Wade sucked in a breath and chuffed back, “I know that.”
“So she needs to be dealt with, Wade. And you’re our man in Havana, as they say …”
“Dealt with?” The grinding in his stomach worsened. “Dealt with how?”
“C’mon, Wade, you’re a smart guy … How’d you get to be chief? Just that it has to be done. And soon. Tonight. Tomorrow. You understand. I don’t care how. Just that’s it’s done. This is what it is. Don’t matter whether you like it or not. You have to find a way.”
Wade felt as if some huge gristmill was grinding his insides into powder. This is what he always knew would happen, the moment he saw that money hit his account. The moment Dani first came in to see him, telling him how he had to get involved …
He’d tried to tell her. A dozen times. If he told her any more clearly, he might as well just admit what he’d done. But she was too damned stubborn to hear what he was saying. God damn her. God damn her to hell … “I can’t. You hear me, I can’t. I can’t do that for you. Find someone else.”
“There is no one else, Chief. This is what it is.”
“I said I can’t!” Wade pressed his back and the sweat was cold all over him. “I can’t do that.”
“You know, you should’ve thought of all this a long time ago, buddy. Before you walked around with all that money stuffed in your pockets. That’s what it was all about, Wade. Right? Not your son. Not your stepdaughter. But you … Right? You should have thought of all that then.”
“How do you know she’s even here? How do I find her?”
“Hey, that’s your problem, old-timer. I mean, you are a cop, aren’t you?”
“She’s my stepdaughter, goddammit!” He looked up and down the hall. A few people turned. He shifted away and curled the phone close to his lips and brought his voice down. “It’s not human. You can’t make me. I just can’t …” He stared into Kyle’s room. “I won’t.”
“I see your situation, Chief. I really do. So let me phrase it in a different way … That boy of yours, I know how you feel about him. He’s your flesh and blood, right? He’s put in a lot of work to make his way back. After what he’s been through.”
Wade didn’t like where this was heading.
“He may be out soon—four, five months. That’s what this is all about, right …? You. Us?”
Wade grit his teeth, both angry and increasingly worried. “Yes.”
“So you disappoint us on this, I give you my solemn oath of God that that scrambled brain of his will get a pillow over it one night. And soon. We’ll put a rag in his mouth and a knife in his ribs and I promise, he won’t know whether to fucking gag or scream. You hearing me? Anyone can get in there. You know that, right? A fool could. And you already know where we stand when it comes to doing what has to be done. We don’t have to prove that to you, do we, Wade?”
Wade closed his eyes and squeezed the phone, hoping it would crumble. “No. You don’t.”
“Good. So you think about your son, and go do what has to be done. And this is the last you’ll have to hear from me. We’ll all be square. Otherwise I may just have to drop by up there with a load of flowers. Your boy likes flowers, doesn’t he, Wade?”
“No.” Wade seethed. “Don’t.”
“What I thought. So you just remember who your own flesh and blood is, Wade. He is. Not her. Maybe think of it that way. You’ve got two days. Two days to find her if she’s there, and do what has to be done. She trusts you, right? So you figure out the way. I mean, she’s your goddamn stepdaughter now, isn’t she?”
The caller hung up. Wade’s heart had sped up like an amphetamine had been injected in it. Sweat clung to him. He put the phone in his pocket and went back inside. He sank down in the chair next to the bed.
Kyle looked at him. “Who was that?”
“No one, son. No one important.” He’d stepped over this line a dozen times in his life. With his ex-wife, Dani’s mom. With the booze and the pills he’d taken and going into that evidence locker, which cost him his reputation and his job. With Trey.
A dozen times, and maybe just a little bit, each time hurt a little less. Kind of like drinking, he thought.
What was one more?
“C’mon, Kyle, so let’s check out that game. What do you say?” He flicked on the overhead TV and found the broadcast. “Bottom of the sixth. Four to two, Rockies …” Wade said. “De La Rosa’s still in there …”
Kyle nodded, his eyes glazy, staring straight ahead.
Wade reached and wrapped his fingers around his son’s hand. His flesh and blood. “Whaddya say, let’s root ’em in, okay? Ball and a strike. What’re thinking here, fastball or a slider? I’m thinking slider. What do you think, Kyle?”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
When they came, as Hauck already figured, they didn’t exactly march through the front door.
It was just past nine, that next night. Hauck had taken a break at the barn window. The one thing he wanted more than anything was to hear his daughter’s voice. A last time, if things didn’t go well. He punched in her number and she picked up on the third ring. “Hey,” he said.
“Dad?”
“Sorry if I woke you. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“You didn’t wake me. It’s Friday night. I was just watching Girls. With Carrie.”
“Girls?” Hauck said. “Isn’t there a lot of sex in that?”
“Dad, please. There’s sex everywhere today. Would you rather I be watching Game of Thrones? Or maybe Ray Donovan?”
“I was just saying …”
“Hold on, let me put it on pause. Where are you?”
“Still in Colorado,” he replied. “For a short time more.”
“You ever going to come back here? Mom says it’s because you have a beard. She says you’ve gone native.”
“I lost the beard. Didn’t do much for me, I thought. Made me look old.”
“I kinda liked it actually. Send me a new pix.”
“Okay …”