let ya know when we’re finished.”

 

Then the tow truck continued toward my car.

 

“Miss Combs!” a voice said.

 

It was Russell Snow, now in his car and waving me over with the hand holding the envelope.

 

I kept my gaze on it as I slid into the passenger side. Just a few more minutes and I’d have the money I so desperately needed and had more than earned.

 

But as soon as the door closed beside me, Russell locked all the doors, started the engine, and said, “You don’t mind if I run an errand first.”

 

I didn’t answer his question that was really a demand; he was already pulling out onto the road anyway, driving out of Nederland. I stared out the window dully at the town I’d never see again now that I’d delivered what may have been a good man to the most unseemly creep I’d ever encountered. Was going against what I knew was right really worth the money?

 

“So you never said where he was,” Russell said.

 

“Didn’t I?”

 

“Nope. It was part of the agreement.”

 

I almost asked him, “Was it?” before I said, “Oh. Well, I’ll need to go home and look over a map to retrace my steps.”

 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his face fall. Abruptly, he pulled the car over.

 

“I haven’t told you the full story,” he said, spreading his fingers on one hand and then bringing them in again.

 

“Oh?” I said.

 

“This job is important, really important, for personal reasons. It wasn’t just those guns Brock’s been involved in. He stole from my girl, my Kaya. I swore to her I’d get her jewelry back. The longer it takes, the less chance there is that it’ll be there. If I don’t have an address to give the police now, who knows how long it will take. I know you just stumbled on it, but the facts remain.”