“You want me to give you a tattoo now?” I grit my teeth in a smile that can’t be pleasant. “Sure, I’ll do that for you.”
Doubt flickers over his face. “Maybe we’ll wait until you’ve cooled off a bit.”
“Probably a good idea.” Taking a deep breath, I march farther into the clubhouse, putting on my best tough-girl gaze, even though inside I’m feeling anything but.
FORTY-FOUR
SEBASTIAN
“How long ago did the APBs go out?” I speed past a slow driver.
“A good hour,” Bobby says.
I knew these guys would have someone in the SFPD in their pockets. “She’s safe?”
“Yep. Mad as a snake, but nothing we can’t handle,” Bobby promises. “What are you up to?”
“This and that.”
“Right. Well, if you can get ‘this and that’ done before she bites me again, that’d be great.”
Despite everything, I smile. “Thanks, man.” It’s been a long time since I’ve relied on anyone but myself, and here I am relying on a bunch of criminals. “Just . . . take care of her.” I hang up and toss the phone into the console in time to pull up to my parents’ house.
And take a deep breath. I had a feeling I’d be visiting again, sooner rather than later.
My dad answers the door with a frown. “Twice in two days.”
“I know.” I lock eyes with him, swallowing my fear that he’ll say he won’t help me. Besides Ivy, he’s the only one I trust. “I need your help and I don’t have a lot of time to explain.”
He looks over his shoulder and then steps out, shutting the door behind him.
I pull a phone and a slip of paper out of my pocket. “There is a sensitive video on this phone that I want you to have a copy of. Don’t watch it. And on the paper is the information for a safety-deposit box in Zurich. It has you marked as next of kin, should anything ever happen to me.” I hand it to him. “I need you to make sure these two things are safe. And use the contents, if something happens to me.”
His frown turns to understanding. “I don’t want to know what this is about, do I?” His voice has taken on that stern, no-nonsense tone that has given me both comfort and fear all my life.
I shake my head. “Not unless you don’t hear back from me.”
He nods and, with a moment’s hesitation, adds, “Be safe.”
“I will be,” I promise, though I can’t be sure that my next stop won’t guarantee a bullet in my head.
“You found me.” Bentley fingers a vine, empty of fruit and ready for winter’s slumber. “I didn’t expect you here so soon.”
“Your wife gave me directions.” With a smile and a bat of her eyelashes, all while the cold metal of my gun pressed against my back and I considered using her as leverage.
Bentley doesn’t seem at all concerned by my presence. He doesn’t seem intent on anything but the grapes, and the western skies, where the sun is slow to set. “There’s something therapeutic about this place after it’s been harvested. Have you ever seen grapevines in the winter?”
“No. Not that I’ve noticed, anyway.”
“Well, I guess they’re like any plant. They look dead, incapable of ever coming back to life. Of ever producing anything again. And yet they do, year after year, as long as you protect their roots.”
It seems like such a casual conversation. If I weren’t on edge, I might enjoy it.
But I don’t have time to waste here. “Why’d you lie to me?”
He pauses, a dried leaf against his palm. “What was I going to tell you? That I lost control of some of my operatives? That the last boy scout was going to sink Alliance because of it?” He sounds defeated.
“So you did know what was going on over there. What Scalero was doing.”
His silence answers me.
“When did it become about money, John? Don’t you have enough of that?”