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Not for the first time, I consider selling the program, knowing the price I’d charge would be enough to set me up for the rest of my life, but there’s no thrill in having a bunch of money.
I have loads from working and it does nothing to ease that unsettled feeling inside of me that longs for even more.
As a child, I wanted to be wealthy because rich people make the rules. They don’t get beaten for every little thing. They don’t suffer violence at the hands of relatives because of a bad night’s sleep.
As an adult, I know now that abuse doesn’t have a price tag on it. With money comes stress, and those people have to find an outlet for that just as readily as a poor person does. Violence is second nature, and I argue with anyone who disagrees.
News articles fly across the screen of my computer. Murders are abundant as are missing persons and kidnappings. The area of Mexico right across the border is notorious for them. Criminals don’t even hide it any longer. Anyone speaking out against it becomes a victim themselves, so they’ve learned to shut their mouths. The citizens never see a damn thing. Some other person getting hurt isn’t worth them suffering the same. They’ve learned to look out for number one after the decades’ old battles between cartels.
It's been really good business for me because those traffickers don’t even bother to take their new products out of the city. If you’re abducted in Tamaulipas, Mexico, there’s a very good chance that you’ll stay there until you’re used up and murdered or sold. Those cases are typically easy to solve because no one even tries to hide what they’re up to. The locals are much too scared to try and stop it. It’s the perfect haven for nefarious business.
Those easier cases are also why I chose Mission, Texas for my home base. It often takes less than a day to go find someone and get paid. The overhead on those cases is very low. They make up for the shit like what happened with William Varon.
My skin is itchy with the loss of that money, but even as I look at the various cases available, I can’t muster the motivation to pull the trigger on accepting a new case.
I know it has to do with Lauren being so close. The chances of her already being out of Mission are low, and I have to fight the urge to go look for her, despite knowing that, much like when I left her on the side of the road covered in cum, she won’t be found unless she wants to.
The woman is trained to be a ghost, educated in how to blend in and remain unseen until she’s ready to strike.
I block Henry Murphy after skimming his encrypted email blaming me for his loss of income after his wife was found murdered. I’m always upfront about how I operate. The satisfaction or money-back guaranteed is usually enough to get them on board, but sometimes I end up a day late and a dollar short. Greta Murphy was no exception to that. Henry Murphy didn’t pay a cent toward my expenses this last month, and that irks me a little, considering he sold his fucking wife in the first place.
I crack my neck and pop a piece of nicotine gum into my mouth.
I need to wash my mind of Lauren and get back to status quo, working and making money.
I get the feeling as I look over several more jobs available, that it’s going to take a lot longer than I’d like.
Chapter 20
Lauren
Unsurprisingly, my calls to my handler bounce back.
The decision is made by him blocking my number.
I know better than to call from another phone.
Hell, I should’ve dumped this phone before hitchhiking five hundred miles to catch up to Angel in Lubbock.
It’s not like it’s a lifeline. My contacts serve that purpose for me, but I no longer have a connection to the Bureau.
Alan blocking me tells me all I need to know. The Bureau is looking for me, not that I expect them to put much effort into it. What I know and the things I’ve been involved in hiding go much deeper than one dead man’s perverted son. There probably isn’t any push for me to be found. It wouldn’t be until I started making waves that they’d worry. There’s too much other shit going on in the world to get distracted by one agent who skipped the red tape and took matters into her own hands.
“You are a wet fucking dream.”
I smile at the man, stopping to stand directly in front of him rather than shying away like a normal person would.
“You think so?” I ask, my teeth digging into my lower lip.
The move seems ridiculous, but men go crazy over shit like that.
Like the creep he is, the guy points to the front of his jeans. I know he’s trying to showcase the start of an erection, but the guy just doesn’t have what it takes to be considered impressive.
Bless his heart or whatever southerners say when someone is lacking something they’re expected to have.
“All that for me?” I manage to say without laughing or sounding offensive.
“If you want it to be.”